Constitutional structures shape politicians' behaviour and hence policy outcomes through the different incentive schemes at work. In this paper we analyse these mechanisms in parliamentary and presidential systems. Such a comparison is carried over by analysing how the two systems are able to...

This paper compares the ability to select the efficient policy of a parliamentary and a presidential constitutional setup. In order to do it we build a dynamic theoretical model with asymmetric information that succeeds in addressing both the politicians accountability and the competence...

We analyze the choice of incentive contracts by olipolistic ?rms that compete on the product market. Managers have private information and in the ?rst stage they exert cost reducing e¤ort. In equilibrium the standard ?no distortion at the top? property disappears and two way distortions are...

This paper applies incentive theory to the context of the European Union (EU) Regional Policy. The core instruments of the policy are the Structural Funds, capital grants that ?ow from the European Commission (EC) to Mem- ber States and regional authorities to promote investment and growth at...

We analyze competition between firms engaged in R&D activities in the choice of incentive contracts for managers with hidden productivities. The equilibrium screening contracts require extra effort/investment from the most productive managers compared to the first best contracts: under...

In this paper we investigate the role of reciprocity in sustaining the emergence of implicit collusive agreements in hierarchical organizations. We conduct a laboratory experiment in which an agent hires, on behalf of the principal, one worker out of two candidates. The two candidates differ in...

Information on economic policy uncertainty (EPU) does matter in predicting oil returns especially when accounting for omitted nonlinearities in the relationship between these two variables via a time-varying coe¢ cient approach. In this work, we compare the forecastability of standard, Bayesian...

Firms’ survival and longevity have recently emerged as a new intriguing theme of business history, spreading from the initial studies on family business to all forms of business. In family business the transition to the next generation can represent a strong limit to survival, as it depends on...

The article retraces the steps which marked the transformation of Sesto San Giovanni from a small agricultural centre in the vicinity of a great city such as Milan, to becoming one of the principal centres of Italian industry. Two preliminary questions, of notable importance, have been dealt...

This paper surveys 67 contributions on internationalisation and performance of Italian enterprises. It covers empirical studies (including working papers), published between 1992 and 2014, taking a microeconomic perspective and analysing the potential links between firms’ global involvement...