The coffee industry is highly concentrated both at the retail and export stages. A number of recent commentaries have suggested that this concentration translates into monopolistic and monopsonistic pricing to the detriment of both consumers and farmers. Using time series data for eight major...

For a long period, silk was one of the most important goods to be exchanged between the Italian regions and the territories located beyond the Alps. Indeed, it was responsible for a large amount of both commercial flows and financial transactions. The area corresponding to present-day Trentino...

Sen’s capability approach to the assessment of individual well-being and welfare policies, and to the search for theoretical foundations of a paradigm of human development, is challenged by a puzzling fact. In rich countries where material wealth and liberties are at high levels, a significant...

In a realistic framework where the potential innovators’ research lines are imperfectly correlated and imitation takes some time, this paper studies an industry regulated by an authority which can tax (subsidize) the firms’ pure profits (R&D expenditures). By comparing the market equilibrium...