This study provides fresh evidence about the characteristics of technology and cost structure of public transit systems in Italy. The aim is to suggest useful guidelines for facing detected inefficiencies. The analysis is carried out through the estimation of a translog variable cost function....

The core of the present study is to analyse the cost efficiency of public transit systems in Italy, investigating the way subsidization mechanisms and network characteristics affect the x-inefficiency levels of firms. The analysis uses a seven-year (1993-1999) unbalanced panel of 45 Italian...

In this paper we attempt to shed some light on the way the regulation of public transit systems has been approached in the past and is presently addressed in Italy. The reduction of x-inefficiency represents a great challenge for the local authorities, given the high operating costs faced by the...

In this paper we investigate the economic rationality of the bed downsizing process characterising the hospital industry worldwide in the last decades, providing new evidence on the factor substitutability in the production of hospital services. We consider a sample of Italian regional producers...

The aim of this paper is to account for the impact of statistical noise and exogenous regulatory and environmental factors on the efficiency of public transit systems in a DEA-based framework. To this end, we implement a three-stage DEA-SFA mixed approach based on Fried et al. (2002) using a...

By means of a simulated funding-agency/supported-firm stochastic dynamic game, this paper firstly shows that not only the level of R&D performed by firms is underprovided (as maintained by traditional literature on the subject), but also the level of the subsidy provided by the funding (public)...

This paper focuses on policy implementation in higher education (HE) to be analysed through the evolution and transformation of the policy instruments, namely those related to the Government funding and evaluation. The research questions are: to what extent instruments can reveal the evolution...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the current temporal and spatial research trajectories in nanoscience and nanotechnology studies in order to display the worldwide patterns of research fields across main economic players. The results show the leadership of Europe and North America in...

This paper studies how the implementation of New Public Management reforms in Higher Education affects the academic bodies’ steering in different national systems and disciplines. It is assumed that the steering capability depends on the characteristics of each system and discipline. The work...

The good and effective management of a new technology is fundamental for its success not only among the scientific and technical community, but especially for its entry and expansion in the market. There are many examples of new product or process technologies that, notwithstanding the...