The Italian and European regulatory framework for patents would benefit from further improvements in order to foster dynamic competition between Italian firms. At the national level the exclusive allocation of the right to patent inventions to universities, rather than to researchers, would...

The industrial structure of many European countries is dominated by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Although SMEs consider the new product development process fundamental for the success in the global market, the level of formalisation of the innovation process is very low (Slywotzky et...

In the last two decades the socio-economic literature has highlighted the importance of social capital (an ample set of social relations and cultural attitudes) for economic growth and the wellbeing of citizens. The literature broadly suggests a negative correlation between social capital and...

Italian Abstract: A determinare la capacità di attrarre investimenti dall'estero concorrono molteplici fattori: ciclici, come la dinamica della domanda; strutturali, come la specializzazione settoriale o la disponibilità di materie prime; fiscali; politici, come la stabilità sociale e del...

Recently, within several debates, the idea of a participatory economy has been recovered as a viable solution towards labour and firm’s costs flexibility to cope with unemployment and the increasingly competitive economic environment. This paper is an attempt to integrate the main recent...

Italian Abstract: Questa tesi tratta problemi di valutazione delle opzioni cosiddette "reali". La prima parte descrive le due tecniche di valutazione principali (contingent claims analysis e programmazione dinamica stocastica), la seconda parte si concentra sulle opzioni "comuni" (cioè,...

Italian Abstract: Presentiamo un modello stocastico multivariato, per sviluppare stress test finalizzati a valutare l'adeguatezza patrimoniale delle banche e il loro grado di fragilità finanziaria. L'articolo fornisce una descrizione teorica del metodo e delle caratteristiche essenziali del...

In this paper we estimate cost efficiency and technological characteristics of public hospitals in Piemonte over the period from 2000 to 2004. During the Nineties, different regulatory reforms aiming at controlling health expenditure affected the Italian National Health Service, ranging from the...