The European Union has a common rural development policy, motivated by the fact that more than 90% of the entire European territory can be classified as rural and 56% of European citizens live in rural areas. Each Member State sets out a Rural Development Programme (RDP) focused on three main...

Training plays a strategic role in improving the competitiveness and the productivity of the agricultural sector. Its role is widely recognized by the European Union that encourages it through the Rural Development Program, financing training courses for agricultural and forest operators. The...

The present working paper aims analyses efficiency and productivity growth of agricultural production in Italy. Appling a recent tool from environmental management field, the Directional Distance Function (DDF), global performance indicators has been estimated for 102 Italian provinces...

The present paper aims at evaluating the effect of regional policies in the agricultural field, with a specific focus on the Italian case. Provincial systems are evaluated through the Directional Output Distance Function (DODF) that is an extension of the Data Envelopment Analysis technique...

Because nowadays more than 200 kind of diseases are to some extent connected to atmospheric pollution, with a very significant impact on the social cost of a community, it can be important to study the effect that plans for using technologies able to treat urban areas atmosphere as a whole (in...

Selling directly to consumers is based on a quality convention (Eymard-Duvernay, 1989) related to social relationships, shared values and beliefs (Bénézech et al., 2008). This channel sales, concerning the relationships proximity, reports an increasing relevance on the multifunctional...

The main aim of this analysis has been the reorganization of the matter regarding innovation centres for firms in Italy, in relation to "who does what", mainly through an analysis of the characteristics of the services being offered, to determine the number of the organizations presently really...

In Italy the examples of evaluation of local policy for innovation are very few. As an impact assessment is possible only if the number of centres to examine is little, this analysis has chosen a monitoring evaluation and, particularly, the reorganization of the matter regarding innovation...