In this paper, the reaction of firms to the introduction of environmental charges in a given industry is analysed. Firms may decide either to relocate their plants abroad or to adopt a new environmental-friendly technology. The latter can be either developed by investing in R&D or obtained by...

Marshallian districts are locales that accommodate a large number of small firms producing similar goods to be exported and benefit from the accumulation of know-how associated with workers residing there. We study the making of such districts by assuming that the cost function of a firm is a...

This paper revisits the tragedy of the commons when agents have different capabilities in both production and encroachment activities, and can allocate their time between them. Under fairly general assumptions on production and encroachment technologies, an individual's expected income is convex...

There are more and more industries in which firms are specialized in the production of a component of the final good. This is especially true in high-tech industries. The basic question is why don't these firms merge ? We paradoxically show that industries which are typical candidates for...

This paper considers the allocation of two types of individuals differentiated by levels of talent within and between two countries when they choose to be workers or entrepreneurs. The equilibrium with international migrations requires both countries to be sufficiently different in talent...

This paper explores the effect of a potential joint-venture breakup on the level of technology transfer in a set-up with exploration-exploitation trade-offs in the presence of time compression costs. We consider a joint-venture relationship between a technologically advanced multinational firm...

We develop a new framework for the analysis of the impact of trade liberalization on the wage structure. Our model focuses on the decision of workers to accumulate firm-specific skills, by "on-the-job" training, knowing that this means their future wages will have to be negotiated, and that the...

This paper presents a micro-econometric model of the female labour market in Italy. The model is derived from a theoretical framework in which the labour market is assumed to be segmented, i.e. firms offer different labour contracts to different types of workers. In this context, female workers...

International environmental agreements are increasingly important in a globalised economy. Beyond their specific interest, these agreements are also important in the context of coalition formation theory. Given the incentives to free ride, associated to the environment as a public good and to...

Since the framework convention of Rio, actual environmental negotiations on climate change aim at inducing all world countries to sign global environmental agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the past unsuccessful attempts, even current negotiations seem to pursue the same...