We study the impact of organized crime on electoral competition. In a theoretical model where parties compete for mafia support, we show that (i) the strongest party is willing to pay the highest price to secure mafia services; (ii) the volume of electoral trade with the mafia increases with...

Italian university system was reformed in 2001. This paper tests the screening role of degree scores for 2004-Italian graduates. We find support of the strong screening hypothesis for prereform type degrees, while we do not find any evidence of signalling effects for post-reform 3-years degrees....

This paper addresses the gender pay gap among Italian university graduates on entry to the labor market, and stresses the importance of gender stereotypes on subjective assessment of individual productivity. We build upon previous research about gender and wage inequality introducing tournament...

This paper draws on the literature on innovation in clusters and e-commerce to investigate how a particular kind of innovation project, the establishment of a regional e-marketplace (REM), may contribute to regional development. Using a firm-centred perspective, the role of geographical and...