In a paper prepared as part of the 1992 draft Formez-Istat "The regional distribution of state expenditures: determinants, impact, equity and efficiency," the author had used the data, made available only for 1985 and 1986, in order to understand the determinants and the logic of the...

Previous policy evaluation literature mainly aimed at estimating the additional effect of public support on either firms’ innovative inputs or innovative outputs. This paper is an attempt to move one step further, combining the two (input and output) dimensions of innovation into a unique...

In this paper we develop a model of product quality and firms' reputation. If quality is not verifiable and there is repeated interaction between firms and consumers, we show that reputation emerges as a means of disciplining the former to deliver high quality. In order to that, we also prove...

We investigate Matsuyama's (Econometrica, 72, pp. 853-84, 2004) model modi- fied only to include endogenous and forward looking labor supply decision. Young agents supply one unit of labor endowment elastically to a competitive labor market. While, old agents of ex-ante identical individuals are...

This paper proposes a model which analyses not only the provision of incentives (see, e.g., Gershkov et. al 2006 and Huck et al. 2001) and the moral hazard problem (see, e.g., Holmstrom 1982), but also the adverse selection problem (i.e. the workers are heterogeneous). Moreover, unlike the...

This paper focuses on the relationship between firms’ technological capabilities and different forms of cooperation for innovation by combining the analysis of both micro and meso levels, i.e. the level of the firm and of the geographical region. Our findings, based on the Fourth UK Community...

In this paper we analyze a basic sticky price model with monopolistic competition and price stickiness à la Calvo. Starting by the relations describing a general economic equilibrium model (see Woodford in Interest and Prices, Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy, The MIT Press, 2003), as...

Limited literature has been published on the association between environmental health indicators, life-style habits and ambient air pollution. We have examined the association of asthma prevalence and the amount of health investment with daily mean concentrations of particulate matter (PM) with...

We study the pricing policy equilibria emerging in a partial collusion duopolistic framework where firms in the first stage of the game choose non-cooperatively whether to price discriminate or not, and from the second stage onward collude on prices.When the discount factor is particularly high...

A 1999 reform allowed Italian Mayors to partially substitute a more accountable source of tax revenue (the property tax) with a less trans- parent one (a surcharge on the personal income tax). Theoretical anal- ysis suggests this should give incompetent Mayors a less costly way to hide...