The main contribution of this paper is twofold. First of all, it focuses on the decisional process that leads to the creation of a social norm. Secondly, it analyses the mechanisms through which subjects conform their behaviour to the norm. In particular, our aim is to study the role and the...

Global imbalances are not new as much as the effort to address them. In the mid 1980s the phenomenon led the most industrialised countries to orchestrate a devaluation of the US dollar so as to reduce the US trade deficit. Some economists have called for a similar "New Plaza" agreement to tackle...

Although open source software has recently attracted a relevant body of economic literature, a formal treatment of the process of com- petition with its proprietary counterpart is still missing. Starting from an epidemic model of innovation di?usion, we try to ?ll this gap. We propose a model...

Using the Indonesian Family Life Survey, this study investigates whether Indonesian farmers respond differently to income shocks (crop loss) depending on the level of their asset ownership, and whether their responses are aimed at preserving consumption levels or at accumulating assets. We...

For a long period, silk was one of the most important goods to be exchanged between the Italian regions and the territories located beyond the Alps. Indeed, it was responsible for a large amount of both commercial flows and financial transactions. The area corresponding to present-day Trentino...