This paper analyzes the potential and the limits of project finance for the provision of local public services and compares them with alternative instruments in the light of current regulation. The main requirements for project finance, even in non quot;purequot; forms, to justify its complex...

Using data from a Bank of Italy survey, this paper analyzes the Italian taxi market and its recent changes. Local regulations are rather homogeneous, while there is a widespread disproportion, within municipal advisory committees, between the number of representatives of taxi drivers and that of...

The paper studies the impact of foreign ownership on a firm's economic performance. We use a unique panel dataset to test the foreign ownership premium by comparing our sample of firms based in Italy and owned by a foreign subject with a sample of purely domestic firms that, in order to have a...