This paper evaluates the economic effects of Structural Funds in Italy. After presenting the distribution of Funds across Italian Regions over the period 1996-2007 and documenting how the Regions manage the financial resources recevied by EU, the paper assesses the impact of Structural Funds on...

Advances in transportation technology may mean that topography matters less, but trade routes will continue to favour the paths of least resistance. The location of gateway cities and distribution hubs exhibit patterns of hierarchical systems. A change in technology that alters location...

Menu prices from 8 international restaurant franchises are utilized to examine deviations from purchasing power parity between Mexico and the United States. Products in the sample are sold on both sides of the border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, USA. The results indicate that Borderplex...

Using individual data from Japan, this paper investigates how a neighbor’s immobility is associated with individual investment in social capital. It is found that local homeownership has a positive effect on individual investment and that this effect for individual homeowners is about 2.5...

This paper explores how the circumstances of where a person resides is related to the degree of their investment in social capital using individual data from Japan. Controlling for unobserved area-specific fixed effects and various individual characteristics, I found; (1) Not only that...

After 25 years of effective work against the poverty, "the bank of poors", founded by Muhammd Yunus, has undertaken a new action to the innovation of the practical of microcredit, therefore to render it relationally still fecund and - I think - valuing. In this written, we will pass in review...

This paper analyses the importance of different technological inputs (R&D and human capital) and different spillovers in explaining the differences in patenting among Spanish regions in the period 1986-2003. The analysis is based on the estimation of a knowledge production function. A region’s...

This paper analyses the impact of transport infrastructures on the economic growth of both regions and sectors, distinguishing among modes of transport. It also attempts to capture the spillover effects or network effects associated with transport infrastructures. Two different methodologies are...

This paper studies how industry specialization, diversification, and churning affect unemployment rates in Chinese cities. Using a city level panel data set from 1997 to 2006, we find that the specialization of wholesale and retail industry can significantly decrease unemployment rate; however,...

This paper uses data contained in the Regional Public Accounts database to investigate the heterogeneity of the impact of public infrastructure across Italian regions basing the analysis also on institutional and political ground. The issue is here addressed linking the analysis of the impact of...