In this paper we analyse the determination of cost efficiency in a sample of Italian small banks located in different geographical areas and including two great institutional categories: cooperative banks (CB’s) and other banks. We highlight the effect of environmental factors (asset quality,...

In this paper we analyze the impact of the current financial crisis on the determination of technical efficiency in a sample of Italian small banks, highlighting the interaction of the crisis with different regulatory regimes existing for cooperative banks (CB’s) and other banks. We find that...

This paper applies a data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to assess technical efficiency of both private and public universities in Italy. Moving from the traditional context where inputs and outputs are assumed to be non-negative, a directional distance function approach has been applied in...

Using the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) data set, we investigate the effect of religion on subjective well-being (SWB), specifically taking into account the implication of selection effects explaining religious influence. In order to measure the level of religious involvement, we...

In this paper, we test whether economic growth depends on human capital development using data disaggregated at territorial level and propose the use of efficiency estimates, measured using a non-parametric technique, as an alternative quality measure of higher education institutions (HEIs). The...

The rationale for fiscal rules and institutions has been explained by the existence of deficit and spending biases that arise due to political fragmentation within government or between governments that alternate in office. In common pool models fiscal outcomes are determined by the...