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Economic Space Trajectory through Different Regional Growth Models
No full textSince the early 1990s, regional economic growth processes assume a key role in the EU policy agenda as a main tool to
enhance social and economic convergence within the EU spatial landscape. Literature on regional economic growth and
convergence provides some evidence on the most relevant factors affecting economic processes, mainly assuming
homogeneity of production functions and steady state conditions in cross-section and panel regressions.
In this framework, assuming a minimal definition of transitional steady state, econometric methods are adopted to
identify regional characteristics and examine the determinants of different development models. The quantitative
analysis is centred on
- LSDV (Least Square Dummy Variables) estimates to cluster EU 11 regions (EU 13 excluding UK and Ireland
due to lack of statistical data) by defining homogeneous latent structures affecting different transitional growth
patterns;
- coupled with multinomial conditional logit models to qualify the spatial distribution of expected vs actual
regional gaps.
Even conscious of the shortcomings of the described neoclassical production function convergence and divergence
mechanisms, a sort of metaphor of substantive economic behaviour, three main findings for an explorative analysis are
proposed
i) the role of enlarged neoclassical production function and, at same time, its limited weight on average with
respect to social and political factors as well as other stock fundamental determinants;
ii) the deep differences of above defined weight of enlarged neoclassical production function at regional level in
Europe;
iii) the need for an adaptive governance of EU finance effort, within the same strategic objective of [email protected]@[email protected]
Family Income and Students Mobility
Get PDFThis paper investigates the reasons that determine students mobility in Italy and
tries to explain why in the presence of quality differentials among universities the majority
of students choose to remain in their regions of origin. We find that low mobility is
related to family income and other financial and background characteristics. Low mobility
in turn implies the existence of little competition among universities, and hence little
incentive for improvement in either teaching or research. A crucial issue is therefore to
evaluate if and how the government may affect this process and improve the supply of
higher education quality and the degree of competition among academic [email protected]@unical.itpublished in Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia, vol 68 (2009), no. 1, pp. 1-23
Exchange Rate, Employment and Hours: What Firm-Level Data Say
No full textUsing a representative panel of manufacturing firms, we estimate the response of job and
hours worked to currency swings, showing that it depends primarily on the firm's exposure to
foreign sales and its reliance on imported inputs. Further, we show that, for given international
orientation, the response to exchange rate fluctuations is magnified when firms exhibit a lower
monopoly power and when they face foreign pressure in the domestic market through import
penetration. The degree of substitutability between imported and other inputs and the distribution
of workers by type introduce additional degrees of specificity in the employment sensitivity
to exchange rate swings. Further, wage adjustments are also shown to provide a channel through
which firms react to currency shocks. Finally, gross job flows within the firm are found to depend
on exchange rate fluctuations, although the effect on job creation is [email protected]@uniroma1.i
Bank Cross-Border Merger and Acquisitions (Causes, consequences and recent trends)
No full textIn the past fifteen years, cross-border mergers and acquisitions have had an ever increasing role in
the process of bank internationalization. Although a consensus view has developed on the
determinants of a bank s decision to expand abroad and on the determinants of the patterns of
expansion, the debate on the consequences of foreign bank presence is still open. The aim of this
chapter is twofold. Firstly, it discusses the major results of the empirical literature studying the
determinants, the patterns, and the consequences of bank foreign expansion. Secondly, it studies
whether the determinants of bank foreign expansions have changed through time, estimating an
econometric model of the patterns of cross-border bank M&As between 1990 and [email protected]
Decentralization of territorial policy in Italy - the coherence with the model of multi-level governance and the effects on responsibilities of public spending
No full textThe past twenty years have seen the communitarian system of multi level governance (MLG) being established as a model of territorial policies governance. In the MLG, several levels of jurisdiction participate to decision making and Regions assume a relevant role in managing policies of development.
This article highlights how such a system, mostly led by Public Institutions, cuts transaction costs being based on principles aimed at increasing the number of decision makers, as well as at making all governing levels and the processes of institutional coordination more effective.
The article investigates two issues: a) to what extent the reorganization of the Italian system is compatible with the main characteristics of Communitarian MLG system in the governance of territorial policies; b) to what extent the decentralization in programming policies of development has gone with a transfer of capital expenses from a central (Central Administration) to local (Regional and Local Bodies) jurisdictions.
The hypotheses to be tested refer to the decentralization process so far recorded in Italy: the first hypothesis is that such a process would not be fully shareable, neither with regard to the characteristics of the Communitarian MLG model, nor to the general considerations deriving by the theory of fiscal federalism; secondly, the process wouldn t seem suitably supported by a symmetrical transfer of the expenses from the Central Government s jurisdiction to local bodies [email protected]
The European Union preferential trade with developing countries. Total trade restrictiveness and the case of sugar
No full textPreferential trade agreements are a central issue in the multilateral trade liberalization process. The extent to which such agreements are effective in improving market access for developing and developed countries is important because trade liberalization results in eroding their value to the beneficiary countries, expressed as export revenue. This paper focuses on the estimation of a theoretically founded bilateral aggregated measure of trade restrictiveness, the Mercantilistic Trade Restrictiveness Index, by means of a general equilibrium model, in order to measure the effectiveness of preferences granted by the European Union. We also develop an empirical model structure, comprising a partial equilibrium model for the sugar market and a gravity model, in order to replicate least developed countries bilateral trade with Europe, and to estimate the erosion in the value of preferences granted to African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and to least developed countries brought about by changes in the Common Market Organization for sugar and the Everything but Arms initiative. The results highlight the importance of sugar in determining the degree of trade restrictiveness faced by developing countries. Sugar sector policy reform in Europe is expected to result in a significant reduction in the African Caribbean and Pacific
countries export revenue, whilst the initial impact on least developed countries may be limited, but increasing in the medium [email protected]
Assessing Market Access: Do Developing Countries Really Get a Preferential Treatment?
Get PDFThis paper provides an assessment of the existing preferences on the products currently exported in
a few key developed countries markets: EU, Japan and US. The analysis is undertaken drawing on
the trade preferences database provided by the most recent version (release 6) of the GTAP
database. This includes a presentation of the structure of tariff regimes in these key developed
countries and identification of countries and sectors that are most reliant on tariff preferences. The
paper computes theoretically consistent protection indexes using a comparative static applied
general equilibrium model (Global Trade Analysis Project GTAP) featuring imperfect
competition. We construct bilateral indicators of protection focused on the applied tariffs faced by
the exports of each country, using an index of trade policy restrictiveness, the Mercantilistic Trade
Restrictiveness Index (MTRI), as the tariff aggregator. Our results provide a picture which is quite
different from the one yielded by traditional indexes, such as the trade-weighted tariff average, or
market access measures based on bound [email protected]@[email protected]
Change in persistence tests for panels
No full textIn this paper we propose a set of new panel tests to detect changes in
persistence. These statistics are used to test the null hypothesis of stationarity
against the alternative of a change in persistence from I(0) to
I(1) or viceversa. Alternative of unknown direction is also considered. The
limiting distributions of the panel tests are derived and small sample properties
are investigated by Monte Carlo experiments under the hypothesis
that the individual series are cross-sectionally independently distributed.
These tests have a good size and power properties. Cross-sectional dependence is also
considered. A procedure of de-factorizing proposed by
Stock and Watson (2002) is applied. Monte Carlo analysis is conducted
and the defactored panel tests show to have good size and power. The
empirical results obtained from applying these tests to a panel covering
15 European countries between 1970 and 2006 suggest that inflation rate
changes from I(1) to I(0) when cross-correlation is [email protected]@[email protected]