1,721,003 research outputs found
If you get knocked down, how long before you get up again?
No full textThis paper addresses an important question on the consequences of relegation from some of Europe's top football leagues: What is the team's performance following relegation, compared to the situation without relegation? We compare the performance of relegated and non-relegated teams that battled until the last match to escape relegation in four large European leagues. We find that, on average, up to six seasons are necessary to completely reabsorb the negative relegation shock in sports outcomes. Additionally, we exploit current information on future TV rights revenues to forecast the extra cost of an 'unlucky' relegation in the 2013-14 season. The results show that, on average, relegation will cause an extra cost of about €135m to 'combative' teams relegated from the English Premier League. Smaller extra losses apply to the Italian Serie A (€60m), the Spanish La Liga (€38m), and the French Ligue 1 (€32m)
The signalling effect of eco-labels in modern coastal tourism
Full text linkAs the demand for environmentally sustainable tourism grows, eco-labels are becoming increasingly popular as a signal of environmental quality. However, the existence of a causal link between awarding a seaside eco-label and the increase in tourism flows is still under discussion in the literature. In this article, we gauge the signalling impact of a specific eco-label, the Blue Flag award, using detailed data on tourism flows to seaside Italian destinations during the period 2008-2012. We adopt a recent econometric modelling strategy - the synthetic control method - in shaping estimation results and testing the sensitivity and robustness of our results. We find that being awarded the Blue Flag increases the flow of domestic tourists for up to three seasons after assignment. However, we find no effect for the flow of international tourists. Investigating the mechanisms driving the results, we find that the award of a Blue Flag only positively affects the flow of domestic tourists when it is used as a driver of organisation, coordination and integrated management of the tourism supply
Conviene incentivare le piccole imprese piuttosto che le grandi? Un'analisi basata sul multiple regression discontinuity design
Full text linkCapital subsidies are usually adopted to overcome credit market imperfections and
compensate for local external diseconomies common in backward areas. Such
rationales usually holds stronger for small firms. This might mean that small firms
benefit the most from business subsidy policies. Using a multiple regression
discontinuity design we evaluate the effectiveness of the main Italian regional
policy in the period 1996-2007 – the Law 488/92 (L. 488) – in achieving economic
growth for firms of different sizes. We find that the impact of the subsidies on
employment, investment, and turnover is positive and statistically significant for
micro and small firms, while it is not statistically different from zero for medium
and large firms. On the other side, the effect on productivity is negligible
irrespective of the firms’ size. This might mean that are the smaller firms that
really need the Government support to grow.Capital subsidies are usually adopted to overcome credit market imperfections and
compensate for local external diseconomies common in backward areas. Such
rationales usually holds stronger for small firms. This might mean that small firms
benefit the most from business subsidy policies. Using a multiple regression
discontinuity design we evaluate the effectiveness of the main Italian regional
policy in the period 1996-2007 – the Law 488/92 (L. 488) – in achieving economic
growth for firms of different sizes. We find that the impact of the subsidies on
employment, investment, and turnover is positive and statistically significant for
micro and small firms, while it is not statistically different from zero for medium
and large firms. On the other side, the effect on productivity is negligible
irrespective of the firms’ size. This might mean that are the smaller firms that
really need the Government support to grow
Developments in the evaluation of capital subsidy policies
Full text linkEssay 1: A critical survey on capital subsidy policies. Despite the long history of capital subsidies in most developed countries and the numerous evaluations of their effectiveness, there is no comprehensive survey in the literature. This essay aims to provide a complete review of the most relevant research works in such literature highlighting their main findings. Besides, the core threats to internal validity and the main issues that a researcher has to face in order to deliver a robust evaluation work are stressed.
Essay 2: The causal impact of capital subsidies: a multiple regression discontinuity design approach. This essay analyses the impact of a policy instrument - Law 488/92 (L488), the main Italian regional policy - that allocates subsidies to private firms by a multiple ranking system. Thanks to the peculiar L488 selection process that creates the conditions for a local random experiment, we are able to assess the effectiveness of these types of incentives for a relevant subgroup of firms. We propose a nonparametric multiple rankings regression discontinuity design that exploits the sharp discontinuities in the L488 rankings and extends the regression discontinuity design (RDD) approach to a context where the treatment is assigned by multiple rankings with different cut-off points. We find that the impact of the subsidies on employment, investment, and turnover is positive and statistically significant, while the effect on productivity is mostly negligible. The new subsidised capital is additional but non-complementary with the owner-financed investment. The results are robust to different specifications and not due to intertemporal substitution.
Essay 3: Beyond the SUTVA: how policy evaluations change when we allow for interactions among firms. The shortage of studies on spatial spillovers of industrial policies is rather surprising considering that such policies are usually designed for generating spatial externalities. In Essay 3 we try to fill this gap proposing a new framework that partially relaxes the SUTVA assuming that a firm might interact only with firms having a limited economic distance from it (e.g. firms that belong to the same sector of activity) and that the intensity of these interactions is diminishing in distance and it does not extend over a certain threshold. This allows us to contrast the positive agglomeration effects with the negative cross-sectional substitution and the crowding-out effect. The global evaluation of the ATT and the spillover parameters shifts the spotlight from the policy effect on subsidised firms to the global effect of the industrial policy on the targeted territory making possible to determine if the subsidies have had a welfare-enhancing role in the underdeveloped regions. Analysing the effectiveness of the Italian L488 policy on firms located in peripheral areas, we find - in line with most of the literature - a positive and large effect of the policy on subsidised firms in terms of investment, turnover, and employment; however, the employment growth is in part determined to the detriment of affected untreated firms located in the very proximity of one or more treated firms that belong to the same sector of activity. This finding suggests that the ATT on itself is not a sufficient parameter to evaluate the effectiveness of an industrial policy and that we cannot rule out the possibility that the substitution effect (firms substitute labour with capital) might be in place
The Bright Side of Breaking Up: How Territorial Fragmentation Increases Political Engagement in Local Communities
No full textTerritorial reforms of administrative boundaries primarily aim at pursuing cost and administrative efficiency objectives, but their impact on the political engagement of local communities remains unclear. Moreover, while amalgamations have been widely studied, little is known about the effects of territorial fragmentation. To bridge this gap, we examine a regional reform in Italy's Apulia region, wherein five municipalities voluntarily underwent division in the mid-1970s. Through examining its long-term effects on voter turnout, we uncover new insights on the potential merits of territorial fragmentation in fostering enhanced political engagement, especially at the local level
A decade of Eurasian integration: An ex-post non-parametric assessment of the Eurasian economic union
Full text linkThis paper provides a sound ex-post evaluation of the impact of the Eurasian integration on member countries’ bilateral trade after a decade of implementation. We overcome the main limitations of current empirical analyses on the effects of trade agreements, namely the aggregation of tariff and non-tariff barriers and the likely self-selection bias, by applying a nonparametric method specifically designed to fully exploit time-series cross-sectional data. We thus compare the trade flows of the member countries in the Eurasian agreement with the exporter-importer pairs located in the Eurasian continent, which are most similar in terms of pretreatment trends and features. Our results confirm the previous literature about the lack of a significant impact of the Eurasian customs union but find more positive net effects of the more recent integration steps. Our results ask for additional efforts to complete the Eurasian integration and let its member countries fully benefit from its hoped-for long-term effects
When did coronavirus arrive in Europe?
Full text linkThe first cluster of coronavirus cases in Europe was officially detected on 21st February 2020 in Northern Italy, even if recent evidence showed sporadic first cases in Europe at the beginning of the year. In this study we
have tested the presence of coronavirus in Italy and, even more importantly, we have assessed whether the virus had already spread sooner than 21st February. We use a counterfactual approach and certified daily data on the number of deaths (deaths from any cause, not only related to coronavirus) at the municipality level. Our estimates confirm that coronavirus began spreading in Northern Italy at least a week before the beginning of February
Natural Disasters and University Enrolment: Evidence from L'Aquila Earthquake
Full text linkThis paper uses the synthetic control method to look at how the L'Aquila earthquake affected subsequent enrolment at the local university. Such an issue is closely related to the economic consequences caused by this event given the large contribution made by the university to the local economy before the earthquake. The empirical results indicate that the earthquake had no statistically significant effect on first-year enrolment at the University of L'Aquila in the three academic years after the disaster. This natural disaster, however, caused a compositional change in the first-year student population, with a substantial increase in the number of students aged 21 or above. This is likely to have been driven by post-disaster measures adopted in an attempt to mitigate the expected negative effects on enrolment triggered by the earthquake. Finally, the results show also that the effect of the earthquake on enrolment varied by Faculty
Are we spending too much to grow? The case of Structural Funds
Full text linkWe evaluate whether the impact of EU Structural and Cohesion Funds (EUF) on Member States’ regional economic growth depends on the intensity of treatment, measured by the normalized amount of funds distributed in each region. We use an original data set that covers all the main sources of EUF and extend the regression discontinuity design to the case of continuous treatment. The results suggest an average positive effect on regional growth. The estimated conditional intensity-growth function is concave and presents a maximum value. Therefore, the exceeding funds could have been allocated to other lagging regions without reducing the effect on growth
Industrial policy evaluation in the presence of spillovers
Full text linkThe shortage of studies on spatial spillovers
of capital subsidy policies is rather surprising, considering
that such policies are usually designed to generate
spatial externalities. We propose a new framework that
allows positive agglomeration effects to be contrasted
with the negative cross-sectional substitution and the
crowding-out effect. The global evaluation of the ATT
and the spillover parameters shifts the spotlight from the
policy effect on subsidised firms to the global effect of
capital subsidy policies on the targeted territory. The
empirical evaluation of a policy in Italy mainly directed
towards small- and medium-sized firms shows that the
impact on investments, turnover and employment is
positive and large, but is negative on TFP. However,
the employment growth is partially determined to the
detriment of the untreated firm
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