The development of Digital Broadcasting in Italy

The paper has two aims.The first is to show how the current features of Italian TV industry are the consequences of past regulatory intervention.The second purpose is to analyse how the current structure of Italian industry affects the policies to promote the switch from analogue to digital TV,and to consider whether these policies will be able to bring competitiion to the Italian TV market

Underpricing and Firm’s Distance from Financial Centre: Evidence from three European Countries

We provide international evidence on the relationship between the extent of underpricing related to initial public offerings (IPOs) and the distance of the issuing firm from the financial centre of a country: for France, Germany and Italy, the higher the distance, the higher the level of underpricing. Under the maintained assumption that headquarters of institutional investors and underwriters are part of a financial centre, our evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that ex ante uncertainty regarding the value per share of an issuing firm increases with the firm’s physical distance from the underwriter. As financial centres are usually located in the richest areas of the countries concerned, spatial difference in the cost of equity financing may contribute to the persistence or the widening of local disparities.Asymmetric information, Distance, IPO, Underpricing

ICT adoption and diffusion in italian manufactoring firms

This paper sets out the results of econometric analysis carried out on a closed sample of 519 Italian manufacturing firms in order to determine which variables affected the probability of a firm investing in ICT in the period 2001-03, and which variables have an impact on the level of ICT investment. The estimates bear out a great many of the theoretical predictions and empirical findings, while also casting new light on the role of vertical integration in accounting for higher levels of ICT investmentFirm organisation, Information and Communication Technologies, Vertical Integration

Privatizzazione senza liberalizzazione? Lo strano caso delle ferrovie italiane

The Italian government is proceeding with the privatisation of the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane group, and is considering a merger with the government-owned highways company. In this article, we argue that changes could be made to the privatisation and reform process, learning from the British experience, which would bring substantial benefits to Italian rail users and taxpayers

The structure of agricultural production and the causes of brigandage and criminal organisations in Italy after Unification: theory and evidence

The purpose of this paper is to show that in the period after Italian Unification in 1861 two very important criminal phenomena in southern Italy, brigandage and organised crime, became rooted in the structure of rural and land organisation. We use econometrics to show that brigandage intensity was higher in the poorest areas of southern Italy where land ownership was highly concentrated and productivity was low. By contrast, using a different econometric exercise we show that organised crime developed only in the wealthiest areas. Empirical evidence also shows that there was an inverse relation between the intensity of brigandage and that of organised crime in the regions of the Mezzogiorno. Therefore, widespread brigandage was not the main cause of the development of organised crime, as suggested elsewhere (Gambetta, 1993; Bandiera, 2003). We develop a simple model to show that organised crime has a greater incentive to offer protection when economic development and land productivity are higher and the state is unable to provide adequate protection for property rights. The model is tested on the provinces in southern Italy in the late nineteenth century and then on Sicilian towns in the early 1900s

The structure of agricultural production and the causes of brigandage and criminal organisations in Italy after Unification: theory and evidence

The purpose of this paper is to show that in the period after Italian Unification in 1861 two very important criminal phenomena in southern Italy, brigandage and organised crime, became rooted in the structure of rural and land organisation. We use econometrics to show that brigandage intensity was higher in the poorest areas of southern Italy where land ownership was highly concentrated and productivity was low. By contrast, using a different econometric exercise we show that organised crime developed only in the wealthiest areas. Empirical evidence also shows that there was an inverse relation between the intensity of brigandage and that of organised crime in the regions of the Mezzogiorno. Therefore, widespread brigandage was not the main cause of the development of organised crime, as suggested elsewhere (Gambetta, 1993; Bandiera, 2003). We develop a simple model to show that organised crime has a greater incentive to offer protection when economic development and land productivity are higher and the state is unable to provide adequate protection for property rights. The model is tested on the provinces in southern Italy in the late nineteenth century and then on Sicilian towns in the early 1900s

Dynamic Flexibility, Optimal Organization Modes and Price Instability

In this paper a mathematical model describing the organization structure of firms (i.e. those economical entities which are called "productive systems" in [14] ) is introduced. In the framework of quoted model we can give a precise meaning to the classical definition of flexible industrial organizations (Stigler flexibility) which reads as follows: "a flexible industrial organization permits to approximate the best technology for any output, at the cost of not being able to use the best technology for any output" (see [2] on pg. 315). Moreover we can prove that the presence of exchange price instability enriches the manifold of firms which are competitive. Indeed we characterize the manifolds of equally competitive firms as the level surfaces of the previously introduced profit function. At the same time we introduce the concept of "feasible" organization structures, the set of all of them characterizing the available technology. In this way we are led to a problem of constrained optimization whose solution is in general non-unique: we are thus able to characterize technologies and instabilities which produce a multeplicity of optimal organization structures.

Mafia in the ballot box

We study the impact of organized crime on electoral results, analyzing in detail the national parliamentary elections in Sicily for the period 1946-1992. We document the significant support given by the Sicilian mafia to the Christian Democratic Party when the electoral competition by the Communist Party strengthened. We also provide suggestive evidence that, in exchange for its electoral support, the mafia obtained economic advantages in the construction sector

Underpricing and distance: an empirical analysis

This paper tests the hypothesis that the distance of a firm from the main financial centre affects underpricing positively. The higher is the distance the higher are the information imperfections among players involved in the Initial Public Offering and the higher is the uncertainty about the true value of the listing firm. Econometric results show that, in the Italian case, more distant firms from the financial centre are more underpriced. This finding holds in France but not in Germany suggesting that probably it is due to the spatial organization of the financial system

Underpricing and distance: an empirical analysis

This paper tests the hypothesis that the distance of a firm from the main financial centre affects underpricing positively. The higher is the distance the higher are the information imperfections among players involved in the Initial Public Offering and the higher is the uncertainty about the true value of the listing firm. Econometric results show that, in the Italian case, more distant firms from the financial centre are more underpriced. This finding holds in France but not in Germany suggesting that probably it is due to the spatial organization of the financial system