EU INTEGRATION, HEALTH STANDARDS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Health is one of the most important assets for human beings, since it allows people to fully use their capacity. Poor or compromised health reduces the well-being of individuals, by affecting their future incomes, wealth and consumption. For policy implicHealth, Human capital, Development

HUMAN CAPITAL AND DEVELOPMENT: SOME EVIDENCE FROM EASTERN EUROPE

The concept of development is not only referred to the level or to the growth rate of GDP of a country, but it concerns different aspects of individual life. Development leads to a changing of values, behaviours and attitudes of people interested in it and in the well-being of the whole society. \\r\\nSince the second part of the last century, more and more economists always assert that human capital is a fundamental asset to promote economic growth and development. Health and education are the two principal ingredients of human capital. There is a strong positive bidirectional relationship between education and health; in fact, it is statistically supported that the two variables move together, so healthy people are more likely to achieve an higher level of education rather than sick people and, vice-versa, more educated people are more likely to enjoy good health status. This generates a virtuous cycle that can lead to greater development. Indeed, health increases people's capabilities allowing achievement in their well-beings, since healthy people can work longer and with higher productivity than poor health people. For this reason individuals' income rises allowing them major choices in terms of consumption, savings and investments. Considering the economic benefits that start from health and education, not only at microeconomic level but also for a country, it is important to pay attention to the role of this two variables in the economic development process. There are several channels through which health and education can be associated with better enhancement in economic results. They can be find in the labour market and in the participation in the labour market; worker productivity; human capital investments; saving capacity; availability of save to invest in physical and intellectual capital; fertility choices and structure of population.\\r\\nThe present paper analyzes the two-way linkage between education and health and their relationship with economic development identifying the conditions of some Eastern European countries. The methodology through which the results are obtained is the multidimensional scaling method which allows to define relations between countries in terms of proximity/distance with respect to the considered indicators, providing a spatial representation of themhuman capital, education, health, economic development, multidimensional scaling

DOES AN EFFICIENT BUSINESS REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT MATTER AT URBAN LEVEL? SOME EVIDENCE FROM CHINESE CITIES

It is widely acknowledged that firms require an efficient regulatory environment: if transaction costs generated by business regulations are not onerous, firms grow more and develop more quickly, attract more foreign direct investment, and employ more workers. But what does it induce alterations in the basic institutional framework? In this paper we intend to test North’s thesis by which as trade expands and the size of the market grows, transaction costs increase requiring that more and more resources should be devoted to improving existing regulations and, then, reducing such costs. The paper is structured as follows. Section 1 introduces. Section 2 provides the theoretical background. Section 3, based on World Bank data on 30 Chinese cities, investigates whether there is a correlation at urban and provincial levels between efficient business regulations on one side and economic outcomes (gross domestic product, foreign direct investment, employment, etc.) on the other. Section 4 addresses the pilot question mentioned above and tests whether simpler and less costly ways of meeting legal requirements for starting and running a business are associated with long-run trade. Section 5 discusses results in the light of theoretically assumed causal links and proposes a 2SLS regression model, whereby a geographical instrumental variable is used to investigate the causal relationship between business regulations and exports

Digital Technologies for Social Innovation: An Empirical Recognition on the New Enablers

Even though scholars' attention has been placed on Social Innovation (SI), little evidence has been provided with regards to which tools are actually used to address social needs and foster Social Innovation initiatives. The purpose of the article is twofold. Firstly, the article offers empirical recognition to SI by investigating, on a large-scale, social and innovative activities conducted by start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the world between 2001 and 2014. Secondly, the article intends to capture SI core businesses and underlying complementarities between products, markets, and technologies and show in which way digital media and IT are essentially tracing innovation trajectories over a multitude of industries, leading the current industrial patterns of SI, and continually fostering its cross-industry nature

Mapping industrial patterns in spatial agglomeration:a SOM approach to Italian industrial districts

The paper presents a new approach based on Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) and a new index called Relative Industrial Relevance (RIR) to discover, track and analyze spatial agglomeration of economic activities. By comparing patterns of local employment, this methodology shows how the local supply of human capital can explain the advantages generating spatial agglomerations. The reference case for this research is Italy, which has developed one of the most remarkable and studied example of spatial agglomerations, the Industrial Districts (IDs). IDs are traditionally identified by indexes which measure the physical concentration of firms belonging to a given industry, but are unable to seize the overall productive structure of the local economy. Employing the Italian Clothing Industry as test bed, the approach proposed in this paper identifies spatial agglomerations in terms of industry patterns and not of industry concentration. This methodology can offer a new basis to analyze the multiple pattern of local development

EU INTEGRATION, HEALTH STANDARDS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Health is one of the most important assets for human beings, since it allows people to fully use their capacity. Poor or compromised health reduces the well-being of individuals, by affecting their future incomes, wealth and consumption. For policy impli

Emerging specializations, competences and firms’ proximity in digital industries - the case of London

6First published on Wiley Online LibrarynonenoneFrancesco Losurdo; Alessandro Marra; Ernesto Cassetta; Umberto Monarca; Ivano Dileo; Vittorio CarleiLosurdo, Francesco; Marra, Alessandro; Cassetta, Ernesto; Monarca, Umberto; Dileo, Ivano; Carlei, Vittori