Le relazioni tra ricerca pubblica e industria in Italia

Following the growing interest towards the role of the knowledge in the modern economies the economic literature has focused a lot of studies into the role of the producers of new knowledge, e.g. universities and public research institutions. The relations between these bodies and the firms, the contributions of the technological spillovers at the local level, the creation of new technology based firms, the challenge between fundamental research and applied research are some of the arguments of the present debate. This paper represents a short survey of the international literature with a focus on the studies concerning Italy. The results show a common evidence even if in some areas the Italian situation is quite underdeveloped with large areas for future policy interventionConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

Le politiche industriali regionali nel Regno Unito

This paper aims at examining the regional industrial policies at present in place in the United Kingdom. The analysis is divided in two parts: while the first one provides a survey of the national level, the second one is focused on the regional level. After a thorough description of the governance structure of the industrial policies in the UK, it follows a brief analysis of the incentive schemes provided for firms. The same framework is adopted in the case of Wales, the region choosen for a regional investigation. The results highlight the importance and the consequences played by the devolution process and the new labour programme. The main changes are the introduction of the Regional Development Agencies in England and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. These new bodies have the power to elaborate strategies and implement policies to improve the economic development. However, this picture is still in progress, as it lacks clarity on who does what at the national level. Besides, fewer and more focused incentive schemes are required and more attention to meet the needs of SMEs should be devotedConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

Le origini dell'economia dell'innovazione: il contributo Rae

Nowadays the innovation is one of the most important determinant for increasing the wealth of the nations. The patterns of technological innovation are studied by Economics of innovation. The aim of this paper is to prove that the origins of the Economics of innovation go back to many years before Schumpeter's theory - 1911 - , thank to the original studies of Rae. He really did not know much of any economics literature and developed most of his concepts on his own. J. Rae has recently been rediscovered as a genuine precursor of the endogenous growth theory. I think, he needs to be rediscovered a second time for his contribution to the understanding of the economic role played by the innovation and technology change within the economic system. The Scottish philosopher within his book Statement of Some New Principles on the Subject of Political Economy, issued in 1834, put forward the basis of the Economics of innovation individuating the nature, causes and effects of the technological progress on economic growth. The main results achieved are the importance of Rae's work for the Economics of innovation and a definition of this branch which embodied the main concepts appeared during the history of the economic thought. Clearly, it is not complete definition, but it is the first step towards a completely individuation of the purpose of this important field of specialization within the economicsConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

Countrymetrics e valutazione della performance economica dei paesi: un approccio sistemico

The crisis of international markets following recent events such as the terrorist attacks, the wars in the East, the growing financial globalisation and integration have raised an interest in the analysis of country risk. Facing such a turbulent situation of the markets - Emery and Trist, 1965 - , uncertain for nations and international investors alike, it is extremely important to provide an evaluation of country risk with a basis that must be as objective as possible in relation to industrialised countries as well as to emerging nations - Cruces et al., 2002 - . National transparency and good government are important prerequisites in order to access international financial markets. In relation to the growing relevance of such issues, this study shall try to measure and evaluate the risk of the country system by means of a new systemic approach. In particular, we shall attempt to calculate a magnitude that can act as an indicator of economic stability and growth prospects as well as of the risk of economic-financial crashes (complement). Moreover, we shall try to elaborate a quality-quantity scale along which countries can be placed according to their performance; this scale can also become an indicator of the nations' economic stability and country risk. The application is based on 51 countries for the 2000-2002 period. Some concluding remarks and macroeconomics implications conclude the researchConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

Organizing the offices for technology transfer

Research Institutions - RIs - in last decades have been involved in both production of technological applications and commercialization of research results for the sake of technology transfer. These tasks are frequently taken as overlapping both in theory and practice, whereas they should be ideally separated. The present paper focuses on the latter, by questioning why RIs have to be involved into commercialization of research. Drawing on the identification of coordination needs among demand and supply of technological opportunities, evidence of five extensive case studies of Technology Transfer Organizations - TTOs - belonging to RIs is analyzed, with regard to the efficiency of the process of opportunity recognition. The claim for superior efficiency of RIs in technology transfer depends, in a static perspective, on an expected superior capacity of TTOs to manage existing knowledge. However, in practice, TTOs do not always exploit available sources of efficiency gains. Implications for management of knowledge and technology transfer are discussedConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

Considerazioni teoriche sulla diffusione delle innovazioni nei distretti industriali. Il caso delle ICT

The new Information and Communication Technologies - ICT - represent an important challenge for SME. Especially in the context of local productive areas, this topic may be relevant as a new opportunity of competitiveness for the system as a whole. In this working paper, the focus is on the industrial districts' case as a relevant and successful example of concentration of economic activities. It is first reviewed the large branch of literature, both economical and sociological, related to industrial districts. Then, it is discussed the problem of how to identify these concentrations. Finally, some theoretical remarks on the patterns of diffusion of innovation inside industrial districts are analysedConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

Analisi della tecnologia e approcci alla sua misurazione

The technological innovation, nowadays, is one of the most important determinant for increasing the wealth of the nations. Souder and Shrivastrava said 'we can't begin to make decisions about technology until we understand it. And we can't begin to really understand it until we can measure it'. For this reason within the economics a new branch called Technometrics is born: it is a new theoretical framework for the conception and measurement of technological change with important policy implications - Sahal, 1985 - . The aim of this paper is, after introducing the concepts of technological innovation as used by the economists during the nineteenth and twentieth-century, to show the historical evolution of the several approaches used to measure and evaluate the technology and technology change from 1930 to 2004. A discussion of these approaches shows the methodological difficulties and their potentialsConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

Analisi del rischio paese e sistemazione tassonomica

The crisis of international markets following recent events such as the terrorist attacks, the wars in the East, the growing financial globalisation and integration have raised an interest in the analysis of country risk. The Basel Committee suggests the development of risk models in order to make international financial markets more stable. The evaluation of country risk has very often been based on different approaches such as balanced score cards, ratings, structural models, interest yield etc. - Bouchet et al., 2003 - . One of the issues addressed by researchers has been that of default correlations - Merton, 1974; Ortiz and Rodriguez, 2002 - . In relation to these issues, this work aims at analysing country risk and at creating a taxonomic classification according to countries' higher or lower stability as well as to their growth prospects. The methodology of the analysis is based on the analysis of the principal components and on a cluster analysis. The application on 51 countries shows four main types of countries in relation to the country risk. Some concluding remarks and macroeconomics implications conclude the researchConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

Going public to growth? Evidence from a panel of Italian firms

This paper investigates the consequences of the going public decision for the growth of Italian firms using US firms as a benchmark for comparison. We find Italian firms conducting IPOs are larger than US firms, but raise fewer funds from the IPO and grow more slowly afterwards. We also compare Italian IPOs across time. Firms going public in the 1990s display features that are more similar to US IPOs. We describe changes to the Italian economy and financial markets potentially responsible for the change. We also compare firms of different size and with different governance structure, and we find that they behave differently after going public. Our results suggest that public policies that simply increase access to equity markets may not be effective unless they provide incentives for the firms' decision-makers to use the new capital to growConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

Liberalizzazione e integrazione verticale delle utility elettriche: evidenza empirica da un campione italiano di imprese pubbliche locali

In recent years changes of regulation in European electricity industry have been oriented towards a gradual liberalization of the sector, stressing the issue of energy provision for selling in the open market. Within the Italian regulatory framework, since local public firms cannot compete against other bigger operators in auctions for energy Cip 6/92 and for the import rights, they have addressed themselves towards upstream integration, i.e. in the generation stage. In this study we analyze the cost efficiency of vertical integration, by estimating a translog multiproduct cost function for a sample of 14 local electric utilities operating in both generation and distribution during the period 1994-2000. The empirical evidence suggests the presence of widespread cost complementarities between the two stages and points to vertical integration as a crucial success factor for local public firms. Thanks to the cost savings it enables, vertical integration allows electric local utilities to reach both the minimum production capacity and the efficiency that are required to compete in the open marketConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal