Local and Urban Development in the European Union

Starting from the definition of local development as a process of cooperation and change managed by local actors whose main goal is producing collective goods for the local community I would like to consider the factors which favour the possibility of making the process start. In the first part it will be presented the several programs for a sustainable urban development by the European Commission (Urban I, Urban II, Leipzig Charter) from Nineties up to now. Moreover, passing through the concept of territorial capital it will be design the linkages between local and urban development in the EU in order to arrange effective policies to improve the local and urban development. Therefore, politics of local development must intervene to increase cities territorial capital; this could seem to be obvious but it is less evident than quantifying territorial capital, in particular the cities one. The second part of the paper has just been finalized to find out seven essential components of territorial capital: productive, cognitive, social, relational, environmental, settlement, infrastructural components. Selecting one or more variables for each one of these components (with the exception of the relational one which we can't quantify) they can represent the territorial capital for European cities. The used variables are taken from Eurostat Urban Audit database about European cities, they refer to 2006/2007 biennium and they regard 118 cities of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Esthonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Holland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland and United Kingdom. Synthesizing the information given by the chosen variables (through the statistical analysis of the Principal Components) it will be specify six groups of cities which are as homogeneous as possible for presence of territorial capital, this is very useful to better addressed the policies to the local and, more specifically, urban development.

Long Term Structural Changes in the EU Countries (1970-2000): Convergence or Divergence in the Agri-Food System?

The main objective of this paper is to analyse the structural changes in European Agri-food systems in the last 30 years in order to verify the presence of a convergence process towards a more homogeneous structure among EU countries. This analysis considers the relative importance of the main components of Agri-food systems (agriculture, food industry and food consumption) and how they change over time. The analysis of convergence utilise the European National Accounting Data (from the SEC2 Data Base of Eurostat) from 1970 to 2000 for twelve EU countries. We use tests of convergence on cross section data by countries, but also stochastic kernel methodologies to verify the dynamic evolution of groups of countries inside the EU. The results show there are important process of convergence among countries for the variables of the Agri-food system that are more linked to the economic development, such as the importance of agriculture and food consumption in GDP. On the other hand there are divergences on the variables more linked to the openness degree and to the competitiveness of the Agri-food system. The presence of polarisation process among groups of countries contribute to the permanence of long run structural changes among Northern and Southern countries in the EU.Agribusiness,

Sincronia e distanza nel ciclo economico delle regioni italiane

This paper is based on the data set of 20 Italian regional high frequency business indicators proposed in Benni, Brasili (2006) and successively developed by RegiosS (Cycle & Trends association). The aim of the present paper is to provide a retrospective analysis of the characteristics of regional cycles and their co-movements to better understand the consequences of the global crisis on the local economies. We will going to apply two methodologies to analyse the distances among the Italian regional business cycle. We calculate the cohesion measure (Croux et al. 2001) on two sub-samples of the indicators, in order to evaluate if co-movements have increased recently. Moreover we calculate the cohesion measure also for the regions before and after the adoption of the Euro currency and respect to the Italian cycle. On the structural side the differential on cycle profiles of the regions is interpreted in terms of the different product specialisation, the degree of financial markets development and the research intensity of firms

Regional convergence across European Union

This paper analyzes the per-capita incomes convergence process across 140 NUTS2 European regions during the period 1980-1999. Two methods of analysis have been used. The first adopts the non parametric method proposed by Quah (1996, 1997) to study whether the cross-regions income distribution shows evidence of convergence, i.e a tendency for the steady-state distribution to cluster around one or more poles of attraction, or divergence. The second uses panel unit root tests for cross-sectionally correlated panels. Unlike other studies, we find evidence of convergence among the EU regions. When looking at the distribution of per-capita income, we show that it converges toward the average pole, without convergence clubs emerging. Panel unit root tests strongly reject the null of divergence for the full sample of regions and evidence is also provided for two regional subgroups.Key words : Convergence, Distribution analysis, Panel unit root tests.

A mosaic type of development - the Agri-food Districts experience in Italy

The Italian Industrial Districts (IDs) are now considered in the national and international literature as one of the main factors of the successful and rapid industrial development of Italy after the Second World War. In this paper we outline the general characteristics of the IDs approach and then the distinctive figures of the agrifood districts. A mosaic type of development characterised the geographical distribution of the different agrifood districts in the Italian experience. The different origins of agrifood districts often determines their production and structural characteristics of firms, with a relevant role of SMEs. In many cases, these districts originated from handcraft traditions and specific local demand. Their specialized production is often related to typical or high-quality products. The increasing demand for quality and typical food products might widen the possibility of developing local and regional food districts. In the second part of the paper, we have evaluated the economic performance and technical efficiency of a panel of firms in the meat sector which belong or not to the districts, for the period 1998-2002. Some very interesting results have been obtained from the economic and financial analysis on balance sheets of a large number of firms in the meat processing. The stochastic production frontier has been utilized to measure the 'district effect'. We have noticed that in the last years, the 'district effect' has been reducing according to the general difficulties of Italian industrial sector.Agri-Food Districts, Italian Industrial Districts (IDs), Technical efficiency of a panel of firms, Economic Development, International Development, A1, C23, O1, Q10, Q17,

The Relevance of the Policies of Development in the Agri-Food Sector of Emilia-Romagna Region

The aim of this paper is to analysis the impact of the policies of development and investments in the food industry at geographical and enterprises levels. We will analysis how the different geographical areas inside the Italian region Emilia-Romagna are sensitive to the development policies. A Principal Component Analysis and a Cluster Analysis will be applied to determine the most homogeneous geographical areas with respect to the considered variables. Then for evaluating the sensibility of these areas with respect to changes in investments and policies for food industry enterprise will be applied a Multicriterial Analysis and a Sensitivity Analysis.Agri-food sector, Development Policies, Food industry, Multicriterial Analysis, Region Emilia-Romagna, Sensitivity Analysis, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

A Mosaic Type of Development: The Agri-Food Districts Experience in Italy

The Italian Industrial Districts (IDs) are now considered in the national and international literature as one of the main factors of the successful and rapid industrial development of Italy after the Second World War. In this paper we outline the general characteristics of the IDs approach and then the distinctive figures of the agrifood districts. A mosaic type of development characterised the geographical distribution of the different agrifood districts in the Italian experience. The different origins of agrifood districts often determines their production and structural characteristics of firms, with a relevant role of SMEs. In many cases, these districts originated from handcraft traditions and specific local demand. Their specialized production is often related to typical or high-quality products. The increasing demand for quality and typical food products might widen the possibility of developing local and regional food districts. In the second part of the paper, we have evaluated the economic performance and technical efficiency of a panel of firms in the meat sector which belong or not to the districts, for the period 1998-2002. Some very interesting results have been obtained from the economic and financial analysis on balance sheets of a large number of firms in the meat processing. The stochastic production frontier has been utilized to measure the "district effect". We have noticed that in the last years, the "district effect" has been reducing according to the general difficulties of Italian industrial sector.Agri-Food Districts, Italian Industrial Districts (IDs), Technical efficiency of a panel of firms, Economic Development., International Development, A1, C23, O1, Q10, Q17,

Sincronia e distanza nel ciclo economico delle regioni italiane

This paper is based on the data set of 20 Italian regional high frequency business indicators proposed in Benni, Brasili (2006) and successively developed by RegiosS (Cycle & Trends association). The aim of the present paper is to provide a retrospective analysis of the characteristics of regional cycles and their co-movements to better understand the consequences of the global crisis on the local economies. We will going to apply two methodologies to analyse the distances among the Italian regional business cycle. We calculate the cohesion measure (Croux et al. 2001) on two sub-samples of the indicators, in order to evaluate if co-movements have increased recently. Moreover we calculate the cohesion measure also for the regions before and after the adoption of the Euro currency and respect to the Italian cycle. On the structural side the differential on cycle profiles of the regions is interpreted in terms of the different product specialisation, the degree of financial markets development and the research intensity of firms.Italian Regional Cycle, Coincident Indicators, Cohesion, Dissimilarity Matrix

EFFICIENCY OF THE ITALIAN AGRI-FOOD INDUSTRY: AN ANALYSIS OF "DISTRICTS EFFECT"

In the course of the past decades major transformations in the Italian food industry induced considerable structural changes: on one hand, the creation of large industrial groups, with substantial input of foreign capital and, on the other, the concentration and geographic specialisation of numerous small and medium enterprises, with the formation of specific and typical agri-food local system (districts). To take account of the presence of food districts the analysis of the Italian food industry could not be conducted at national and regional level but it has to be studied at province and local level. It is also useful to analyse the food industry with reference to the different sub-sectors. We will conduct an in-depth analysis of the local systems (districts) of two sectors meat and fruit & vegetables processing. We will use balance-sheet data of the processing firms that were active in the meat (446 firms) and fruit & vegetables (227 firms) sub-sector in the years from 1996 to 1999. The analysis will consider the most significant balance sheet ratios, such as returns, productivity and labour cost in these local systmems. Then, we will consider the economic assessment of the firms belonging to local systems of the two sectors and compare with the non district firms. For the efficiency analysis will estimate a stochastic frontier production function in order to determine the "district effect". This analysis will also be directly correlated with investment in technological innovation. The economic and efficiency analysis confirms for many aspects the presence of a "district effect" in the Italian food industry.Food industry's efficiency, Food districts, Local development, Stochastic frontier production function, Meat and fruit sectors, Agribusiness, Industrial Organization,

Convergence in the Agricultural Incomes: a Comparison between the US and EU

In this paper we compare the changes in farm incomes in EU regions and US States between1989 and 2002. The aim of this comparative analysis is highlight the patterns of convergence or divergence and how they differ over time. We use two recent analytical instruments: non-stationary panel analysis and dynamic distribution analysis. Both tools overcome the problems involved in using standard cross-section analysis. The results of the non-stationary panel analysis show that the EU regions are converging, and that family farm income is converging faster than net added value. In the US states the analysis shows that substantial differences in farm income persist, and there are no evident signs of convergence. While, the regions are heterogeneous, we modified the analysis to allow for the concept of conditional convergence. The results show that the regions converge towards different levels of productivity but regions that are further from their steady-state level will grow faster.Agricultural Finance,