Firm size and judicial efficiency in Italy: evidence from the neighbour's tribunal

We investigate the causal relationship between judicial efficiency and firm size across Italian municipalities, exploiting spatial discontinuities in tribunals' jurisdiction for identification. Results show that halving the length of civil proceedings, average firm size would increase by around 8-12%, everything else equal. Results are robust to a number of different specifications, based on two different databases

Proprieta', controllo e trasferimenti nelle imprese italiane. Cosa e' cambiato nel decennio 1993-2003?

This paper analyzes the results of two surveys conducted by the Bank of Italy in 2003, respectively among 1,900 and 500 Italian firms, on ownership structures, control and control transfers of non-listed firms, building upon similar surveys carried on in 1993. The aim of the research is to assess the degree and the directions of changes in control patterns of industrial firms in Italy. The data show that ownership concentration, as measured by various indicators, is high and that direct family control of firms is prevalent. Separation between ownership and control is limited. Financial institutions (including private equity) rarely own capital stakes or play a role in controlling non-financial firms. Ownership of a firm by another firm is widespread, especially for bigger firms; ultimate owners are usually families. Foreign ownership and control of Italian firms is growing. Overall, relatively small changes in the patterns of ownership and control have occurred over the decade (1993-2003). The market for corporate control has not developed significantly; it remains based on personal contacts. Financial institutions do not play a relevant role in it; transactions are usually mediated by legal and accounting professionals. Many firms will deal with generational transfers of control in the near future.ownership structure, control, control transfers

Italian civil justice: regional disparities

The functioning of the Italian civil justice system is characterized by deep regional disparities: the length of legal proceedings is on average significantly higher in the South than in the rest of Italy. Using mainly a descriptive approach, this paper documents these differences and investigates possible explanations examining the number of proceedings initiated in courts and the human and financial resources assigned to the courts. As regards population distribution, regions in the South are more litigious than those in the Centre and North and therefore receive a higher proportion of public resources. Nevertheless, the endowment of resources in the South is in line with the rest of Italy when measured according to the annual flow of new proceedings whereas it receives fewer resources in relation to the number of proceedings pending. On the basis of the available information, it is not possible to establish whether the greater stock of proceedings pending in the South is due to an inadequate endowment of resources and/or to lower productivity.civil justice, litigation, regional disparities

Mining downy mildew susceptibility genes: a diversity study in grapevine

Several pathogens continuously threaten viticulture worldwide. Until now, the investigation on resistance loci has been the main trend to understand the interaction between grapevine and mildew causal agents. Dominantly inherited gene-based resistance has shown to be race-specific in some cases, to confer partial immunity and to be potentially overcome within a few years since its introgression. Recently, on the footprint of research conducted on Arabidopsis, the putative hortologues of genes associated with downy mildew susceptibility in this species, have been discovered also in the grapevine genome. In this work, we deep-resequenced four putative susceptibility genes in 190 highly genetically diverse grapevine genotypes to discover new sources of broad-spectrum recessively inherited resistance. The scouted genes are VvDMR6-1, VvDMR6-2, VvDLO1, VvDLO2 and predicted to be involved in susceptibility to downy mildew. From all identified mutations, 56% were Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in heterozygosity, while the remaining 44% were homozygous. Regarding the identified mutations with putative impact on gene function, we observed ~4% genotypes mutated in VvDMR6-1 and ~8% mutated in VvDMR6-2, only a handful of genotypes that were mutated in both genes. ~2% and ~7% genotypes showed mutations in VvDLO1 and VvDLO2 respectively, and again a few genotypes resulted mutated in both genes. In particular, 80% of impacting mutations were heterozygous while 20% were homozygous. The current results will inform grapevine genetics and corroborate genomic-assisted breeding programs for resistance to biotic stresses

Mining grapevine downy mildew susceptibility genes: a resource for genomics-based breeding and tailored gene editing

Several pathogens continuously threaten viticulture worldwide. Until now, the investigation on resistance loci has been the main trend to understand the interaction between grapevine and the mildew causal agents. Dominantly inherited gene-based resistance has shown to be race-specific in some cases, to confer partial immunity, and to be potentially overcome within a few years since its introgression. Recently, on the footprint of research conducted in Arabidopsis, putative genes associated with downy mildew susceptibility have been discovered also in the grapevine genome. In this work, we deep-sequenced four putative susceptibility genes—namely VvDMR6.1, VvDMR6.2, VvDLO1, VvDLO2—in 190 genetically diverse grapevine genotypes to discover new sources of broad-spectrum and recessively inherited resistance. Identified Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms were screened in a bottleneck analysis from the genetic sequence to their impact on protein structure. Fifty-five genotypes showed at least one impacting mutation in one or more of the scouted genes. Haplotypes were inferred for each gene and two of them at the VvDMR6.2 gene were found significantly more represented in downy mildew resistant genotypes. The current results provide a resource for grapevine and plant genetics and could corroborate genomic-assisted breeding programs as well as tailored gene editing approaches for resistance to biotic stresse

Transient Decrease of Circulating and Tissular Dendritic Cells in Patients With Mycobacterial Disease and With Partial Dominant IFN\u3b3R1 Deficiency

Interferon-\u3b3 receptor 1 (IFN\u3b3R1) deficiency is one of the inborn errors of IFN-\u3b3 immunity underlying Mendelian Susceptibility to Mycobacterial Disease (MSMD). This molecular circuit plays a crucial role in regulating the interaction between dendritic cells (DCs) and T lymphocytes, thus affecting DCs activation, maturation, and priming of T cells involved in the immune response against intracellular pathogens. We studied a girl who developed at the age of 2.5 years a Mycobacterium avium infection characterized by disseminated necrotizing granulomatous lymphadenitis, and we compared her findings with other patients with the same genetic condition. The patient carried a heterozygous 818del4 mutation in the IFNGR1 gene responsible of autosomal dominant (AD) partial IFN\u3b3R1 deficiency. During the acute infection blood cells immunophenotyping showed a marked reduction in DCs counts, including both myeloid (mDCs) and plasmacytoid (pDCs) subsets, that reversed after successful prolonged antimicrobial therapy. Histology of her abdomen lymph node revealed a profound depletion of tissue pDCs, as compared to other age-matched granulomatous lymphadenitis of mycobacterial origin. Circulating DCs depletion was also observed in another patient with AD partial IFN\u3b3R1 deficiency during mycobacterial infection. To conclude, AD partial IFN\u3b3R1 deficiency can be associated with a transient decrease in both circulating and tissular DCs during acute mycobacterial infection, suggesting that DCs counts monitoring might constitute a useful marker of treatment response

Quaderno della Banca d'Italia - Serie: Questioni di Economia e Finanza. - Titolo: Strumenti negoziali per la soluzione delle crisi d\u2019impresa: il concordato preventivo ISSN 1972-6627 (stampa) ISSN 1972-6643 (online)

Questo studio \ue8 stato condotto dagli autori con la collaborazione nella raccolta dei dati del CESPEC ossia del Centro Studi Procedure Esecutive e Concorsuali dei magistrati specializzati in materia concorsuale e della Banca d'Italia al fine di comprendere, sulla base di una robusta analisi empirica: se le procedure di concordato preventivo rappresentino o meno un efficace strumento per la soluzione delle crisi di impresa, quali siano le principali finalit\ue0 economico aziendali che sono perseguite dalle imprese mediante questo strumento e quali siano le percentuali di successo conseguite. La ricerca \ue8 stata considerata di notevole impatto in quanto ha contribuito a creare una base informativa utile a supportare riflessioni e conseguentemente anche proposte di modifica e integrazione nel redigendo codice della crisi e dell'insolvenza. Il lavoro fornisce, infatti, un ampio insieme di nuove evidenze empiriche sull\u2019impiego e sul funzionamento delle procedure di concordato preventivo basate su un dataset, appositamente assemblato, che costituisce la pi\uf9 ricca base informativa al momento disponibile. I risultati principali possono essere sintetizzati come segue: i concordati preventivi sono impiegati prevalentemente con finalit\ue0 liquidatoria (circa il 70 per cento dei casi). La percentuale di concordati per i quali quanto previsto nel piano \ue8 effettivamente realizzato \ue8 pari a meno di un quarto delle procedure presentate. Il recupero dei crediti assistiti da garanzia avviene in misura pressoch\ue9 integrale in tutte le tipologie di concordato, mentre per i crediti non garantiti i tassi di recupero variano sensibilmente, ma sono sistematicamente superiori rispetto alle aspettative: dal 18 per cento per i concordati liquidatori al 37 per cento per quelli in continuit\ue0 diretta (23 per cento per quelli in continuit\ue0 indiretta). Analisi di regressione mostrano che migliori performance dei concordati preventivi sono associate a un minore grado di \u201ccronicit\ue0 della crisi\u201d al momento dell\u2019apertura del concordato, misurata con il tempo trascorso dalle prime difficolt\ue0 persistenti che l\u2019impresa incontra nell\u2019adempiere agli obblighi nei confronti dei creditori bancari e l\u2019avvio della procedura. Ne segue l'importanza di anticipare il pi\uf9 possibile il momento da un lato di rilevazione della crisi (early warning), dall'altro e proprio a tale fine la rilevanza strategica degli assetti organizzativi, amministrativi e contabili adeguati, dall'altro ancora l'opportunit\ue0 che siano implementati interventi tempestivi ed utili per il turnaround. La prof.ssa Riva per il Piemonte Orientale e il prof. Danovi per l'Universit\ue0 di Bergamo, autori del presente lavoro, sono stati individualmente auditi dalla Commissione Giustizia 2 del Senato il 21.11.2018 per proporre modifiche al Codice della Crisi e dell'Insolvenza (Atto del Governo 53). Sono stati inoltre invitati a fare parte della "Commissione di studi del Consiglio Nazionale dei Dottori Commercialisti ed Esperti Contabili Codice della Crisi e dell'Insolvenza" e in seno a tale organismo nuovamente auditi nel luglio 2020 alla Camera dei Deputati seconda Commissione Giustizia (Atto del Governo 175). Alla luce dei risultati ottenuti, inoltre, gli autori Riva e Danovi sono stati coinvolti attivamente nella ricerca finanziata dalla UE (European Commission JUST/2014/JCOO/AG/CIVI/7627) "Best practices in european restructuring. Contractualised distress resolution in the shadow of the law" (www.codire.eu

Strumenti negoziali per la soluzione delle crisi d\u2019impresa: il concordato preventivo

Questo studio fornisce un ampio insieme dinuove evidenze empiriche sull\u2019impiego e sul funzionamento delle procedure di concordato preventivo basate su un dataset, appositamente assemblato, che costituisce lapi\uf9 ricca base informativa al momento disponibile. I concordati sono impiegati prevalentemente con finalit\ue0 liquidatoria (circa il 70 per cento dei casi). La percentuale di concordati per i quali quanto previsto nel piano \ue8 effettivamente realizzato \ue8 pari a meno di un quarto. Il recupero dei crediti assistiti da garanzia avviene in misura pressoch\ue9 integrale in tutte le tipologie di concordato, mentre per i crediti non garantiti i tassi di recupero variano sensibilmente: dal 18 per cento per i concordati liquidatori al 37 per cento per quelli in continuit\ue0 diretta (23 per cento per quelli in continuit\ue0 indiretta). Analisi di regressione mostrano che migliori performance dei concordati preventivi sono associate a un minore grado di \u201ccronicit\ue0 della crisi\u201d al momento dell\u2019apertura del concordato, misurata con il tempo trascorso dalle prime difficolt\ue0 persistenti che l\u2019impresa incontra nell\u2019adempiere agli obblighi nei confronti dei creditori bancari e l\u2019avvio della procedura