A Note on Tourism and Regional Development: some Policy Issues in the Post-crisis Framework

In this final note we offer some considerations about the current role of tourism for regional development by focusing mainly on two aspects, the impact of the economic crisis together with the institutional changes derived from it and the new policy issues arising from the new framework.In this final note we offer some considerations about the current role of tourism for regional development by focusing mainly on two aspects, the impact of the economic crisis together with the institutional changes derived from it and the new policy issues arising from the new framework

Local and territorial determinants in the realization of public–private–partnerships: an empirical analysis for Italian provinces

ABSTRACT Relational networks and intangible factors are crucial elements for the competitiveness of a territory. Public–Private–Partnerships (PPPs), in particular, allow for the provision of goods and services that favour the exploitation of complementarities between public and private resources. They aim at promoting an increase in the overall efficiency of investment projects through a complex mechanism that distributes risk and revenues among stakeholders. This paper examines the local and territorial determinants of PPPs through an econometric analysis based upon Italian municipal data, grouped at the provincial level. Using a tobit model, we analyse the relationship between the realization of successful PPP initiatives and different sets of factors, including less analysed local and territorial determinants. We stress the role of the local management of infrastructure assets, the administrative efficiency of local authorities and the diffusion of previous local development initiatives. Local management and territorial context factors explain most of the occurrence of successful PPP initiatives in the pre-crisis period while usual determinants (infrastructure endowment and financial distress) display a weaker effect

Fiscal federalism, regional public investment and spatial interaction processes: the case of Italy

The aim of this paper is to examine interregional interactions in public expenditure (for NUTS I and NUTS II level regions) using a new database on Italian Regional Public Accounts (RPA) over the period 1996-2007. Intergovernmental interactions are particularly important for assessing the impact of the reform towards fiscal federalism which is currently under way in Italy. As pointed out by Salmon (1987,2002), a more decentralized system implies that governments situated at the same level in a multi-level governmental system compete each other as well as with those located along the hierarchy. Competitive behavior is also a key element in many recent models of local government behavior (Brueckner, 1997, 2000) and is now the focus of a growing empirical literature based on strategic interaction in local policy decisions analyzed through the estimation of a reaction function (Millimet, 2002; Revelli, 2003). The paper provides empirical evidence on complementary/competitive relationships in terms of capital public expenditure using the approach originally developed by Dendrinos and Sonis (1988, 1990). This model has been applied to income variables in several papers (Hewings et al. 1996, Magalhaes et al.1999, Dall'erba et al., 2003) but the use of policy variables has not been explored yet. By investigating the occurrence of competitive versus complementary interactions in regional public expenditure, the paper suggests that the definition of a fiscal federalism scheme should take into account adequately both direct and indirect effects

Regional Inequalities and Economic Downturns

The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of economic downturns on regional inequalities. From a theoretical point of view regional inequalities may change in the aftermath of economic downturns if different regions have a different degree of resilience to a common shock or/and a different speed of adjustment. To test for this hypothesis we estimate the dynamic response of regional inequalities to economic downturns, controlling and interacting for country’s structural and policy variables associated to regional inequalities. The set of such variables includes, among others, the share of rural population, demographic changes, educational disparities, production diversification, the level of country development, the size of fiscal transfers and social spending. The approach we propose consists of estimating Impulse Response Functions (IRFS) based on local projections (Jordan, 2005) of the effect of downturns on regional inequalities. For each period, we estimate a direct and and an indirect effect which takes into account the interaction between the downturn occurrence and the structural/policy variables. Using an unbalanced panel of 29 OECD countries from 1993 to 2005, the paper shows that economic downturns are associated with a significant and long-lasting reduction in regional inequalities. The effect is a function of the severity of the downturn and it varies across countries. The empirical results are economically and statistically significant, and robust.

An Integrated Energy and Environmental Audit Process for Historic Buildings

The valorization and sustainable management of historic centers is a topic relevant to the cultural identity and heritage of European cities. A rational strategy to preserve the centers must consider both energy and environmental retrofitting, even if this is a complex issue requiring interdisciplinary approaches, dedicated diagnostic procedures, and specific tools. Within this context, this paper proposes an integrated method for energy and environmental analysis specifically devoted to historical building retrofit. Attention is focused on cases in which building management is not interested in renovation or in a deep conservation project, but instead in green management and maintenance overhaul. The basis of the procedure is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance (LEED O+M) rating protocol. The global goal was the definition of an intervention strategy indicating the principal direction of action. The first step is identifying critical issues in the operation of the building through energy diagnosis and dynamic thermophysical simulations. The second step is defining a panel of appropriate retrofit measures. The third step is choosing between alternatives to increase the sustainability performance following an environmental assessment scheme. Ca\u2019 Rezzonico in Venice (Italy), a 17th-century palace, nowadays the seat of a museum, was used as a case study to apply the proposed methodology

Territorial Capital And The Great Recession: A Nuts-3 Analysis For Southern Italy

Up to now, the analyses of the current "Great Recession" have been mainly confined to the national and international scale leaving aside the differential effects of the crisis upon regions and smaller areas. Although the current crisis has a strong international and global flavor, it must be admitted that the different structural characteristics of regions and urban areas might be often responsible for the specific economic and social impact of the recession and will strongly determine the possibility of resilience in the future. In the effort of better defining which regional characteristics may be considered as strategic for measuring the absorption capacity of the region vis-à-vis the great recession, in this paper we focus on territorial capital, a broader concept of capital which takes into account different characteristics of goods and services according to the degree of appropriability and rivalry (public or private) and the material or non-material physical content (Camagni, 2008). By making use of a large data set on southern Italian provinces which mostly focus on soft indicators of regional endowments, we try to measure the empirical relationship between territorial capital and the change in income per capita and employment. As a matter of fact, most "hybrid" elements of territorial capital (relationships between firms, cooperation networks, public-private partnership, governance of the territory, activity in the intermediation of innovation and so on) assume specific relevance in the building of territorial capital endowment of less developed and peripheral regions and may have been caused a different reaction at the regional or subregional level. Conversely, we also want to investigate the causality direction: in other words we ask ourselves if the territorial capital endowment enhances economic development or if the local economic performances contribute to capital accumulation and, furthermore, if the direction changes before and after the crisis. The interactive and cumulative nature of territorial capital accumulation generates differences that change only at very slow pace. This might influence not only the economic development of the unit of analysis but also the velocity of convergence at a provincial scale

Studio di fattibilità. Sistema per il monitoraggio in continuo del particolato emesso dal camino di un impianto FCC CO-Boiler di una raffineria

Questo studio di fattibilità nasce dalla richiesta della Commissione IPPC (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) di far implementare, al sistema di gestione delle emissioni gassose, un sistema per il monitoraggio in continuo per la quantificazione delle polveri emesse dal camino di un impianto FCC CO-Boiler (Fluid Catalytic Cracking) di una raffineria. Per verificare la fattibilità tecnica di questa richiesta sono stati studiati sia i dati storici di monitoraggio delle emissione gassose del camino, per l’individuazione delle condizioni fluido dinamiche, sia i principi di funzionamento delle tecniche strumentali in commercio e usate per scopi simili. Da questi dati si sono ricavate le condizioni fluido dinamiche dell'effluente gassoso e la distribuzione granulometrica del particolato emesso in atmosfera, nelle tre seguenti classi granulometriche dia>10, 10<dia<2.5, dia<2.5 micrometri, da cui sono stati successivamente desunti i parametri di progetto. Dallo studio delle tecnologie già esistenti per il monitoraggio delle polveri è stato individuato un sistema, conforme alle condizioni del camino, che vede l'uso contemporaneo di una sonda elettrodinamica e di una sonda laser scattering. L'impiego di queste due tecniche strumentali è necessaria al fine di assicurare una corretta misurazione del particolato nelle diverse condizioni di funzionamento del camino

Regional inequalities and economic downturns

The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of economic downturns on regional inequalities. From a theoretical point of view regional inequalities may change in the aftermath of economic downturns if different regions have a different degree of resilience to a common shock or/and a different speed of adjustment. To test for this hypothesis we estimate the dynamic response of regional inequalities to economic downturns, controlling and interacting for country’s structural and policy variables associated to regional inequalities. The set of such variables includes, among others, the share of rural population, demographic changes, educational disparities, production diversification, the level of country development, the size of fiscal transfers and social spending. The approach we propose consists of estimating Impulse Response Functions (IRFS) based on local projections (Jordan, 2005) of the effect of downturns on regional inequalities. For each period, we estimate a direct and and an indirect effect which takes into account the interaction between the downturn occurrence and the structural/policy variables. Using an unbalanced panel of 29 OECD countries from 1993 to 2005, the paper shows that economic downturns are associated with a significant and long-lasting reduction in regional inequalities. The effect is a function of the severity of the downturn and it varies across countries. The empirical results are economically and statistically significant, and robust