The Implementation of the European Copyright Directive Library Lobby in France

This paper presents a specific case, in other words, the situation in one of the 25 European countries. It goes over the more general aspects on the impact for libraries of the implementation of the European Copyright Directive. I have decided to select two aspects. The first part of my paper reviews briefly the French legal background. In the second part, I stress the actions undertaken at present by libraries and documentation associations in France

Institutions and geography: Empirical test of spatial growth models for European regions

This article provides an empirical assessment of the growth experiences of European regions, during the period 1991-2004, by taking into account the spatial effects due to both institutions and geography. These effects have been modeled by means of specific controls and by using a non-conventional spatial weight matrix. Results favour a model dealing with substantive spatial externalities. Within this framework, the country-specific institutions are strongly and positively related to the regional productivity’s growth rate. In addition, the geo-institutional proximity increases the spatial dependence of the regional output per worker and raises the speed of convergence. By contrast, the pure geographical metrics is underperforming, while underestimating the convergence dynamics.Regional growth, income convergence, institutions, geography, spatial effects.

Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Roofs and Pavements. A Case Study at Sapienza University Campus

The progressively emerging concept of urban resilience to climate change highlights the importance of mitigation and adaptation measures, and the need to integrate urban climatology in the design process, in order to better understand the multiple effects of combined green and cool technologies for the transition to climate responsive and thermally comfortable urban open spaces. This study focuses the attention on selected mitigation and adaptation technologies; two renovation scenarios were designed and modeled according to the minimal intervention criterion. The study pays attention to the effect on surface temperature and physiological equivalent temperature (PET) of vegetation and high albedo materials characterizing the horizontal boundaries of the site. The Sapienza University campus, a historical site in Rome, is taken as a case study. These results highlight the importance of treed open spaces and the combination of permeable green pavements associated with cool roofs as the most effective strategy for the mitigation of summer heatwaves and the improvement of outdoor thermal comfort

Decomposing The Conditional Variance of Cross-Country Output

A well established fact in the growth empirics literature is the increasing variation in output per capita across countries. This phenomena however does not adequately describe changes in the distribution of output since it does not account for changes in the covariates which undoubtedly in influence per capita output levels. We propose a robust, nonparametric decomposition of the conditional variation of per capita output and find that OECD countries have experienced diminishing conditional variation while other regions have experienced increasing conditional variation. Our decomposition suggests that most of these changes in the conditional variance of output is due to unobserved factors not accounted for by the traditional growth determinants. In addition to this we show as these factors played very different roles over time and across regions.Generalized Kernel, Nonparametric, Conditional Variation

SHOOTING DOWN THE PRICE: EVIDENCE FROM MAFIA HOMICIDES AND HOUSING MARKET VOLATILITY

In this work, we assess the role of a specific type of organized crime in influencing choices on where living within the city territory, and consequently, volatility in house prices. More specifically, we test how organized crime killing may influence house pricing behaviors. Firstly, we show evidences about how organized crime is associated with higher inequality of housing prices for Italian cities in 2011. Then, by collecting and geo referencing data on the city of Naples for the period 2002-2016, we test for the direct influence of homicides on the relevant territory, as on the neighboring districts. Results show a negative and significant impact of killing on the house prices either for sales or for rents and a positive effect in neighboring district, driving increases in within-city inequality

Flexible wage contracts, temporary jobs and firm performance: evidence from Italian firms

This paper focuses on the effects of decentralized wage schemes and temporary forms of employment on firm performance. The effect of monetary incentives on workers\u2019 effort and firm performance is a central topic in economics. According to the principal-agent paradigm, firms (the principal) have to link employees' remuneration schemes to any verifiable indicator of performance in order to avoid opportunistic behaviour. The empirical evidence shows that financial incentives have the potential to exert strong effects on indicators of firm performance, such as productivity and worker absenteeism, though the degree of effectiveness of such schemes varies significantly according to the institutional/economic context in which firms operate. From both a theoretical and empirical point of view, the prediction on the effects of temporary types of employment on effort and productivity is less neat. In the light of these considerations, this paper uses a sample of Italian firms to provide further empirical evidence on whether and to what extent performance related pay schemes and contract flexibility affect workers\u2019 effort (in terms of absenteeism) and, in turn, firm productivity. These effects are analyzed for different types of workers (white collars vs. blue collars), working in workplaces characterized by a different degree of uncertainty and risk and in firms operating in different economic and institutional settings. Our results show that wage flexibility has a significant effect on effort and then on firm's productivity and that white collars are more responsive to monetary incentives than blue collars. Moreover, the presence of a large share of temporary contracts, implying a lower dismissal probability for permanent workers and a deterioration of the working environment, appears to reduce workers' motivation and effort

Present-biased preferences and optimal compensation schedules: a note

This paper presents a very simple model with present biased agents where optimal compensation schedules may be back-loaded, which is a characteristics of wage contracts we often observe in reality. There is large evidence that workers are often paid less than their marginal productivity early in their careers, and more than their marginal productivity later. In this model, back-loaded wage schedules emerge as a commitment device that allows to prevent sub-optimal consumption and labor supply patterns

Present-biased preferences and optimal compensation schedules: a note

This paper presents a very simple model with present biased agents where optimal compensation schedules may be back-loaded, which is a characteristics of wage contracts we often observe in reality. There is large evidence that workers are often paid less than their marginal productivity early in their careers, and more than their marginal productivity later. In this model, back-loaded wage schedules emerge as a commitment device that allows to prevent sub-optimal consumption and labor supply patterns