Are we wasting public money? No! The effects of grants on Italian university students’ performances

In this paper, we estimate the effect of receiving a financial aid for a cohort of students who enrolled at Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in the year 2007/08, through a Propensity Score Matching approach. Using administrative data about these students for four years, we were able to evaluate the impact of the financial aid on several dimensions of academic performance: formative credits obtained after one year, drop-out probability in the first and second year, graduation in the legal duration of the course, and graduation after four years. Overall, we find a positive and statistically significant effect of the grant; this finding is stable across several robustness checks. Exploring the heterogeneity of this effect, we demonstrate that this latter is higher for immigrants, Italians who moved from another region for studying, and students attending an Engineering course. We also find evidence that unobservable factors (such as students’ own intrinsic academic motivation) account for an important part of the estimated impact of the financial aid

tobit models in strategy research critical issues and applications

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Tobit models in strategy research:Critical issues and applications

Research Summary: Tobit models have been used to address several questions in management research. Reviewing existing practices and applications, we discuss three challenges: (a) assumptions about the nature of data, (b) apparent interchangeability between censoring and selection bias, and (c) potential violations of key assumptions in the distribution of residuals. Empirically analyzing the relationship between import competition and industry diversification, we contrast Tobit models with results from other estimators and show the conditions that make Tobit a suitable empirical approach. Finally, we offer suggestions and guidelines on how to use Tobit models to deal with censored data in strategy research. Managerial Summary: Data on strategic decisions often exhibit certain features, such as excess zeros and values bounded within a given range, which complicate the use of linear econometric techniques. Deriving statistical evidence in such instances may suffer from biases that undermine managerial applications. Our study presents an extensive comparison of different econometric models to deal with censored data in strategic management showing the strengths and weaknesses of each model. We also conduct an application to the context of import penetration and industry diversification to highlight how the relationship between these two variables changes depending on the econometric model used for the analysis. In conclusion, we provide a set of recommendations for scholars interested in censored data

Cross‐border acquisitions by sovereign wealth funds: A legitimacy‐based view

Research SummaryDrawing on institutional economics and the legitimacy-based view of political risk, we investigate the factors determining the realization of cross-border investments by sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), whose investments often suffer from a lack of legitimacy in host countries. Using matching models on all the realized and potential investments, we find that investments are more likely to materialize when the SWF home country and the host country enjoy cordial political relations or are involved in a trade agreement. Contrary to the theoretical predictions, SWF politicization does not per se represent an impediment to the realization of investments. Rather, it has a negative effect on the likelihood of an investment's realization only in the presence of trade agreements.Managerial SummaryA recent trend in the global economy is the increasing cross-border investment activity undertaken by sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), large investment vehicles where financial and political goals often co-exist. On the grounds of possible financial or political destabilization, SWFs' cross-border investments attract scrutiny and suspicion in host countries, hindering their realization. We analyze SWF- and country-level factors that may determine the successful realization of SWFs' cross-border acquisitions. We suggest that managers ex ante select target firms and host countries by considering their fund's governance and degree of independence from home-country politics in interaction with bilateral (home-host country) political and economic relations, so as to secure legitimacy for their investments and maximize the chances that cross-border investment strategies may materialize

Destinazioni 2.0 prospettive e pianificazione: il caso di Alghero

The Information and Communications Technology has revolutionised the paradigms of our everyday life, modifying the social relationships that develop both in the private field and in the professional one. The birth of this great network has permitted the redesign of the concept of geography and with it, the concepts of space-time, breaking down the distances and creating a social network without borders. The research work explores the transformations experienced by the tourism industry, with the arrival of new technologies, from the 1.0 web to the 4.0 industry, and investigates the drivers for both efficient and intelligent territorial planning in the digital age