Relative dispersion analysis of GLAD surface drifters in the Gulf of Mexico

Relative dispersion analysis of the Lagrangian dataset derived from the GLAD drifter campaign in the Gulf of Mexico was computed on pairs derived from actual triplets. The results show that an exponential growth of the relative dispersion begins and occurs within the first two days of deployment. The influence of inertial motions should be taken into account in order not to overestimate turbulence diffusivities

Domanda, produttività e dinamica occupazionale: un’analisi per "moltiplicatori" applicata a sette paesi OECD, 1960-1995

The paper proposes a quantitative assessment of the impact of demand side factors, i.e. growth, composition and distribution of income, in the determination of changes in the aggregate balance of employment. The level of employment warranted in a system is here derived from the application of a simple scheme which we have called, following the seminal contribution of Richard Kahn in 1931, the "employment multiplier". Starting from an accounting identity between the values of aggregate supply and demand, a level of warranted employment is derived, given the labour coefficient and the deflated values of final demand, in which autonomous components are distinguished from an induced component, this latter depending on total labour income. The variations, over decades and cycles, of aggregate employment for seven OECD countries (France, Italy, Japan, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States and West Germany,), from 1960 onwards, are then analysed and decomposed into the effects of the contributions of three components: growth of average productivity of labour, of "autonomous" demand, and of the "multiplier", a term which summarises the impact of wage share and consumption propensity on induced demand and again on the level of overall employment

The General Profile of the Outsourcing Firm Evidence for a Local Production System of Emilia Romagna

The paper aims at ‘embedding’ the outsourcing firm by considering it as a four-fold unit of analysis: i.e. as an organizational, production, industrial and innovation unit. Theoretical correlations between outsourcing decisions and outsourcing variables are formulated and then tested with respect to a representative cross-sectional sample of firms of a local production system in Emilia Romagna (that is, Reggio Emilia). The main result of the paper is that outsourcing decisions are indeed affected by the organizational and industrial relations typical of the context firms are embedded in. Furthermore, the general profile of the Reggio Emilia outsourcing firm is strategic rather than operative. In particular, tapping-into the provider’s resources and competences to eventually promote technological innovation seems more relevant than searching for lower costs by contracting out.Outsourcing; transaction costs; industrial relations; innovation

Outsourcing, Delocalization and Firm Organization: Transaction Costs vs. Industrial Relations in a Local Production System of Emilia-Romagna

The paper aims at investigating how far transaction costs economics (TCE) concurs in the explanation of outsourcing decisions in firms characterized by “thick’ industrial relations, that is where unions and employees are involved in, and are sometimes able to affect, the relative managerial decisions through participatory formal and informal mechanisms. What is more, the paper aims at investigating whether the concurrence of TCE and industrial relationships has different outsourcing implications for firms which are also involved in delocalization strategies. An empirical model, translating a set of theoretical correlations between an original outsourcing extent variable, on the one hand, and a number of proxies related to TCE, industrial relations and delocalization, on the other hand, is applied to a representative sample of manufacturing firms for the local production system of Reggio Emilia (RE) (in Northern Italy). Overall, the empirical application shows that the role of TCE in accounting for outsourcing in the LPS of RE is quite blurred, if not even contradicted, while the role of industrial relations emerges instead quite straightforwardly. Finally, RE firms generally use outsourcing and international delocalization in a complementary way, but the correlation between outsourcing and delocalization turns out to be dependent on the kind of activity and of the nature of the delocalization channel.Outsourcing; firm organization; transaction costs; competences; innovation; local production systems

Innovation, Workers Skills and Industrial Relations: Empirical Evidence from Firm-level Italian Data.

The shifting of labour demand towards relatively more skilled workers has been a hot issue in the economic field for many years. A consolidated explanation for the upskilling phenomenon is that technological-organisational changes have driven the labour demand with detrimental consequences for less skilled workers (skill-biased technological-organisational change). In order to upgrade the skill workforce the firm has at least two main channels at its disposal: the external labour market strategy, mainly based on hiring and firing mechanisms; the internal labour market strategies, which improve the skill base of the employees through training activities. The main objective of the present work is to verify the relations between innovative strategies and both the workforce composition and the training activities, within an integrated framework that also leads us to consider the role of specific aspects of the industrial relations system. The firm level analysis is based on original datasets which include data on manufacturing firms for two Italian local production systems, located in the Emilia-Romagna region. The results suggest that the firms use both the two channels to improve their skill base, which is actually related to the innovation activities, although there is weak supporting evidence of the use of external labour markets to upgrade the workforce skills: the upskilling phenomenon seems to be associated to specific innovative activities in the technological sphere, while specific organisational aspects emerge as detrimental for blue collars. On the side of internal labour market strategies the evidence supports the hypothesis that innovation intensity induce the firms to implement internal procedures in order to upskill the workforce, confirming the importance of internal labour market strategies. Moreover, we have recognized the important role of firm level industrial relations in determining the training activities for the blue collar workers.technological change; organisational change; industrial relations; skills

Outsourcing and firm productivity: evidence for an Italian local production system

The paper investigates empirically the impact that outsourcing strategies have on the labour productivity of firms embedded in a local production system characterized by idiosyncratic techno-economic and organizational features. A diachronic cross-section econometric model of the productivity impact of outsourcing is applied to a sample of firms based in the local production system (LPS) of Reggio Emilia (RE) (in Emilia Romagna, Italy). The application confirms some of the results the empirical literature reports for other no or less context specific empirical applications, in particular their dependency on the kind of outsourced activities, the internationalization of the outsourcing firm and time horizon of the productivity effects. On the other hand, when the actual extent at which the different kinds of activities are outsourced is retained, important exceptions to these results are obtained: the positive impact of the externalization of manufacturing activities is the most relevant and the most consistent with the district nature of the investigated LPS.outsourcing, productivity, transaction costs, industrial relations, innovation

Wilson loop correlators at strong coupling in N=2\mathcal{N}=2 quiver gauge theories

We consider 4-dimensional $\mathcal{N} = 2$ superconformal quiver theories with $SU(N)^M$ gauge group and bi-fundamental matter and we evaluate correlation functions of $n$ coincident Wilson loops in the planar limit of the theory. Exploiting specific untwisted/twisted combinations of these operators and using supersymmetric localization, we are able to resum the whole perturbative expansion and find exact expressions for these correlators that are valid for all values of the 't Hooft coupling. Moreover, we analytically derive the leading strong coupling behaviour of the correlators, showing that they obey a remarkable simple rule. Our analysis is complemented by numerical checks based on a Pad\'e resummation of the perturbative series

Economic Crisis, Innovation Strategies and Firm Performance. Evidence from Italian Firm-level Data

Several empirical works have shown the robust and positive relation between growth and innovation at macroeconomic level and between firm economic performance and innovation at microeconomic level. However, the economists have had less opportunities to study such linkages during severe global downturns of the economic cycle. Moreover, the present disruptive economic downturn has forced the firms to implement survival strategies. One of such strategic behaviour regards the way of intervention on product and process areas through innovative actions. Focusing the attention on the micro level, the present work provides an empirical analysis on the basis of more than 500 Italian manufacturing firms located in Emilia-Romagna region, with the aim of disentangling the relations between pre-crisis innovation strategies and firm economic performance during the crisis as well as the linkages between the innovative actions taken to react to the recession's challenges and the economic performance in the recession. The results suggest the existence of strong relationships between past innovative activities and the capacity to react to the challenges brought by the crisis through innovative actions along product, process and organization/HRM dimensions, although the role of complementarities among past innovative activities does not emerge robustly. When the dependent variables are performance indicators the impact of pre-crisis innovation strategies emerges as robust for technological and organizational spheres, while intense innovative activities before the crisis on spheres like ICT, training and environment are detrimental for performances in the crisis. It seems that when the crisis hits those firms in a process of quite radical transformation and change, then the negative economic consequences of the recession are worse than in the case of firms on a more stable, less dynamic path.innovation strategies; economic crisis; firm performance

Analysis of second harmonic generation polarization profiles: an attempt to devise a complete three-dimensional model

We report the first attempt to build a three dimensional model of the polarization modulated second harmonic generation and emission dynamics from collagen fibrils under realistic conditions. Our analytical model is constructed by integration of previous knowledge on the stimulation of a second harmonic polarization in a non-centrosymmetric cylindrical target, and on the propagation of a resultant second harmonic disturbance. The application of our paradigm to actual biological targets allows one to retrieve their spatial orientation, mutual organization and inner configuration, which holds great potential to develop biological investigations and theragnostic applications