Merger Mechanisms

A firm can merge with one of n potential partners. The owner of each firm has private information about both his firm's stand-alone value and a component of the synergies that would be realized by the merger involving his firm. We characterize incentive-efficient mechanisms in two cases. First, we assume that the value of any newly formed partnership is verifiable, hence transfers can be made contingent on the new information accruing after the merger. Second, we study the case of uncontingent rules. In the first case, we show that it is not optimal, in general, to redistribute shares of non-merging firms, and identify necessary and sufficient conditions for the implementability of efficient merger rules. In the second case, we show that the first-best can be obtained i) always, if the synergy values are privately known but the firms' stand-alone values are observable; ii) only with sufficiently large synergies, if the firms' stand-alone are privately known; and iii) never, if the set of feasible mechanisms is restricted to "auctions in shares".

Merger Mechanisms

A firm can merge with one of n potential partners. The owner of each firm has private information about both his firm’s stand-alone value and a component of the synergies that would be realized by the merger involving his firm. We characterize incentive-efficient mechanisms in two cases. First, we assume that the value of any newly formed partnership is verifiable, hence transfers can be made contingent on the new information accruing after the merger. Second, we study the case of uncontingent rules. In the first case, we show that it is not optimal, in general, to redistribute shares of non-merging firms, and identify necessary and sufficient conditions for the implementability of efficient merger rules. In the second case, we show that the first-best can be obtained i) always, if the synergy values are privately known but the firms’ stand-alone values are observable; ii) only with sufficiently large synergies, if the firms’ stand-alone are privately known; and iii) never, if the set of feasible mechanisms is restricted to “auctions in shares”.Mechanism design, Merger

Towards a History of the Italian Industrial Districts from the End of World War II to the Nineties,

When did the first Italian industrial districts spring up? In which regions have they developed, and over what times, in the forty years of republican Italy from the end of World War II to the nineties? How do districts develop? How do they change their shape in time? By using for the first time comparable census data from 1951 to 1991 and with reference to the main existing literature on the subject, we try to answer these questions and to trace a history of the Italian industrial districts. In the discussion, we enquire into how the importance and role of the districts vary over time, and we attempt to assess their prevailing working conditions, their efficiency and their ability to face up to international competition

Tax autonomy, lobbying, and welfare

What degree of tax autonomy should be granted to a taxing authority? Although the policy maker aims at maximizing social welfare, her tax policy may be distorted by the lobbying activity of taxpayers. In this political environment we characterize the conditions under which social welfare can be increased by restricting the set of tax instruments available to the policy maker, i.e. the degree of tax autonomy. We show that full tax autonomy is more costly, in terms both of welfare distortions and lobbying effort, when the lobbies are asymmetric in size, while minimal tax autonomy is more costly when the tax bases are asymmetric across different groups

Small firms and industrial districts

Editor's notes. By Margherita Russo. Sebastiano Brusco's collection of essays Piccole imprese e distretti industriali (Tori-no, Rosenberg & Sellier, 1989) was translated in English by Tim Keats in 1990, unless three chapters that were already available in English and chapter 7 that was too long for a publication as a book chapter. Having abandoned the project of publishing a vol-ume in English, Sebastiano Brusco asked me to share a photocopy of the English transla-tion with scholars who requested it, and so several copies arrived in the hands of re-searchers in various countries: South Africa, Norway, Denmark, the United States, France and the United Kingdom. Twenty years after Sebastiano Brusco passed away, and me approaching to retirement, a working paper edition - in the DEMB Working Paper Series - will make the document freely available online. This digital document has been created, in 2012, drawing on a folder of Sebastiano Brusco's digital archive "Backup of EnglishBook" that contained Lotus MS files. These files have been converted by Patrizio Magagni in a txt format and then inserted by me in a single Word file: "Backup of EnglishBook_from files converted by Patrizio_22.01.2012 Some graphs and tables have been added as images, taken from the Italian edition. The text is all flag-formatted, whereas in the Italian edition only the main introduction, chapter introduction and afterword were flag-formatted. The text is not justified be-cause, in the conversion of the original files, a manual line break was automatically inserted at the end of each line. To differentiate those parts of the text written by Brusco specifically for the publi-cation of the 1989 collection of essays, they are reproduced here in two columns, with a smaller font. A complete list of Sebastiano Brusco's publication is available online at:https://www.economia.unimore.it/site/home/dipartimento-di-economia---sebastiano-brusco-web-page.htm

Constant-frequency time cells in the vortex-shedding from a square cylinder in accelerating flows

An extensive experimental campaign has been carried out in a multiple-fan wind tunnel to study the effects of flow acceleration on a sectional model of a sharp-edged square cylinder. Different levels of positive and negative acceleration are reproduced, which are compatible with those induced by full-scale thunderstorm outflows. Various initial and final conditions are also explored and, in all conditions, multiple test repeats are carried out in order to obtain satisfactory ensemble averages. Particular attention is devoted to the acquisition of signals associated with vortex-shedding, for which tailored time-frequency analyses, based on the continuous wavelet and Hilbert transforms, are introduced. Sensitivity analyses are carried out on a selection of the relevant pa-rameters that better allow the tracing of the temporal variation of the shedding frequency. Time intervals in which the shedding frequency is constant, separated by discontinuities, are found during the transients. The number and extent of such constant-frequency time cells and discontinuities seem to be connected with the flow acceleration, but are not strictly repetitive. For higher levels of acceleration the ensemble mean of the Strouhal number is found to be comparable with or moderately lower than the steady-flow value corresponding to the instantaneous velocity

Evolution of innovation policy in Emilia-Romagna and Valencia: Similar reality, similar results?

This is an author's accepted manuscript of an article published in: “European Planning Studies"; Volume 22, Issue 11, 2014; copyright Taylor & Francis; available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013.831398[EN] This paper examines the evolution of regional innovation policy in Emilia-Romagna and Valencia, two regions with similar economic features that implemented close innovation policies in the 1970s and 1980s. We investigate whether their similarities have led to parallel targets, policy tools and governance developments. We show that innovation policy in both regions suffered from the effects of privatization, budget constraints and changes to manufacturing during the 1990s and we highlight the consequences. Although Emilia-Romagna experienced deeper changes to its innovation policy, privatizations and/or the replacement of public funds promoted commercial approaches and induced market failures in both regions. The worst effects of these policies were the implementation of less-risky innovation projects, the shift towards extraregional projects and markets, and the favouring of large firms.López Estornell, M.; Barberá Tomás, JD.; Garcia Reche, A.; Mas Verdú, F. (2013). Evolution of innovation policy in Emilia-Romagna and Valencia: Similar reality, similar results?. European Planning Studies. 22(11):2287-2304. doi:10.1080/09654313.2013.831398S22872304221