INNOVATIONS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: NEOCLASSICAL VERSUS EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH

In the last 20 years, the concept of ‘Sustainable Development’ (SD) has become very popular and wide spread in the world. In particular, the environmental dimension of SD asks for new ways to accomplish enhanced quality of life with reduced environmental impact. As a consequence, innovations that contribute to sustainable path ways through an improved environmental quality (the so-called ‘Sustainable Innovations’ - SI s) are facing a growing interest. The present study aims at contributing to the debate about innovation and SD, by focusing on the analysis of SIs from, respectively, the neoclassical and the evolutionary perspective. Whereas neoclassical theorists neoclassical theorists focus on the ‘double externality problem’ of SIs, on the one hand, and on the factors that influence the irimplementation, on the other, evolutionary approach analyses mainly radical technological changes thus stressing the need for a consideration of additional aspects ( in particular social and institutional ones) in the analysis of SIs.Innovations, Sustainable Development, Neoclassical Theory, Evolutionary Approach

Causality between Energy and Economic Growth: the Italian case

The causal relationship between economic growth and energy consumption represents a widely studied topic in energy economics literature. Although it is very well known that there is a strong correlation between energy use and growth, the issue of causality still remains to be answered. This study aims to investigate the possibility of the energydemand- led growth and growth-driven energy demand hypotheses in Italy by testing the causality between real GDP and electric power consumption through an ECM model. Results do not reveal any causality linkage.Causality; Economic growth; Energy Consumption

Climatic differences and Economic Growth across Italian Provinces: First Empirical Evidence

The purpose of this study consists in verifying if climatic differences can help to explain the different economic growths path across Italian provinces. Focusing on literature on economic convergence on one hand, and that on economics of climate on the other, the work depicts how climatic variables can enter into the traditional Solows neoclassical growth model developing two alternative models. Afterwards, it tests whether climatic characteristics actually exert an influence on economic convergence using an original climate dataset composed by average yearly min and max temperatures (C), humidity grade (%), number of frost-days and annual precipitations (mm) for 58 Italian Provinces uniformly distributed over the Peninsula. The results, obtained through the Arellano-Bond GMM estimator, show how some of climatic variables employed in this study actually affect the level of Provincial income.Climate; Economic growth; Convergence; Italian Provinces

Do domestic firms benefit from the presence of MNEs? The case of the Italian manufacturing sector

According to the main economic literature, foreign direct investment (FDI) from Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) can generate positive externalities to host countries, increasing the domestic firms productivity. Recently, the attention of researchers has moved from the analysis of ''horizontal'' spillovers i.e. those benefits to local enterprises at an intraindustrial level - towards the investigation of ''vertical'' spillovers phenomenon i.e. the diffusion of positive effects on domestic economies at an inter-industry level. In this paper we investigate the presence of both these two kinds of spillovers using a firm-level panel data of domestic and foreign firms in the Italian manufacturing sector. The results show the lack of ''horizontal'' spillovers and, at the same time, the presence of ''vertical'' ones.FDI; MNEs; Spillovers; Italian manufacturing sector

Vertical spillovers from multinational enterprises: Does technological gap matter?

Foreign direct investment (FDI) from Multinational enterprises (MNEs) can augment the productivity of domestic firms insofar as knowledge “spills over” from foreign investors to local producers. The capacity of local companies to exploit knowledge from MNEs can be affected by the technology gap between foreign and local enterprises at both horizontal (in the same industry) and vertical (in different industries) level. Whereas most of the empirical literature has focused exclusively on the analysis of horizontal and backward spillovers (i.e. between MNEs and local suppliers), the present paper also examines the relationship between FDI-related spillovers and technological gap in the Italian manufacturing sector at forward level (i.e. between MNEs and local buyers). Results suggest that at both intra-industry and forward level, the technological gap is of considerable importance for the spillover effect, particularly in the case of low-medium gap

HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL SPILLOVERS FROM FDI IN THE ITALIAN PRODUCTIVE SYSTEM

Foreign direct investment (FDI) from Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) can generate positive externalities to host countries, increasing domestic firms' productivity. Recently, the attention of researchers has moved from the analysis of ''horizontal'' spillovers – i.e. those benefits to local enterprises at an intra-industrial level - towards the investigation of ''vertical'' spillovers phenomenon – i.e. the diffusion of positive effects on domestic economies at an inter-industry level, as in the case of technology transfers to domestic suppliers or customers in the production chain. Using a firm-level panel data, this paper analyses spillovers from FDI in the Italian productive system both within and across industries. Our results suggest no evidence of ''horizontal'' spillover and the existence of ''vertical'' spillover whose impact on local firms seems to be very limited.FDI; MNEs; Productivity Spillovers, Backward Linkages, Forward Linkages, Italian productive system.

Micro-financial System and Sustainable Development: are they compatible?

In recent years, millions of poor people worldwide have benefited from microfinance activities, such as microcredit, microsaving and microinsurance, making these financial services a key-tool for development of many developing countries. At the same time, the concept of sustainable development has taken on an increasing importance in the debate about economic growth and environment. The present study tries to explore the relationship between microfinance and sustainable development in developing areas focusing mainly on environmental sustainability. Our analysis seems to suggest the full compatibility between microfinance institutions and a sustainable development path at local level, on condition that these institutions implement policies aiming to make compatible the loans they provide with the environment and that they encourage the diffusion of environmental awareness across borrowers

Tourism as determinant of economic growth: the case of south-east Asian countries

Today tourism represents one of the most dynamic economic sectors in the world. Even if the majority of international tourism still takes place within the developed world, recently tourism to developing countries is becoming a significant and increasing phenomenon, mainly to South-East Asian and Pacific countries. This study aims to verify if tourism represents a determinant of growth in such countries. Following recent empirical literature about growth, and mainly Eugenio-Martin, Morales and Scarpa (2004), a dynamic panel data model is adopted here to test for convergence. Results confirm the importance of tourists arrivals on the economic growth

Eco-innovations and companies' financial constraints: a multilevel-perspective analysis

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the networking dynamics of the italian biofuel industry in time of crisis finding an effective instrument mix for fostering a sustainable energy transition

Abstract This paper aims to design the effective instrument mixes for fostering a sustainable energy transition in times of crises. We focus on a sufficiently developed green niche – namely the Italian biofuel sector – implementing a two-step investigation: 1) a social network analysis, to study the effects of the crisis on the basic niche development mechanisms, with the aim of eliciting its development needs; 2) a fuzzy inference simulation based on a causal-effect map drawn from experts' knowledge to identify the most effective instrument mix for the development of the niche studied. The major needs emerged in the case investigated are for an increase of actors' expectations towards the further development of the sector, and a need for a tailored networking activity, devoted to attracting specific knowledgeable actors. The results indicate that, among others, effective policy instruments are, in this case, the cooperation that has the best outcome in terms of networking, and the public procurement, which remarkably increases the level of expectation. The analysis presented constitutes a model to evaluate single policy drivers and their combinations to find adequate policy actions to promote the green energy transition in times of crisis