Empirical Evidence on the North-South Trade Flows: an Augmented Gravity Model

Abstract In this paper we analyse the determinants of the trade flows between Developed and Developing Countries using an augmented version of the Gravity Equation. We add two extra variables: the technological distance and the bilateral real exchange rate (RER). The former allows us to analyse the impact of the technological gap on trade structure, the latter to study the movement in the relative prices and their impact on trade pattern. We estimate a Fixed Effects Model (FEM) for different groups of countries. The sign and the numerical value of the coefficients of GDP and Population are different when we analyse separately emerging countries as importers or exporters. This result supports the assumption that determinants of trade, for the two areas (Developed vs Emerging Countries), are not the same. Moreover, as expected, the geographical and the technological distance appear as barriers to trade, and the positive effect on export of a devaluation of the bilateral real exchange rate is confirmed by our results.Gravity Models, Panel Analysis, Exchange Rate, Technological Gap

Market Equilibrium in the Presence of Green Consumers and Responsible Firms: a Comparative Statics Analysis

This paper analyzes how the interaction between green consumers and responsible firms affects the market equilibrium. The main result is that a higher responsibility by both producers and consumers can have different impacts on the efficiency of the firms' abatement activity, depending on the nature of the cleaning costs. When the abatement costs are fixed, the efficiency of the clean-up effort is always increasing in their degree of responsibility. On the other hand, when the abatement costs are variable, a higher level of responsibility may reduce social welfare. Finally, the first best allocation is never reached, even in the presence of the highest credible level of responsibility of both consumers and producers.Green Consumers, Corporate Social Responsibility, Vertical Differentiation

Market Equilibrium in the Presence of Green Consumers and Responsible Firms: A Comparative Statics Analysis

This paper analyzes how the interaction between green consumers and responsible firms affects the market equilibrium. The main result is that a higher responsibility by both producers and consumers can have different impacts on the efficiency of the firms’ abatement activity, depending on the nature of the cleaning costs. When the abatement costs are fixed, the efficiency of the clean-up effort is always increasing in their degree of responsibility. On the other hand, when the abatement costs are variable, a higher level of responsibility may reduce social welfare. Finally, the first best allocation is never reached, even in the presence of the highest credible level of responsibility of both consumers and producers.Green Consumers, Corporate Social Responsibility, Vertical Differentiation

Heterogeneity in Managerial Strategies and Internationalization of Firms: the case of Italy

The recent empirical literature on firms’ performance has focused on the multidimensional concept of firms’ managerial strategies. In this paper, we analyze the relationship between firms’ managerial strategies and firms’ performance, accounting for entrepreneur’s specific characteristics, firm’s strategies, organizational capabilities. We also emphasize the role of firms’ internationalization mode. We match and merge three different datasets for Italy, the Capitalia survey, ICE-Reprint and AIDA for the period 2001-2003 and investigate a possible non-linear impact of managerial strategies on firms’ erformance. The specific characteristics of the entrepreneur do not seem to significantly affect firms’ performance, while the mode of internationalization plays a role. We find evidence of some important non linearities when we single out the role of skilled workers and managers in determining firm’s success in highly competitive markets.Managerial Strategies, Internationalization, Panel Analysis, Non-linearities

Location, Internationalization and Performance of Firms in Italy: a Multilevel Approach

Competition is increasingly crossing borders. However, location still matters: the most successful competitors in an industry often cluster in the same geographic areas and companies use the advantages of location to compete at a global level. When competing across borders, firms can coordinate among different activities in a variety of ways to harness network advantages. This paper analyses how Italian firms’ performance, proxied by their propensity to export, depends both on geographical and institutional context and on individual characteristics. Using a multilevel model, we estimate and distinguish the effect of individual (firm level) and context variables (province level) on the performance of internationalized Italian firms.Exports, Multilevel Model, Heterogeneity

Empirical Evidence on the North-South Trade Flows: an Augmented Gravity Model

Abstract In this paper we analyse the determinants of the trade flows between Developed and Developing Countries using an augmented version of the Gravity Equation. We add two extra variables: the technological distance and the bilateral real exchange rate (RER). The former allows us to analyse the impact of the technological gap on trade structure, the latter to study the movement in the relative prices and their impact on trade pattern. We estimate a Fixed Effects Model (FEM) for different groups of countries. The sign and the numerical value of the coefficients of GDP and Population are different when we analyse separately emerging countries as importers or exporters. This result supports the assumption that determinants of trade, for the two areas (Developed vs Emerging Countries), are not the same. Moreover, as expected, the geographical and the technological distance appear as barriers to trade, and the positive effect on export of a devaluation of the bilateral real exchange rate is confirmed by our results

From FDI network topology to macroeconomic instability

© 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. Fragmentation of production undoubtedly constitutes a possible channel of economic contagion and could play a key role in the study of systemic risk. Investments abroad implicitly create long-range economic dependencies between investors and the economies of destination, possibly triggering contagion phenomena. Complex network theory is a primary tool for highlighting economic mutual relationships and paths of contagion, shedding light on intrinsic systemic risks. In this paper, we reconstruct the EU28 foreign direct investments network and study its evolution from 2003 to 2015. Our analysis aims at detecting the changes of topological properties during the crisis, in order to assess how they affected the architecture of economic relationships. Through a detailed study of correlations at different time lags between network measurements and macroeconomic variables, we assess systemic risks. The main findings are: (i) 2009 marks a clear break in network evolution: prior to 2009 the structure was characterized by only one or few hubs/ countries, while in later years a set of connected key nodes emerged; (ii) an increasing heterogeneity is observed in link weights during the entire period analysed (2003–2015); (iii) after 2009, a rewiring of investments is observed towards the EU28 countries that are considered more safe; (iv) time-lagged centrality measures and macroeconomic variables show a clear correlation

Fragmentation of production: New challenges for big data–a complex network approach

© 2019 Journal of Communications. Globalization is one of the most relevant economic phenomena of the last decades. Due to this reason, the economies of different countries are strongly interconnected. This may lead to higher robustness or higher vulnerability of the whole economic system, depending on the economic scenario. Traditional models are unable to represent the complex relationship among firms. This may lead to a misunderstanding of the complex interconnections between countries, underestimating vulnerability of the world economic system. In this framework, a complex network approach, based on graph theory, is a valuable tool to outline the interdependencies of different countries and their impact on the stability of the whole economic system. Nowadays economic Big Data are available on globalization, helping to have a rigorous approach when shading light on these interdependencies. In this paper, the complex network analysis is applied on a particular shade of globalization, namely fragmentation of production

Empirical Evidence on the North-South Trade Flows: an Augmented Gravity Model

Abstract In this paper we analyse the determinants of the trade flows between Developed and Developing Countries using an augmented version of the Gravity Equation. We add two extra variables: the technological distance and the bilateral real exchange rate (RER). The former allows us to analyse the impact of the technological gap on trade structure, the latter to study the movement in the relative prices and their impact on trade pattern. We estimate a Fixed Effects Model (FEM) for different groups of countries. The sign and the numerical value of the coefficients of GDP and Population are different when we analyse separately emerging countries as importers or exporters. This result supports the assumption that determinants of trade, for the two areas (Developed vs Emerging Countries), are not the same. Moreover, as expected, the geographical and the technological distance appear as barriers to trade, and the positive effect on export of a devaluation of the bilateral real exchange rate is confirmed by our results