Productivity Spillovers from Foreign MNEs on Domestic Manufacturing Firms: Is Co-location Always a Plus?

The paper analyses productivity spillovers from foreign MNEs on domestic manufacturing firms. Using a database on foreign MNEs in Italy, our results reveal that local firms do benefit from the presence of foreign MNEs, and the effect is higher when local and foreign firms in manufacturing sectors are co-located. However, spillovers benefiting domestic firms are likely to be less influenced by co-location when foreign MNEs are in services sectors as the latter are different from manufacturing industries under a number of aspects that overcome the effect of distance. Indeed, in these sectors, proximity and interaction are often obtained through professional mobility and temporary inter-organizational routines.Multinational Firms, Co-Location, Proximity, Spillover Effects, Customer-Supplier Interaction, Vertical Linkages

The firm-specific determinants of agglomeration: a comparison

This paper deals with the agglomeration of economic activities in Italy. By using the Guimaraes et al. [2004] version of the Ellison & Glaeser [1994] index, we test the hypothesis that the determinants of agglomeration differ in significance, intensity and sign between multinational and national firms. The data concerning the agglomeration of 112 manufacturing and mining industries, computed over the 686 Italian Local Labor Systems (SLL) in the year 2001, show that some agglomeration forces are industry-specific while some others are firm-specific. Indeed, on the one hand the industrial concentration and the inter-industry externalities seem to act as centripetal forces for all types of enterprises, on the other hand the intra-industry spillovers appear to favor the agglomeration of only multinational firms, while acting as centrifugal force both for the clustering of national firms and for the co-agglomeration between foreign and domestic enterprises. This result suggests that the possibility of knowledge transmission between firms belonging to the same industry may discourage the most advanced enterprises to co-locate with the less innovative firms. The main policy implication is that a high Intellectual Property Regime (IPR) is preferred to a low protection of intellectual property, since in the latter case the co-agglomeration does not occur and multinational and national firms do no interact and do not exchange knowledge, while in the former scenario domestic and foreign enterprises co-locate, and even if the high IPR limit the transfer of knowledge, other mechanisms, such as the labor turnover, may occur and promote knowledge spillovers between firms

The Internationalization of Production by Italian Industrial Districts' Firms: Structural and Behavioural Determinants

The paper argues that structural and behavioural determinants combine to influence internationalisation of production through FDI by industrial districts' firms. As far as the former, leadership effects, represented by the presence of large firms within the district, and Porterian effects, denoted by the intensity of domestic rivalry, positively influence the likelihood that district firms will start internationalise through FDI. Moreover, spillovers induced by the presence of foreign-owned MNCs positively impact on the district's degree of internationalisation, provided it has already autonomously developed the ability to grow internationally. As far as behavioural features, previous export relationships increase the district firms' likelihood of undertaking FDI, while innovative capacity joins and strengthens internationalisation processes already started

The divestment-reinvestment sequence in foreign countries: The role of relational vs. transactional ownership

In this paper, we claim that ownership is a key determinant of the firms' divestment-reinvestment sequence in a foreign country. Building on the notion of ‘relational vs. transactional ownership’, we distinguish between relational-type firms (namely, family-owned and state-owned firms), and transactional-type firms (privately non-family-owned firms). We argue that relational-type firms are less likely to both divest from, and reinvest in, a given foreign country. In fact, relational owners set a lower performance threshold of intervention than transactional ones; additionally, in order to turn the tide, the former often increase resource injection when subsidiary performance falls below the threshold. Such an escalation of commitment increases sunk costs and further decreases the likelihood of divesting the subsidiary. Moreover, when a divestment occurs, the memory of high sunk costs incurred reduces the propensity to reinvest in the same host country. We test our conceptual framework on a large sample of investments, divestments and subsequent re-entries undertaken in the period 2000–2015 by 602 Italian firms. Our econometric findings corroborate our hypotheses, thus contributing to the literature on the interdependencies between divestment and reinvestment choices, and their relationships with corporate ownership

High-performance microstrip directional coupler for radio-astronomical receivers at cryogenic temperature

A microstrip directional coupler with high directivity is proposed for microwave applications requiring a weak coupling factor. This component has been used in the L-band radio-astronomical receiver of the Sardinia radio telescope. To improve the performance of the receiver, the operating temperature is lowered to 20 K. An in-house cryostat has been manufactured to perform measurements on the directional coupler, and very good agreement with the design specification is achieved

Stage-discharge relationship in tidal channels

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2016. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Limnology and Oceanography: Methods 15 (2017): 394–407, doi:10.1002/lom3.10168.Long-term records of the flow of water through tidal channels are essential to constrain the budgets of sediments and biogeochemical compounds in salt marshes. Statistical models which relate discharge to water level allow the estimation of such records from more easily obtained records of water stage in the channel. Here we compare four different types of stage-discharge models, each of which captures different characteristics of the stage-discharge relationship. We estimate and validate each of these models on a two-month long time series of stage and discharge obtained with an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler in a salt marsh channel. We find that the best performance is obtained by models that account for the nonlinear and time-varying nature of the stage-discharge relationship. Good performance can also be obtained from a simplified version of these models, which captures nonlinearity and nonstationarity without the complexity of the fully nonlinear or time-varying models.This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (awards OCE1354251, OCE1354494, and OCE1238212).2018-04-2

Ethylene and Chitosan Affected the Seed Yield Components of Onion Depending More on the Dose than Timing of Application

(1) Background: the production of onion seeds is limited by the competition between seeds and the vegetative organs and by scape lodging. However, information on the effects of plant growth regulation on onion seed production is scarce. Aim of the present study was to evaluate the seed yield components and germination ability of onion seeds as affected by the timing and dose of an ethylene application, a plant growth regulator able to modulate shoot–flower competition; and chitosan, an elicitor of plant defense mechanisms able to increase its tolerance to various stresses. (2) Methods: Onion was treated with ethylene at the recommended dose (100% RD) of a commercial product, at 150% RD in two contrasting phenological phases or untreated (control), or ‘with’ or ‘without’ chitosan, and the seed yield components and germination trend were measured. (3) Results: 100% RD at an early phase of growth did not influence the seed yield and increased the thousand seed weight (TSW) by 3.2%. The application of 150% RD decreased the seed yield by 33.5%, and this occurred irrespective of the timing of application. Such decreases were due to a reduction in the number of seeds per flower. The application of chitosan did not affect the crop at 100% RD and increased the seed yield and slightly increased, but not significantly, the TSW under 150% RD. Germination of the fresh seed was 92%, and 17 months of aging reduced it by 14%, with no effects of the treatments on the germination pattern. (4) Conclusions: the ethylene application mostly affected TSW but not the yield, whereas high doses of ethylene reduced yields irrespective of the timing of application. Such a result may have been due to a delay in the flowering onset that occurred in a relatively dry month. Chitosan sustained its yield when the yield potential was reduced by 150% RD, and such a result was likely due to physical protection from the transpiration since the synthetic fungicides applied did not likely allow the pathogens to infections. These results have implications for establishing the timing and dose of application of plant growth regulators and elicitors in seed onions to sustain the seed quality

The role of geographical and temporary proximity in MNEs’ location and intra-firm co-location choices

This paper investigates the role of geographical and temporary proximity in the location and co-location decisions of new manufacturing activities by foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs). Empirical analysis confirms that foreign MNEs co-locate their new manufacturing plants with their plants already operating in the same activity, while geographical proximity exerts a much weaker role when the latter operate in other manufacturing and services activities. This is especially true in the case of knowledge intensive business services, where temporary proximity is more easily obtainable through the travelling and meeting of professionals. Moreover, a spatial econometric extension of our analysis confirms a geographical decay effect for intra-firm co-location with activities located in contiguous provinces

Software per la caratterizzazione e l’integrazione nel sistema di osservazione del SRT del ricevitore banda Q - Relazione Tecnica

Il presente documento ha l’obiettivo di descrivere la struttura interna e le funzionalità del software denominato calibrate-multifeed-receiver, realizzato per agevolare la caratterizzazione e l’integrazione di un ricevitore. In particolare, questo software si focalizza sul ricevitore in banda Q che sarà posto nel sistema di osservazione del SRT Sardinia Radio Telescope. Si andrà dapprima a descrivere il setup hardware del sistema (Anritsu MS2830A), verranno poi introdotti e descritti (i) il package implementato in Python 3, (ii) l’interfaccia grafica scritta in Tk per facilitare l’operatore e (iii) la classe Python che si occupa di gestire l’hardware remoto