Exchange operational costs and long-term relationship between firms

Long-term contracts; Transaction costs; Inter-firm relationships; Asset specifity

Assessing the determinants of fast growth in Italy

Few firms grow in a rapid way, but their contribution to employment growth is often impressive. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze both external and internal factors which can affect the probability of being a high-growth firm (HGF) in Italy. We found that HGFs are on average young firms and are present in different sectors, but the role of demand is important to understand their performance at sectoral level. Moreover, our findings show that financial constraints and profitability are not associated with the probability of being a fast-growing firm. HGFs, on average, are characterised by high productivity, but only when growth is measured in terms of sales. The most original results of this study concerns endogenous determinants of fast growth, which have not so far been adequately examined in the literature. First, we found that the concentration of ownership is important for HGFs that grow in sales. Second, the quality of human capital is a strong point for firms experiencing rapid employment growth.: high-growth firms, firm growth, human capital, rapid firm growth

Firm size and growth opportunities: a survey

The qualifying aspect of the ongoing changes in firm growth processes seems to be the increased heterogeneity of size and a trend towards a broader fluctuation in average size. Exogenous factors (market size, demand trends, technological innovations, higher competition) determine a different impact on firms will to increase their own size, while endogenous variables play a greater role than in the past. The outcome is represented by a growth pattern that characterises some firms, but not all of them. Growth appear to be an asymmetric phenomenon, involving selectively but not casually a subgroup of firms. In the present paper it is hypothesized that growth stems from the asymmetric distribution of internalized resources (both material and immaterial), allowing some firms (regardless of the original size) to enter evolutionary paths that others don’t want or simply can’t enter.Firm Growth, Size Distribution, Gibrat’s Law, Industrial Dynamics, Human Capital, Intangible Assets, Industrial Policy

Social capital, local institutions, and cooperation between firms

There are many different reasons behind cooperation between firms and many possible interpretations are assumed to be based on an assessment of endogenous benefits of collective action directly generated by taking part in a joint project. This paper attempts at verifying the interpretative capacity of models analysing the cooperation between firms using not only technological or organisational factors and rivalry between firms, but also some proxy variables of social capital, of experience accumulation in collective action and of institutional capacity for initiative. The specific aim of our work is hence that of providing an interpretation of Italian inter-province differentials in the propensity of inter-firm cooperation.35

RNA Interference Approaches and Assessment of New Delivery Systems to Target Heparanase in Soft-tissue Sarcomas

Soft tissue sarcomas are rare tumours of mesenchymal origin characterised by high biomolecular complexity and heterogeneity. The clinical management of advanced diseases remains a major challenge which needs new therapeutic strategies. Mounting evidence supports that the heparanase/heparan sulfate proteoglycan system plays a key role in sustaining tumour progression and dissemination and preclinical studies suggest its potential relevance as a therapeutic target. To better understand the specific role of heparanase, we performed RNA interference in rhabdoid tumour and synovial sarcoma models, and assessed the functional effects of heparanase silencing. We tested both miRNA and siRNA targeting heparanase, but only siRNAs were able to silence mRNA and down-regulate the protein following transient transfection. The reduced expression and enzymatic activity of secreted heparanase observed upon siRNA transfection were consistent with a strong inhibition of cell migration and invasion capability. The expression of pro-angiogenic factors was also reduced both in rhabdoid tumour and synovial sarcoma cell lines. In contrast, we observed that heparanase localised in specific subcellular compartments was resistant to the siRNA effect. The clinical application of siRNA-based therapeutic strategies faces significant challenges, mainly due to siRNA in vivo poor stability and inefficient delivery. In this work, we evaluated the use of different nanodelivery systems aimed at overcoming these limitations. The first approach consisted of hybrid nanoparticles with a silica core and a pH-responsive hydrogel shell. These nanoparticles showed promising features, such as remarkable loading and efficient release of siRNA, endo-lysosomal escape and in vivo accumulation at the tumour site. Nevertheless, siRNA delivered through this approach did not inhibit heparanase expression. The second nanodelivery system was leukosome, a biomimetic nanoparticle with leukocyte proteins included in a phospholipidic bilayer. Leukosomes efficiently delivered siRNA into the cells avoiding the endo-lysosomal entrapment. Moreover, these biomimetic nanoparticles mainly accumulated at the tumour primary and metastatic sites. Despite these promising features, also leukosomes were unable to deliver an active siRNA. Overall, these findings demonstrate that specific inhibition of heparanase by gene silencing is a potential therapeutic approach for soft tissue sarcoma treatment. However, the siRNA delivery systems tested in this work, although promising in terms of tumour and metastasis targeting, still need further improvement to be suitable for nucleic acid delivery

Social Capital, Institutions and Collective Action Between Firms

This work is based on the hypothesis that explanation of collective action between firms requires partly different variables from that used in explaining collective action between individuals. In order to look at the problem of what determines collective action, a model has been built using alongside social capital, the historical tradition of collective action and the activism of institutional actors as explicative variables of associationism between firms. The empirical results confirm the theoretical hypotheses put forward in the first part of the paper. First, social capital, institutional activism and experience accumulation, all together, enhance the propensity to collective action between firms. Each variable plays a significant role in explaining inter-firm co-operation. Secondly, these variables, however, affect the behaviour of small firms while the large ones appear to follow a different pattern of conduct. Thirdly, the empirical findings seem also to suggest that social capital and institutional proactive initiative produce synergic effects on collective action. The two variables reinforce each other in their effects on co-operation. Finally, the positive correlation between social capital and institutional initiative emerging from the empirical results suggests that an increase in the endowment of social capital tends to rise the level of institutional activity and the other way round.social capital, economic institutions, firms co-operation

Histopathological effects of cypermethrin and Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis on midgut of Chironomus calligraphus larvae (Diptera: Chironomidae)

Pesticides are extensively used for the control of agricultural pests and disease vectors, but they also affect non-target organisms. Cypermethrin (CYP) is a synthetic pyrethroid used worldwide. Otherwise, bioinsecticides like Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis (Bti) have received great attention as an environmentally benign and desirable alternative. In order to evaluate the toxicity of those pesticides, Chironomus calligraphus was selected due to its high sensitivity to some toxicants. Third and fourth instars larvae were exposed to serial dilutions of CYP and Bti to determine LC50 values. In order to evaluate the potentially histopathological alterations as biomarkers, after 96-h of exposure, live larvae were fixed for histological analysis of the mid region of digestive tract. The 96-h LC50 values were 0.52 and 1.506 μg/L for CYP and Bti, respectively. Midgut histological structure of the control group showed a single layer of cubical cells with microvilli in their apical surface and a big central nucleus. The midgut epithelium of larvae exposed to a low concentration of CYP (0.037 μg/L) showed secretion activity and vacuolization while at high concentration (0.3 μg/L) cells showed a greater disorganization and a more developed fat body. On the other hand, Bti caused progressive histological damage in this tissue. Chironomus calligraphus is sensitive to Bti and CYP toxicity like other Chironomus species. The histopathological alterations could be a valuable tool to assess toxicity mechanism of different pesticides.Fil: Lavarias, Sabrina Maria Luisa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Limnología "Dr. Raúl A. Ringuelet". Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Limnología; ArgentinaFil: Arrighetti, Florencia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"; ArgentinaFil: Siri, Augusto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Limnología "Dr. Raúl A. Ringuelet". Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Limnología; Argentin

Institutions and co-ordination costs

Economic literature sees the existence of institutions as being justified by market failure. This paper attempts to develop a different hypothesis by linking institutions to the solution of co-ordination dilemmas. According to this line of thought, institutional action is not circumscribed to the supplying of ‘regulative resources’ able to lower uncertainty and limiting the risks of free riding. It includes rather the provision of a vast set of public goods characterised by high complementarity and marked constraints on the continuity of supply. In the production of such goods, the presence of multiplicity of equilibria and high costs of information born by individual agents in formulating a cooperative agreement often makes a decentralised decision-making process impracticable. On the other hand, as we try to show, a central authority (an institutional subject), assuming long term obligations and lowering co-ordination costs, can mitigate collective action problems in a wide range of circumstances