BEYOND COMPLIANCE: FIRMS’ ENVIRONMENTAL BEHAVIOUR. A SURVEY

The relationship between firms and environment is complex. The impact that firms have on the environment include the use of primary resources to make products and the production of wastes and emissions. The impact of firms’ products on the environment, moreover, is not negligible. Environmental laws cannot, and should not, prescribe every decision taken by every business. Rather, consideration of environmental issues should be part of good business practice. Firms have, in fact, more than one reason for adopting environmentally responsible behaviour. This paper surveys the literature that analyze the circumstances under which firms can reconcile the apparently competing goals of increasing the expected value of their activity and internalizing external costs doing more than they are required to do under laws and regulations.Environment, externalities, social responsibility

THE ROLE OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR: AN UNRESOLVED PARADOX

Business activity and consumption activities are recognised as impacting, often negatively, on the environment. The challenge of ‘satisfying the needs of the present generation without compromising the chance for future generations to satisfy theirs’ requires, however, contributions by all societal actors. A growing number of firms “overcomply” with environmental regulation for several reasons. Firms satisfy consumer demand and try to shape that demand. In doing so, they may create a taste for environment protection and sustainability. Corporate social responsibility has received considerable attention. The concept of ‘consumer social responsibility’ has received comparatively little attention probably because of the dominance of the notion of consumer sovereignty. If consumers’ perception of corporate social responsibility practices drives their purchase behaviour, firms are motivated to invest in socially responsible practices. However, there exists a wide gap between positive attitudes toward social responsibility and actual purchase behaviours. This paper tries to shed some light on what affects individuals’ perceptions about their responsibilities as citizens/consumers and their consumption behaviour.Environment, Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility, Consumer Sovereignty, Consumer Social Responsibility, Preferences, Social norms

AN EXHAUSTIVE COEFFICIENT OF RANK CORRELATION

Rank association is a fundamental tool for expressing dependence in cases in which data are arranged in order. Measures of rank correlation have been accumulated in several contexts for more than a century and we were able to cite more than thirty of these coefficients, from simple ones to relatively complicated definitions invoking one or more systems of weights. However, only a few of these can actually be considered to be admissible substitutes for Pearson’s correlation. The main drawback with the vast majority of coefficients is their “resistance-tochange” which appears to be of limited value for the purposes of rank comparisons that are intrinsically robust. In this article, a new nonparametric correlation coefficient is defined that is based on the principle of maximization of a ratio of two ranks. In comparing it with existing rank correlations, it was found to have extremely high sensitivity to permutation patterns. We have illustrated the potential improvement that our index can provide in economic contexts by comparing published results with those obtained through the use of this new index. The success that we have had suggests that our index may have important applications wherever the discriminatory power of the rank correlation coefficient should be particularly strong.Ordinal data, Nonparametric agreement, Economic applications

CAN GENDER QUOTAS BREAK DOWN NEGATIVE STEREOTYPES? EVIDENCE FROM CHANGES IN ELECTORAL RULES

In this paper we analyse the effect of gender quotas on women involvement in political activity using a rich data set providing information on all Italian local administrators elected from 1985 to 2007. Gender quotas were introduced in Italy by law in 1993 and were in force until 1995. Because of the short period covered by the reform, some municipalities never voted under the gender quota regime. This allows us to individuate a treatment and a control group and to estimate the effects of gender quotas using a difference-in-differences estimation strategy. Our estimates show that women representation in politics after the reform has increased significantly more in municipalities that were interested by the reform compared to municipalities that were not affected. This result holds true also if we exclude from our analysis elections taking place during the period in which the reform was in force. Moreover, the higher women representation in “Gender Quota Municipalities” is not related to the advantages that women elected during the reform have obtained from incumbency and does not seem to be driven by different temporal trends among Southern and Northern regions. These findings suggest that affirmative actions are useful to break down stereotypes against women.Affirmative Actions, Gender Quotas, Discrimination, Stereotypes, Politicians, Natural Experiment

The interest in online museum experiences and the influence of uncertainty and sentiment factors on tourist arrivals: The case of EU Mediterranean countries

This study examines the determinants of tourist arrivals at hotels and short-stay accommodations for nine EU countries from January 2010 to March 2022. We identify four driving channels of foreign and domestic tourism flows: a traditional, a sentiment, a technological and a health channel. The latter comprises two novel variables: the museum search interest and the infectious disease equity market volatility tracker. The results reveal that traditional and new drivers related to market sentiments and interest in online tourism experiences affect arrivals. Notably, there is a substitution effect between online and in-presence tourism, and the larger the uncertainty, the more substantial the reduction in tourist arrivals. COVID-19 has affected especially Spain and Italy and more foreign than domestic tourists

Subjective and Objective Well-Being: Bridging the Gap

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between multidimensional objective well-being and people’s happiness. Differing from previous economic studies, mainly focused on the effect of production and «one-variable» measures of socio-demographic factors on happiness, we account for the multidimensional nature of people’s objective well-being by resorting to a recently-created composite index of progress. It combines ten synthetic sub-indicators, each describing a respective dimension of objective well-being, computed by combining 57 elementary macroeconomic and social variables. Using a panel setting, our findings provide evidence of a positive and significant relationship between subjective and multidimensional objective well-being and its domains. Results suggest that improving the quality of the exogenous conditions that determine economic and social progress may contribute to enhancing the subjective well-being of individuals living in an area, which is the ultimate goal of welfare policies.JRC.I.1-Monitoring, Indicators & Impact Evaluatio

Survey of neonatal respiratory care and surfactant administration in very preterm infants in the Italian neonatal network

Introduction: Variation of respiratory care is described between centers around the world.The Italian Neonatal Network (INN), as a national group of the Vermont-Oxford Network (VON) allows to perform a wide analysis of respiratory care in very low birth weight infants. Methods:We analyzed the dataset of infants enrolled in the INN in 2009 and 2010 and, for surfactant administration only, from 2006 to 2010 from 83 participating centers. All definitions are those of the (VON). A questionnaire analysis was also performed with a questionnaire on centers practices. Results: We report data for 8297 infants. Data on ventilator practices and outcomes are outlined. Variation for both practices and outcome is found. Trend in surfactant administration is also analyzed. Conclusions. The great variation across hospitals in all the surveyed techniques points to the possibility of implementing potentially better practices with the aim of reducing unwanted variation. These data also show the power of large neonatal networks in identifying areas for potential improvement. \ua9 Mattioli 1885