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This paper investigates the factors (such as different sources of financing, energy audits and internal monitoring activities) affecting the propensity of European small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to adopt energy efficiency measures (EEMs). For this purpose, a Probit model is estimated using data from the 2017 Flash Eurobarometer survey covering a large sample of European firms. The analysis is carried out for the full sample as well as for clusters based on an environmental performance index (EPI) and on the level of economic development in turn. The results indicate that internal financing always has a positive effect on a firm's propensity to adopt EEMs. Private external sources of financing appear to be more important for Western European firms as well as for those located in countries with a greater level of environmental awareness; in the latter, when firms combine private financing with energy audits or internal monitoring activities the propensity to adopt EEMs increases further. By contrast, in the Eastern Countries this occurs when firms simultaneously rely on public funds and monitoring activities.

Utilizzando dati censuari a livello di Sistema Locale del Lavoro, analizziamo l’effetto della struttura produttiva locale sulla crescita dell’occupazione in Italia durante il periodo 1981- 2008. L’Italia rappresenta un caso di studio interessante data l’elevata eterogeneità spaziale nelle performance del mercato del lavoro e la forte presenza di distretti industriali, aree altamente specializzate in cui le economie Marshalliane tendono ad amplificarsi. L’analisi empirica, condotta attraverso l’uso di modelli semiparametrici geoadditivi, consente di identificare importanti non linearità nella relazione tra la struttura produttiva locale e la crescita dell’occupazione, di verificare la performance relativa dei distretti industriali e di controllare l’effetto dell’eterogeneità spaziale non osservata.

Using local labor systems (LLSs) data, we assess the effect of the local productive structure on employment growth in Italy during the period 1981–2008. Italy represents an interesting case study because of the high degree of spatial heterogeneity in local labor market performances and of the presence of strongly specialized LLSs (industrial districts). Building on semi-parametric geoadditive models, our empirical investigation allows us to identify important nonlinearities in the relationship between local industry structure and local employment growth to assess the relative performance of industrial districts and to control for unobserved spatial heterogeneity.

Although R&D activities can be efective means for frms to develop their innova tion capacity, the current understanding of which informal institutions afect frms’ propensity to invest in R&D remains limited, especially in emerging and less-devel oped countries. Using a large sample of transition countries, this work investigates whether family ownership and political connections infuence the frm’s propensity to invest in R&D, as well as in a specifc type of open innovation (OI) strategy (i.e. performing simultaneously internal and external R&D activities). According to our evidence, both informal institutions seem encouraging frms to invest in R&D. Moreover, family and political connections appear increasing the engagement in the aforementioned OI strategy. Finally, the two kinds of networks seem to substitute each other in boosting the probability of investing in internal and external R&D activities.

This paper investigates the factors (such as different sources of financing, energy audits and internal monitoring activities) affecting the propensity of European small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to adopt energy saving measures (ES). For this purpose, a Probit model is estimated using data from the 2017 Flash Eurobarometer survey covering a large sample of European firms. The analysis is carried out for the full sample as well as for clusters based on an environmental performance index (EPI) and on the level of economic development in turn. The results indicate that internal financing always has a positive effect on a firm's propensity to adopt ES. Private external sources of financing appear to be more important for Western European firms as well as for those located in countries with a greater level of environmental awareness; in the latter, when firms combine private financing with energy audits or internal monitoring activities the propensity to adopt ES increases further. By contrast, in the Eastern Countries this occurs when firms simultaneously rely on public funds and monitoring activities.

This work explores the relationship between R&D activities, as well as cooperation agreements, and the innovation capacity of service firms. Accounting for interdependencies among variable, we verify whether external research is complementary or substitute for the internal research ac-tivities, and whether the combination of external and internal sources of knowledge has a stronger impact on the innovation capacity of the science-based service industries. We also evaluate the gains from performing both internal and external R&D in science-based firms in-volved in cooperation agreements for innovation. Finally, to our knowledge, this work repre-sents the first attempt to investigate the impact of several sources of knowledge and their combi-nation on firms’ innovation intensity. According to our findings, the most important source of innovation is the internal one. Collaborations with public or private institutions seem to be more beneficial for firms involved in more intense innovation activities.

Recent literature has outlined that many countries are characterized by regional heterogeneity in terms of both economic growth and legal and financial characteristics. Moreover, the local level of law enforcement, the habits to cooperate, the diffusion of corruption affect the ability of firms to access to external finance fostering firm growth. Based on a large panel of Italian manufacturing SMEs, examined over the period 2002-2012, this empirical investigation tries to test the impact on firm growth of institutions as a whole, as well as the effects connected to the single components of the Institutional Quality Index elaborated by Nifo and Vecchione (2015) for the Italian provinces. The results show that firm growth in the South is positively affected by the proper functioning of the entire system of local institutions. Conversely, when we consider the role of the single components of the synthetic index our outcomes show that for the Italian regions, and especially for the South, the law enforcement appears the main component leading to a positive institution-firm growth nexus

This study analyzes the extent to which small firms’ capital structure decisions may be affected by cross-regional variations in the structure of the banking market, as well as cross-regional variation in economic growth and firm characterstics. Such factors are likely to be significant in countries (a) where banks represent the most important source of external finance for firms, (b) with a high proportion of small and medium-sized firms, and (c) with significant contrasts in regional economic development. This work contributes to the empirical literature on small firms leverage by adopting a more fine-grained geographical focus—i.e. the county level rather than the regional one. Using a large panel dataset of Italian small and medium sized firms over a 14-year period (2002-2012), we compare the results of our analysis on the total sample with those on the subsample of Southern Italian firms. Our findings seem to show that in Italy, mainstream financial institutions are scantly able to provide affordable credit facilities to small firms. In addition, in less economically advanced regions, the structure of local banking system could mitigate this problem. Indeed, our findings show the positive role played by local cooperative banks, especially in Southern regions, in improving the ability of small firms to access to external finance.

We use a large firm-level panel data set to analyze the relevance of liquidity constraints on firm growth in Italy. In most European countries mainstream financial institutions are scantly able to provide affordable credit facilities to small firms. Thus, these firms are forced to finance their growth almost exclusively through retained earnings. We estimate a dynamic version of Gibrat-law,incorporating cash flow as a measure of financial constraints, for two different size classes within SME and for several industries in manufacturing and service sectors. The findings show that, in general, small manufacturing firms have higher growth-cash flow sensitivities with respect to medium firms. Conversely, our results highlight, for the services, a significant heterogeneity in the impact of liquidity constraints on firm growth. In particular, the sensitivity of growth rates to the cash flow appear relatively high for small firms belonging to Knowledge Intensive Business Services. Validation of Gibrat-law in the services suggests that an important group of industries, with a superior capacity of encouraging firm’s competitiveness, need more financial resources to promote their growth and that of the manufacturing sectors with whom they are connected.

This work represents a first attempt to study the effects of financial constraints on firm growth within the business services as it can be argued that firms are different not only in terms of size but also in the way they operate in a specific industry. Thus, firms can be either characterized by the use of intensive professional knowledge or, alternatively, by the use of a workforce with no specific professional skills. For the business services included, the results reveal the relative importance of internal sources of financing with respect to the external ones. The liquidity constraints mainly affect the growth of industries requiring qualified labor pool, such as computer programming and information service activities, as well as the professional and scientific ones. In these sectors, foremost operate small firms with a superior innovation capacity; therefore, they are considered risky and face difficulties in raising debt capital on favorable terms.