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Italy is a country with a very rich biodiversity heritage, wonderful synthesis of a territory characterized by a consolidated agro-food tradition. In this context, Sicily plays a leading role with a wide supply of quality agri-food products based on strong relationship with the territory and marked by a high potential for specificity. Despite the socio-economic and environmental value of these productions is widely-accepted, they often suffer a low level of protection and support which greatly limit the possibilities of development and, in some cases, even survival. The paper, which present a short review of Sicilian traditional horticultural production, aims at identifying the specificity of local systems based on the cultivation of some horticultural local cultivars (Cavolfiore violetto Natalino, Cavolo Rapa di Acireale, Fava di Leonforte, and Cipolla di Giarratana) in centre and eastern areas of island. Crops were selected on the basis of two main criteria such as the characterization of the product (reputation) and the genetic specificity. The study tries to verify the presence of relational systems through the characterization of collective relationship among social and economic actors involved all over the chain (filiere).

Given the regional dimension has become an extremely widespread concern in recent investigations of agro-food economics, this study aims at detecting extra-virgin olive oil's main attributes through a qualitative analysis of consumer behaviour in Sicily and in some Italian metropolitan areas (Rome and Milan), in order to identify the main variables that affect local with respect to regional production. The paper's aim is to inform olive oil stakeholders about consumer preferences regarding extra-virgin olive oil attributes, that include area of origin, geographical designation (PDO and PGI), organic certification and price. The aforementioned attributes constitute an additional factor of overall perceived quality, and verify if the perception of quality varies among consumers in different geographic areas. Findings emphasise the leading role that price plays and highlights how Italian olive oil consumers are positively influenced by an organic method of production and PDO certification. Furthermore, consumers from traditional olive oil production areas tend to identify their local extra-virgin olive oil as superior to others. Consumers from areas not traditionally olive oil producers consider price to be an indicator of quality and often purchase more expensive extra-virgin olive oil.

The concept of profitability has been widely debated in the international scientific economic community but there are few studies which contribute to connecting the profitability of micro and small agro-food holdings in PDO or PGI areas with their ability to stay afloat in a competitive market. This study compares the economic results of quality wine grape producers in Sicily providing an analysis of the impact and consequences of raised economic performance in local vine-grower economies. Economic indicators were employed to compare the profitability in two PDO areas, verifying if micro and small size farm quite remain competitive in an increasingly concentrated wine market. Detailed survey data was collected in 2 of the most important Sicilian PDO wine areas, showing the first results of some economic indicators which compare the vine-growing processes in each geographic area and evaluate the profitability of a sample of small grape producers. To evaluate the remuneration of capital and the ability of smallholder to compete in a global market, average farm profitability expressed as farm net value for each homogeneous area was calculated taking into account production costs and total output. Despite several studies demonstrating that PDO certification increases costs and profits our study reveals how DO does not always ensure adequate profitability for micro and small vine growers. The production and sale of unprocessed grapes does not provide any value-added products and local producers do not gain additional remuneration for the intangible components of their PDO grapes. Further analysis has required exploring to what extent these results are caused by increasing costs or by an inefficient market structure., Original scientific paper

In recent years EU agricultural system have been characterized by several development patterns and different policies tools have been adopted by each country as a means to reach economic development in rural regions, above all in advanced countries. The recognition of agricultural and territorial systems is essential to define regional development programs, especially in a period when the new rural development policies are going to be designed and planned. Present research tries to identify and analyse main structural models of “agricultures” within European Union, whose classification could be useful as decision tool to define policies of intervention, in view of new programming period (CAP 2014-2020). The research is focused on the analysis of agricultural features in 247 regional areas (NUTS 2) of all European countries and has been carried out adopting a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to identify main factors that differentiate agricultural systems in EU countries, taking into account a specific group-set of social and economic indicators. Afterward, by applying cluster analysis on the results of PCA, we classified the different regional areas into homogenous groups. The results allow a general classification of “homogeneous agricultural areas”,, whose categorization may be useful for better understanding characteristics of the European Union countryside and better orientate ongoing planning of new CAP.

In this paper we build up the analysis of La Porta et al. (1998), to investigate the importance of legal families in explaining the variations in pollution emissions in different countries. The main intuition behind our analysis is that the nations in which the rights of shareholders are more protected, promote real and financial investment; this increases the speed at which the per-capita income corresponding to the declining branch of the Environmental Kutznets Curve (EKC) is achieved. In econometrics different regression analyses were performed using as dependent variables three different kinds of pollutants (CO2, fine suspended particulates and waste), including as an explanation some financial variables never before considered in this kind of study.

In this article we apply and extend the model elaborated by Acemoglu and Verdier in their seminal paper (2000), to examine how the economy represented in their theoretical framework responds to an exogenous change in the agent's incentive. In particular, we focus on the consequences of a famous sentence of the Italian Supreme Court in plenary session, no. 500 of 1999, in which a revolutionary interpretation of civil liability rules is introduced, allowing private agents of our economy to appear before the court to demand reimbursement for the damages suffered as a consequence of illicit behavior of the public administration. This is one of the few cases in which the judex substantially makes law in a system of civil law, and the modification in incentive whether or not to be corrupted comes from an authority that is not part of the game (the jurisdictional power). Basing our affirmations on the model, we can say that corruption may have declined in Italy since the year 2000, as a result of a change in the incentives for both private agents and bureaucrats.

In this paper we study the problem of exhaustible resources and renewable resources in a theoretical endogenous growth framework, under various assumptions. In particular, we consider the hypotheses that those two inputs are or are not technologically perfect substitutes of each other. Moreover, we develop the starting model accounting for the negative externality of waste accumulation. Finally, a comparative analysis is made between Pigouvian tax and waste recycling as an environmental policy to internalize the negative externality represented by refuse accumulation.

In this paper we use Pindyck's model (2002) to show that the discount rate may play an important role in explaining for the income-pollution pattern observed in the real world. Low levels of income involve high values of discount rate, that are obstacles to the adoption of a pollution abatement policy. Only when the discount rate falls, as a consequence of growth, will it be possible to implement measures for emissions reduction. Thus we are able to derive an inverse U-shaped income-pollution pattern, making use of an argument that has never yet been introduced in the economic debate on this issue.