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This paper explores the effects of innovation on firm survival by using data from a representative survey of small and medium manufacturing firms in the province of Salerno, Italy. We innovate upon the literature by (a) comparing the impact of different sources of internal and external knowledge (including universities) on the probability of firm survival; (b) assessing the mediating impact of the human capital of workers and entrepreneurs on learning from these knowledge sources. Finally, we measure the impact of different types of innovation on firm survival. Our evidence upholds the link between innovation and firm survival, particularly for product and organisational innovation. Results regarding the impact of different sources of knowledge highlight the roles of employee training, the human capital of entrepreneurs and workers and the productivity of university departments providing relevant knowledge. Other elements of external knowledge, such as proximity to the University of Salerno or being in the city of Salerno, are significant facilitators of survival only if mediated through high levels of the human capital of entrepreneurs and workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the application to Italy of Goldin's hypothesis that the unexplained gender pay gap is crucially linked to firms' incentive to disproportionately reward individuals who work long and particular hours. The study draws mainly on Italian responses to the 2014 European Structure of Earnings Survey for data on earnings and the individual characteristics of employees and their employer, but also uses data from the Occupational Information Network and the Italian Sample Survey on Professions to measure characteristics reflecting the work context within occupations. For graduate and non-graduate workers, the results reveal a positive relationship between various measures of the unexplained gender pay gap and the elasticity of earnings with respect to work hours. For graduate workers, in accordance with Goldin's hypothesis, both these variables are correlated with the occupational characteristics that impose earnings penalties on workers seeking more workplace flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the effect of Law 81/1993, which introduced a different rule for the election of mayors, on the technical efficiency of Italian cities over the period 1998–2006. Since 1993, municipalities below 15,000 inhabitants vote with a single‐ballot system, whereas cities above 15,000 inhabitants are subject to a double ballot. We first estimate the output‐oriented technical efficiency of municipalities through data envelopment analysis, and then we perform a regression discontinuity design analysis by exploiting the exogenous change in the electoral scheme at the 15,000 inhabitants cut‐off. We find evidence that municipalities voting under a double‐ballot rule show lower levels of efficiency—in terms of provision of public goods—compared with cities voting under a single‐ballot scheme, by about 6.5%. This effect is driven by inefficiencies registered in specific sectors, that is, police, education, and maintenance of roads. Furthermore, the overall lower efficiency of municipalities voting under runoff is related to the different level of educational attainment of elected mayors, whereas it is not driven by the features of Law 81/1993 relating to the number of lists forming a coalition in support of mayoral candidates and to disjoint votes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a panel ARDL approach, we appraise the impact of various indicators of active and passive labour-market policies within the framework of the Beveridge curve across fourteen OECD countries from 1985 to 2013, controlling for other factors, both institutional (tax wedge) and structural (technological progress, globalization). We embed the role of these variables within the specification of the Beveridge curve, finding that the generosity of unemployment benefits has a detrimental impact on labour-market matching, with the duration of benefits and the strictness of the rules pertaining to the deployment of benefits taking a key role in driving this result. Among active labour-market policies, employment incentives and especially training have a favourable effect on matching. There is evidence of a virtuous interaction between active and passive policies. A significantly detrimental role emerges for the tax wedge. These results are consistent across various specifications, and structural relationships are stable throughout the 2008-2013 period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assess the impact of regional policies on the economies of the 20 Italian regions for the period 1994–2016. We adopt a control function approach incorporating the funds' allocation rules and ascertain the impact of various policy funds in four sectors (agriculture, industry, construction and services) through a multi-input multi-output transformation function. We find that European Structural and Investment Funds have a significant impact on various sectoral components of regional gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, with the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) playing the strongest role. Nationally funded regional policies do not have an aggregate impact but affect the sectoral composition of GDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Panel analysis, which is used to examine the impact of public capital on regional growth in Italy, is examined.

A study was conducted to analyze the role of demand and supply-side factors like labor market adjustment, productive efficiency, in explaining economic growth. The analysis reveals that a strong role is played by such efficiency-enhancing factors as technology innovation, bank diffusion, and social capital.