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We propose a novel evaluation strategy to estimate local multipliers in Italy during 1996–2006. We find the presence of positive multipliers: 0.26–0.33 for the tradable sector (manufacturing) and 0.88–1.13 for the non-tradable sector (construction and services). They are lower than what was previously found for the United States but much higher than those identified for European and Asian countries. The reasons for this finding lie in the higher accuracy of the data, in the relevance of the instrument used, and in the widespread underutilization of production factors.

Are place-based policies capable of taking lagging areas to a higher growth trajectory permanently? We answer this crucial question by investigating what happens when strongly subsidized regions experience a substantial reduction in funding. By analysing an extensive database via the mean balancing approach, we estimate the causal impact of exiting the convergence region status of the European Union regional policy. We find that only regions that experienced a considerable reduction in funding during a recession suffered a negative impact on economic growth. However, the impact varies with the features of the regions and the local economic context.

Lutein is a dietary carotenoid preferentially accumulated in the eye and the brain in early life and throughout the life span. Lutein accumulation in areas of high metabolism and oxidative stress such as the eye and the brain suggest a unique role of this ingredient during the development and maturation of these organs of common embryological origin. Lutein is naturally provided to the developing baby via the cord blood, breast milk and then infant diet. The presence of this carotenoid depends on fruit and vegetable intakes and its bioavailability is higher in breastmilk. This paper aims to review the anatomical development of the eye and the brain, explore the presence and selective deposition of lutein in these organs during pregnancy and infancy and, based on its functional characteristics, present the latest available research on the beneficial role of lutein in the pediatric population. The potential effects of lutein in ameliorating conditions associated with increase oxidative stress such as in prematurity will be also addressed. Since consumption of lutein rich foods falls short of government guidelines and in most region of the world infant formulas lack this bioactive, dietary recommendations for pregnant and breastfeeding women and their child can help to bridge the gap.

Most governments tackle the economic issues of underdeveloped areas by offering subsidies aimed at fostering economic activities and local employment. Localized policies put constraints on where businesses may locate to receive subsidies, but they generally place few restrictions on whom subsidized businesses must hire. Using administrative data on firms and workers in Italy, we adopt a multi-cutoff regression discontinuity design to empirically assess and decompose the employment effect of substantial incentives for the replacement or establishment of new capital. Our empirical strategy allows identifying the geographical origin and labor market status of new hires. The results show how the majority of recruits come from new entrants to the labor market, in particular, young people and students, while displacement effects are limited. It appears that subsidized companies tend to keep their most valuable staff and hire more qualified young people. Overall, we find only a modest spatial dispersion of the effects or a possible crowding-out of the local labor market.

We assess the impact of the EU Regional Policy on regional economic growth by applying a new evaluation strategy, which integrates mediation analysis with a quasi-experimental framework. Using the R&D expenditure as an indicator of innovation capability, we evaluate how much of the total effect of the EU Regional Policy is due to R&D in the poorest EU regions. Consistently with the previous literature, we found a positive impact of the overall policy on economic growth, but, among the convergence regions, those investing a higher proportion of funds in R&D have the same convergence rate as regions investing more in other priorities. These findings confirm that the EU Regional Policy played an important role in the economic recovery of the poorest regions in the aftermath of the Great Recession. However, focusing resources on R&D does not seem to provide additional economic benefits, at least in the short run.

A key strategy for supporting destination competitiveness is to enhance endogenous amenities, and tourists are the best candidate to evaluate them at the destination. The analysis in this paper uses a comprehensive data set on foreign travellers to investigate their happiness at Italian destinations between 2005 and 2014. Using a theory-dependent approach to model happiness at the destination with respect to endogenous and exogenous amenities, personal characteristics and trip features, a great diversity in the mix of amenities affecting tourist happiness is shown. However, some clear spatial patterns emerge. The findings call for place-based policies targeted at the specific needs of each area.

We consider from a theoretical and empirical viewpoint how network preferences of consumers, which differ in their willingness to pay (WTP) for green goods, affect the equilibrium configuration of a vertically differentiated duopoly when a cleaner firm competes against a dirtier rival. We find that a trade-off can emerge between emissions abatement and the catching-up process of the dirtier firm can emerge. In particular, emissions decrease only when consumers with low WTP have network preferences. Still, in this case, only the cleaner firm has an incentive to improve its environmental quality along the quality ladder, while the laggard firm is tied to its backward profile. These theoretical predictions are empirically tested by exploiting the duality of Italy’s economy, with high-income citizens mainly concentrated in Northern regions, while low-income citizens are largely located in the South. We adopt a fixed-effects spatial error model at the provincial level to relate variables on firms’ environmental management system with citizens’ environmental behaviour, proxied by the recycling rate. Overall, the empirical estimates are in line with the theoretical predictions. From the empirical analysis, it emerges that consumers’ environmental behaviour positively affects enterprises’ future environmental choices. Moreover, firms have a stronger incentive to raise their environmental quality when low-income consumers, namely those buying dirtier variants, internalise the network effect.

Theoretical literature on active labour market policies underlined as targeted policies can have unplanned consequences (i.e. displacement and postponed hiring effects) on individuals outside the target group. These consequences mostly affect the hiring of those that are more often used in the control group when a counterfactual approach is used to evaluate a policy. They may imply a misestimation of policy effect. Surprisingly, few empirical analysis took into account of this possibility. We tried to fill this gap in the literature evaluating Law 407/90, a hiring subsidies policy targeting long-term unemployed and implemented in one of the most critic European labour markets: the italian ones. Using administrative data, we applied a regression discontinuity design to determine policy effectiveness. To select the bandwidth we introduced a new methodology motivated by the time-varying forcing variable. We furthermore checked for the presence of displacement and postponed hiring effects using a counterfactual approach. The results show the policy had a positive and significant impact. Moreover, no displacement and postponed hiring effects were detected.

La valutazione ex-post costituisce un passo fondamentale per fornire al policy maker materiale conoscitivo sull’attuazione di interventi pubblici passati. Il presente lavoro si basa sull’utilizzo di un metodo di valutazione causale degli effetti prodotti dall’incentivo Ecobonus, che e stato introdotto per promuovere il trasporto intermodale strada-mare. Il metodo di valutazione utilizzato si basa sull’approccio controfattuale che compara i risultati generati dall’introduzione della politica con gli ipotetici risultati che si sarebbero ottenuti in assenza della stessa. E la prima volta che l’effetto di questo incentivo e valutato utilizzando un approccio di tipo causale. L’analisi effettuata valuta la validita dell’incentivo in termini di trasferimento modale realizzato. L’effetto medio stimato e risultato positivo e uguale al 58% del traffico totale realizzato nel 2011 sulle tratte selezionate. La conclusione e che l’Ecobonus ha promosso l’utilizzo delle rotte marittime favorendo un risparmio in termini di minori costi ambientali

Questo lavoro si propone di misurare l’influenza delle diverse caratteristiche di impresa sull’impatto degli strumenti di incentivazione, che puo essere eterogeneo. L’analisi empirica si focalizza sugli strumenti per il finanziamento di progetti privati in r&s in Italia. Vengono sviluppati alcuni strumenti metodologici non parametrici capaci di identificare e sottoporre a test la presenza di eterogeneita degli effetti rispetto ad alcune specifiche dimensioni di analisi. I risultati mostrano che, sebbene nel complesso gli strumenti di incentivazione abbiano avuto un’efficacia modesta, alcune caratteristiche, come l’essere esportatore ed effettuare ricerca intramuros, influenzano in modo statisticamente significativo l’entita degli effetti dell’intervento.

Background Vaccines often contain potentially allergenic material in addition to pathogen-specific immunogens that may induce allergic reactions. Parents and physicians often suspect that adverse reactions to vaccines are allergic in etiology. The concern that some of the substances contained in vaccines may trigger an anaphylactic reaction may lead to a low vaccination adherence with emergence of infectious disease epidemics. Objective To provide practical suggestions for managing children suspected to have an allergic reaction to a vaccine. Methods Information was obtained from a search of guidelines and relevant studies on allergic reactions to vaccines for infectious diseases. Results True allergic reactions elicited by a vaccine are rare. Skin testing to the vaccine and to its components may identify the triggering agent. Graded dosing desensitization is helpful in children sensitized to the offending vaccine. Conclusion All children with a suspected allergic reaction to a vaccine should be carefully evaluated by routine allergy tests. When it is necessary, further immunization should be given under strict medical surveillance, which ensures that every child can safely complete the vaccination schedule.

Capital subsidies are usually adopted to overcome credit market imperfections and compensate for local external diseconomies common in backward areas. Such rationales usually holds stronger for small firms. This might mean that small firms benefit the most from business subsidy policies. Using a multiple regression discontinuity design we evaluate the effectiveness of the main Italian regional policy in the period 1996-2007 - the Law 488/92 (L. 488) - in achieving economic growth for firms of different sizes. We find that the impact of the subsidies on employment, investment, and turnover is positive and statistically significant for micro and small firms, while it is not statistically different from zero for medium and large firms. On the other side, the effect on productivity is negligible irrespective of the firms’ size. This might mean that are the smaller firms that really need the Government support to grow.

There is still little consensus among economists on the effectiveness of business support policies. The evaluation of such policies requires a reliable identification procedure that is hardly achieved in empirical studies. We analyse the impact of a policy instrument – Law 488/92 (L488), the main Italian regional policy – that allocates subsidies to private firms by a multiple ranking system. Thanks to the peculiar L488 selection process that creates the conditions for a local random experiment, we are able to assess the effectiveness of these types of incentives for a relevant subgroup of firms. We propose a nonparametric multiple rankings regression discontinuity design that exploits the sharp discontinuities in the L488 rankings and extends the regression discontinuity design (RDD) approach to a context where the treatment is assigned by multiple rankings with different cut-off points. We find that the impact of the subsidies on employment, investment, and turnover is positive and statistically significant, while the effect on productivity is mostly negligible. The new subsidised capital is additional but non-complementary with the owner-financed investment. The results are robust to different specifications and not due to intertemporal substitution.

The shortage of studies on spatial spillovers of capital subsidy policies is rather surprising, considering that such policies are usually designed to generate spatial externalities. We propose a new framework that allows positive agglomeration effects to be contrasted with the negative cross-sectional substitution and the crowding-out effect. The global evaluation of the ATT and the spillover parameters shifts the spotlight from the policy effect on subsidised firms to the global effect of capital subsidy policies on the targeted territory. The empirical evaluation of a policy in Italy mainly directed towards small- and medium-sized firms shows that the impact on investments, turnover and employment is positive and large, but is negative on TFP. However, the employment growth is partially determined to the detriment of the untreated firms.

We evaluate whether the impact of EU Structural and Cohesion Funds (EUF) on Member States’ regional economic growth depends on the intensity of treatment, measured by the normalized amount of funds distributed in each region. We use an original dataset that covers all the main sources of EUF and extend the regression discontinuity design to the case of continuous treatment. The results suggest an average positive effect on regional growth. The estimated conditional intensity-growth function is concave and presents a maximum value. Therefore, the exceeding funds could have been allocated to other lagging regions without reducing the effect on growth.

After the Second World War the Southern regions of Italy (The Mezzogiorno) underwent a period of exceptional growth. However, this period ended after the oil crisis and now the Mezzogiorno is the largest backward region within the EU-15. A huge amount of literature is devolved to find the main reasons why Mezzogiorno did not evolve like the rest of the country. In the paper I propose that the implemented policies were essential or critical in influencing the rise and then the decline of the southern economy. The analysis is based on the strict association between the implementation of certain policies and the results in terms of output and employment growth. The main conclusion is that the failure to narrowing the gap between North and South in the last 20 years is attributable to areas that ask primarily the responsibility of national policies and where the backwardness of the South is pronounced, like justice, education and human capital, crime. These areas are largely outside the control of territorial policies. Therefore, even if regional policies are important, the lack of convergence of Mezzogiorno is rather attributable to general policies, particularly those with significant regional effects.

Given the increasing share of the EU budget devoted to Regional Policy, several studies have tried to identify the impact of structural funds on economic growth. However, so far no consensus has been reached. We assess Regional Policy effects through a non-experimental comparison group method, the regression discontinuity design, and a novel regional dataset for the 1994–2006 period. We exploit the allocation rule of EU transfers by comparing regions with a per capita GDP level just below the eligibility threshold (75% of EU average) with those just above. Our findings show a positive impact of EU Regional Policy on economic growth.

The paper provides a statistically robust evaluation of the impact of state aid on capital accumulation in subsidized firms. The analysis considers subsidies allocated to the southern Italian regions over the period 1996–2004 under the regional policy, Law 488/1992. We apply an MDID estimator, taking selection on observables and non observables into account. Results evidence a higher growth in output, employment and fixed assets in subsidized firms but a lesser increase in Total Factor Productivity than in unsubsidized firms. The negative impact on long term productivity and growth reduces the positive temporary effects of regional subsidies.

Literature on the evaluation of public R&D subsidies show controversial results respect to additionality effects of R&D subsidies (David et al.,2000). The uncertain empirical results can be attributed to some factors that act as confounding variables in the evaluation of innovation subsidies. One potential cause is that project and firms selection rules may be quite heterogeneous leading to different outcomes. Several evaluation methods tackle this problem in different ways depending basically on the type and quality of available data and on the policy “assignment rule’’ (Blundell-Dias, 2009). The aim of this study is to measure the influence of different firm characteristics on the impact of the policy instruments. We select two policy instruments: the Fund for Technological Innovation (FTI), that is the specific policy instrument used to subsidize private projects on R&D, and the IIP (Innovation Integrated Programmes), financing both private capital and innovation investment. Both the instruments allocate subsidies on the basis of a technical selection among projects of competing firms. Moreover we consider structural and economic features of firms and different forms of innovation activities. Data on firm characteristics are collected by a CATI survey on subsidized and not subsidized firms. The estimation is carried out on a data set of firms, that includes also the subsidy status, the size of subsidies, from the administrative archive, and balance sheet data. We empirically test whether and how much firm characteristics can modify the sign and the level of the effects of public policy using counterfactual approach. Moreover we examine the marginal effects of different characteristics on the probability to be subsidized. Results indicate that firm characteristics significantly affect the additionality of R&D subsidies.

The focus of our paper is the identification of the regional effects of industrial subsidies when the presence of subsidized firms is spatially correlated. We propose a novel “spatial propensity score matching” technique that allow to correct for the spatial bias. The propensity score is estimated by an instrumental variable spatial approach applied to a probit model. The empirical analysis is based on a dataset that incorporates information on incentives to private capital accumulation by Law 488/92, mainly devoted to SME, and Planning Contracts, created for large projects. The analysis is carried out on a disaggregated territorial level, using the grid of the local labour system in Italy. The results show that the impact of subsidies on regional employment is larger if controlling for the presence of spatial effects. Spillover effects for value added and productivity are modest. Therefore the empirical analysis suggests the presence of some spatial crowding out of the programs in the labour market, where subsidized areas attract employment from neighbourhoods.

Traditionally, the effectiveness of European Cohesion Policy has been evaluated in terms of GDP growth rate. In this paper, we consider the effect of the regional policy in terms of its impacts on two specific fields of intervention, namely ‘research, technological development and innovation’, and ‘transport infrastructure’. Our econometric approach involves the use of a non-parametric regression discontinuity design technique to a uniquely-disaggregated Cohesion Policy dataset broken down according to the specific objectives of each stream of funding. The analysis considers different time intervals and sub-samples. Our results demonstrate a positive impact of Cohesion Policy interventions in these two specific fields of intervention.

Do subsidized new firms survive longer? Evidence from a counterfactual approach. Regional Studies. This study provides a statistically robust evaluation of the impact of capital subsidies on the survival of start-ups in Italy. The analysis considers the subsidies provided by the main Italian regional policy, Law 488/1992, during 1996–2009. By exploiting an unusual characteristic of the L. 488 selection process, a quasi-experimental design with high internal validity – the regression discontinuity design – is applied for the first time to the survival analysis. The results show a lower default risk in subsidized start-ups. These findings contradict the view that start-ups receiving L. 488 assistance simply used the grant funding to delay exit.

The paper analyses the causal effect of capital subsidies on firms? efficiency and productivity by exploiting the conditions for a local random experiment created by Law 488/92 (henceforth L488), which has been an important policy instrument for reducing territorial disparities in Italy. The presence of sharp discontinuities in the L488 rankings used for allocating subsidies to projects allows us to use a regression discontinuity design (henceforth RDD). We show that a suitable decomposition of TFP can be applied to a large sample of subsidized firms for a relevant period of time, allowing to evaluate either the roles of technical progress and technical efficiency change, or scale and allocative efficiency change as determinants of granted firms? long-term growth. The stochastic frontier model used in this study assumes that technical inefficiency evolves over time, enabling to decompose productivity changes into the change in technical efficiency (i.e., measuring the movement of an economy towards, or away from, the production frontier), and technical progress (measuring shifts of the frontier over time). Moreover, because a flexible technology is used, the SFA allows to evaluate the presence of scale efficiency, as well as the additional measurement of changes in allocative efficiency (i.e., the Bauer-Kumbhakar decomposition; Bauer, 1990; Kumbhakar, 2000; Kumbhakar and Lovell, 2000; Brummer et al., 2002). Unlike the previous literature, we estimate the effects of the subsidies after 5 years from the subsidized investment. The results show that , after four years, the impact of public subsidies on TFP and efficiency is positive and statistically significant.

Recently, a new methodological approach to empirics of economic dynamics based on nonparametric analysis has been proposed. The approach contemplates the presence of mechanisms of polarization and spatial linkage affecting the spatial characteristics of growth that are ruled out by the basic neoclassical approach while being the starting point of core-periphery models. A nonparametric investigation on the geographical distribution of local labor markets performances in Italy is presented, summarized by the employment rate. The analysis provides empirical support to the prediction that the behavior of the entire cross-section distribution of Italian employment rate can be mainly explained by proximity, and therefore by spatial spillover. The analysis is carried out on a very disaggregated territorial level: the area units considered are the 784 Local Labour Systems (LLSs), defined as “travel-to-works” areas by the National Statistical Institute (Istat). The basic idea is that distribution dynamics changes whenever conditioned with respect to spatial closeness of LLSs. I investigated the distribution dynamics of employment rate in LLSs over the 1971 to 1996 period by using transition matrices and the stochastic kernel approach. The results show that the employment rate distribution across LLSs has a strong polarization, but it vanishes if it is conditioned to the closer neighbors' employment rate. The analysis suggests that the local labor market performances inside Italy do not present strong territorial discontinuities. This is related to the geographical position of the country with respect to the relevant markets, and it is consistent with the predictions of the core-periphery model.

The shortage of studies on spatial spillovers of industrial policies is rather surprising considering that such policies are usually designed for generating spatial externalities. In this paper we propose a new framework that partially relaxes the SUTVA and allows contrasting the positive agglomeration effects with the negative cross-sectional substitution and the crowding-out effect. The global evaluation of the ATT and the spillover parameters shifts the spotlight from the policy effect on subsidised firms to the global effect of the industrial policy on the targeted territory. Analysing a capital subsidy policy in Italy we find a positive and large effect of the policy on subsidised firms in terms of investment, turnover, and employment; however, the employment growth is in part determined to the detriment of affected untreated firms located in the very proximity of one or more treated firms that belong to the same sector of activity.

We investigate the impact of three different kinds of disturbances on industrial output in Italy. They originate, respectively, in aggregate demand, technology and the labour supply. We first illustrate the theoretical restrictions which permit identification of the three shocks. Then econometric identification is achieved by extending the Blanchard and Quah (1989, The American Economic Review 79, pp. 655–673) procedure to a multivariate case. Our main conclusion is that output variability is significantly affected by technological shocks at all frequencies. Labour supply disturbances are also relevant, while demand shocks have a minor impact on the series, although they act in the expected direction. Therefore, the short-run behaviour of industrial production is largely explained by supply side shocks.

Quasi-experimental evaluations in social policies are very rare in Italy, due to several difficulties in the methodological approach and in data collecting that requires an accurate evaluation design. The paper aims to develop a counterfactual evaluation of the effects of the YOUSSAM project, implemented by Roma Capitale in 2011-2012. The intervention provides the deployment of a mobile unit delivering social and health services for homeless around the railway stations of Rome. Project effectiveness was evaluated by measurement of the effect on the social and sanitary wellbeing of contacted homeless. Data was collected by a specific survey using a structured questionnaire. The econometric procedure was based on the DID and DID Matching estimators. The analysis revealed the positive, but not statistically significant, effect of the project in mitigating the worsening health conditions of beneficiaries. The study provides elements for reflection upon applicability of the counterfactual method in evaluating emergency welfare actions.

This study assesses the impact of state aid on firms in the tourism sector by implementing an accurate micro-econometric evaluation of their causal effect. Analyses consider subsidies allocated by the main regional policy in Italy, the Law 488/1992, during the period 1999–2003. A Matching Difference-In-Difference (MDID) estimator is applied, considering the presence of selection on observable and non-observable factors. Effects on the tourism sector are compared with those in the manufacturing industry. The impacts with respect to different types of tourism destinations where tourism firms operate are also evaluated. The results show higher output and employment growth but lower labour productivity dynamics in subsidised firms relative to non-subsidised ones. The impacts are diverse across types of tourism destinations.

Investment subsidies to private firms have been one of the most popular place-based policies in developed countries; however, the empirical evidence to date is still mixed and there is no general consensus on the effectiveness of such policy. Most evaluation studies have focused on the policy impact on subsidised firms, whereas the possible spillovers on other firms have been mostly overlooked. This is due to the dependence of these analyses on the Stable Unit Treatment Value Assumption (SUTVA), i.e. they assume away any possible interactions between subsidised and non-subsidised firms. We propose a new approach that allows to consistently estimate not only the ATT, but also spillover parameters contrasting the positive agglomeration effect with the negative cross-sectional substitution and the crowding-out effect. Econometrically we adopt a Matching difference-in-differences (MDID) using the recent coarsened exact matching (CEM). Our application concerns the Italian Law 488 (L488). We find that capital subsidies engender a growth process in the eligible area in terms of investment but not with respect to employment. Indeed, the positive effect on employment for subsidised firms is entirely compensated by the negative effect on eligible but unsubsidised firms.

In 150 years, the trends in regional disparities in economic development within Italy have differed depending on whether they are gauged by longitude or by latitude. The disparities between western and eastern regions first widened and then closed; the North-South gap, by contrast, remains the main open problem in the national history of Italy. This chapter focuses on the underlying causes of the turning points in regional disparities since national unification in 1861. The first came in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, with the industrialization of the so-called "industrial triangle". This was followed by the "failed new turn" during the interwar years: not only were the beginnings of convergence blocked, but the North-South gap, until then still natural, inevitably, was transformed into a fracture of exceptional dimensions. The second turning point, in the twenty years after the World War, produced the first substantial, lasting convergence between southern and northern Italy, powered by rising productivity and structural change in the South. The last turning point was in the mid-1970s, when convergence was abruptly halted and a protracted period of immobility in the disparity began.

The aim of this study is to identify a class of models that appropriately describe the wind power production in wind farms and to provide reliable forecasts in a 72-hour horizon. The activity of the turbines in a wind farm determines the total power produced at a point in time. Their functioning depends on climatic conditions and on electrical and/or mechanical breaks. The latter can be either controlled (in case of maintenance) or uncontrolled (in case of dysfunctions). Therefore, both the uncertainty related to the climate (wind speed, direction, air density etc.) and to the functioning of turbines affect the total power generation in the wind farm. We propose a new approach for modeling these sources of variability, focusing on the average power production rather than on the overall wind farm power production, like the previous literature. The advantage of this strategy is to reduce the high variability of the total power, separating the climatic component from the mechanical functioning of the turbine...

De Castris M. and Pellegrini G. Evaluation of spatial effects of capital subsidies in the South of Italy, Regional Studies. The spatial effects of capital subsidies are neglected in the literature even if several industrial policies have a strong spatial dimension. This study disentangles the spillovers generated by subsidized firms from the spatial attraction across neighbour's areas that cannot be attributed to incentive. The presence of specific spatial effects is tested on the reduced form of a spatial autoregressive model evaluating the implicit common factor restriction. The empirical analysis considers the main regional policies in the period 1996–2001 in the South of Italy. The results suggest the presence of a modest spatial crowding out, where subsidized regions attract employment from neighbouring areas. De Castris M. et Pellegrini G. Une evaluation des effets geographiques des subventions d'equipement dans le sud de l'Italie, Regional Studies. La documentation ne fait aucune attention aux effe...

In 150 years, the trends in regional disparities in economic development within Italy have differed depending on whether they are gauged by longitude or by latitude. The disparities between western and eastern regions first widened and then closed; the North-South gap, by contrast, remains the main open problem in the national history of Italy. This work focuses on the underlying causes of the turning points in regional disparities since national unification in 1861. The first came in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, with the industrialization of the so-called “industrial triangle”. This was followed by the “failed new turn” during the interwar years: not only were the beginnings of convergence blocked but the North-South gap, until then still natural, inevitable, was transformed into a fracture of exceptional dimensions. The second turning point, in the twenty years after the World War, produced the first substantial, lasting convergence between southern and northern Italy, powered by rising productivity and structural change in the South. The last turning point was in the mid-1970s, when convergence was abruptly halted and a protracted period of immobility in the disparity began.

To evaluate the effect of an R&D subsidy one needs to know what the subsidized firms would have done without the incentive. This paper studies an Italian programme of subsidies for the applied development of innovations, exploiting a discontinuity in programme financing due to an unexpected shortage of public money. To identify the effect of the programme, the study implements a regression discontinuity design and compares firms that applied for funding before and after the shortage occurred. The results indicate that the programme was not effective in stimulating innovative investment.

There is still little consensus on the effectiveness of business support policies. The empirical evaluation is complicated by the difficulty in achieving reliable identification. We analyse the impact of Law 488/92, the main Italian regional policy. We propose a new approach, named multiple regression discontinuity design that exploits the sharp discontinuities in the L488 rankings and extends the RDD approach to a context where the treatment is assigned by multiple rankings with different cut-off points. We find that the impact of L488 on investment and production of the financed firms is positive and statistically significant.

There is still little consensus on the effectiveness of business support policies. The empirical evaluation is complicated by the difficulty in achieving reliable identification. We analyse the impact of Law 488/92, the main Italian regional policy. We propose a new approach, named multiple regression discontinuity design that exploits the sharp discontinuities in the L488 rankings and extends the RDD approach to a context where the treatment is assigned by multiple rankings with different cut-off points. We find that the impact of L488 on investment and production of the financed firms is positive and statistically significant.

The gap in productivity growth between manufacturing and service sectors is analyzed at company level using a panel of 328 British companies. This paper evaluates differences in the rate of growth of technological progresss (“Baumol gap”) in manufacturing and service companies, taking full account of the impact of changes in market competition, union recognition and financial position of firms. The empirical results suggest: (i) the gap in total factor productivity is significant and negative for distribution, lodging and catering sectors, positive but less significant for transport and communication sectors; (ii) the technological gap is higher than the gap in labour productivity; (iii) the gap can be attributed to technological factors, and it is invariant to the use of firm–level variables that capture effects on workers and managers effort; (iv) the estimate of total factor productivity growth in manufacturing and services is slightly influenced by these variables.

In this paper we examine the Italian regional policies launched in the second half of the 1990s and aimed at promoting the development of Southern Italy. Ten years on, the goals have not been reached, either in terms of social and economic development, or of the performance of firms receiving government aid. In evaluating the discrepancy between targets and results we argue that the failure of regional policies is a facet of the more general failure of Italian economic policies in the last fifteen years, clearly witnessed by the stagnation of growth and productivity both in the North and Centre and in the South. Two main aspects are highlighted: the effectiveness of regional policies has been affected by national legal rules that have had different effects across regions and have usually allowed a lower quality of public expenditure in the South; the effectiveness of regional policies has been diminished also by attributing importance to regional governments as control centres of public intervention.

Immune thrombocytopenic purpura is an infrequent yet well-recognized complication of viral infections, such as mumps, rubella, varicella, cytomegalovirus, parvovirus and infectious monunucleosis by Epstein-Barr virus. Some recent studies have described a possible association between Henoch-Schonlein purpura, a non-thrombocytopenic purpura, and seropositivity for Bartonella henselae, but in the literature only sporadic case reports have described a severe immune thrombocytopenic purpura as a complication of Bartonella henselae infection. We report a case of an immunocompetent child with clinical and serological evidence of Bartonella henselae infection presenting with purpura and cervical lymphoadenopathy and treated with intravenous immunoglobulin. The patient obtained a rapid and persistent increase in platelet count and a complete regression of purpura.

This paper examines how business investment responds to investment tax credit, as enacted by Italy�s Law 388/2000. To assess whether the programme made investments possible that otherwise would not have been made, it exploits some features of the tax credit scheme, such as the fact that some Italian regions are not deemed eligible or that the amount of the bonus differs across eligible regions. Although the programme was fiscally unsustainable, and was therefore downsized well ahead of the expiry date, our findings suggest that it has been effective in stimulating investment.

The paper evaluates the statistical properties of two different matching estimators in the case of continuous treatment, using a Monte Carlo experiment. The traditional generalized propensity score matching estimator is compared with a new 2-steps matching estimator for the continuous treatment case, recently developed Adorno et al. (Giornale Degli Economisti e Annali di Economia, 66(1), 67–92, 2007). It compares treatment and control units similar in terms of their observable characteristics in both selection processes (the participation decision and the treatment level assignment), where the generalized propensity score matching estimator collapses the two processes into one single step matching. The results show that the 2-steps estimator has better finite sample properties if some institutional rules define the level of treatment with respect to the characteristics of treated units.