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This paper investigates the relationship between the presence of women on corporate boards of directors and sustainability practices of Italian SMEs. Using a unique survey on how SMEs in the Italian province of Brescia deal with two main pillars of sustainability (environmental quality and social responsiveness), we investigate whether women on boards promote, more than men, sustainable practices and which of the two pillars is targeted the most by women.

Questo contributo si propone di identificare i principi e i valori fondamentali alla base della nascita e dello sviluppo di un’attività imprenditoriale. In contrasto con la teoria economica neoclassica, oggi dominante in economia, che negli anni non ha saputo cogliere il ruolo e il contributo fondamentale dell’imprenditore, si mostrerà come ogni impresa, vera e concreta, nasca sempre dall’iniziativa personale, dalla libera e responsabile creatività umana e definisca nel tempo un capitale umano e sociale che acquista le caratteristiche di un vero e proprio bene sociale. La comunità di persone che si viene a costituire attorno a un’idea, a un progetto, costituisce e si identifica con l’impresa, la cui vita si nutre poi di relazioni di collaborazione e cooperazione, sia interne sia esterne. Si viene così a definire una concezione di impresa come “comunità di uomini che, in diverso modo, perseguono il soddisfacimento dei loro fondamentali bisogni e costituiscono un particolare gruppo al servizio dell’intera società” (Centesimus annus, 35).

COVID-19 has generated an unprecedented shock to the global economy causing both the decrease in demand and supply. The purpose of this paper is to simulate the effect of COVID-19 on firms' financial statements in Brescia. The shocked information is then fed into two machine learning bankruptcy models with the aim of providing an up-to-date picture of firms' economic health in one of the most prosperous industrial areas in Italy and Europe.

This paper analyses the link between banking geography and firm performance, i.e., whether the proximity within banks and between banks and borrowers has a positive impact on firms’ Returns on Assets (ROA). Using a unique dataset of Italian manufacturing firms and banks from 2006 to 2011 and an instrumental variable approach to account for endogeneity, we investigate whether this effect increases with the presence of community banks and small businesses and whether the relationship changes over the credit boom and bust, which preceded and followed the Lehman Brothers collapse. We show that geographical proximity matters for firm performance especially when the presence of community banks is high and when considering small (micro) firms. During the credit boom, both functional distance and operational proximity seem to matter, whereas, during the credit crunch, operational proximity has a more relevant role compared to functional distance in becoming an important driver to increase firm’s performance.

Using a dataset which combines Community Innovation Survey(CIS) and accounting information on Italian manufacturing firms,we adopt a two step econometric procedure to investigate whether the receipt of public funding determines firms’ innovation strategy selection. In the first step an innovation selection equation is estimated, in the second we adopt a bivariate probit model. The main finding is that public funding influences whether firms select the make, the buy or the make&buy strategy, favoring the latter. The composite strategy is the one linked to the buildup of absorptive capacity which, according to the empirical evidence, turns out to be associated to a better innovative performance.

This paper analyses the link between spatial developments in the banking sector and firm performance focusing on how this relation evolves during the credit boom and bust which precedes and follows the 2008 crisis. Using a dataset of Italian manufacturing firms and banks at the province level from 2006 to 2011, we show that geographical proximity (within banks and between banks and borrowers) matters for firm performance, but has a different impact during credit booms and busts. What matters the most for increasing firm performance, during the credit boom, is a short distance between the control centre of lending decision and the local branches (functional distance), whereas during the credit crunch, only the operational proximity of banks to borrowers becomes an important driver to increase firm performance.

We provide a predictive model specifically designed for the Italian economy that classifies solvent and insolvent firms one year in advance using the AIDA Bureau van Dijk data set for the period 2007–15. We apply a full battery of bankruptcy forecasting models, including both traditional and more sophisticated machine-learning techniques, and add to the financial ratios used in the literature a set of industrial/regional variables. We find that XGBoost is the best performer, and that industrial/regional variables are important. Moreover, belonging to a district, having a high mark-up and a greater market share diminish bankruptcy probability.

This paper investigates the interaction between investment decisions, company foreclosure, and capital structure in the case of a constrained firm. We consider irreversible investments in R\&D projects with uncertain returns, financed through debt. Uncertainty comes from two different sources: the technological success of the project is probabilistic, and the return from investment evolves stochastically over time. These two elements, together with the lack of historical performance represent a substantial risk to the lenders, which will limit substantially the availability of loans. In our analysis, we first assume that the firm finances the R&D project through debt, and then, we further assume that the firm's debt capacity is limited to a certain amount. We show that leverage distorts the investment threshold and the shareholders of a levered firm accelerate investment with respect to an all equity financed firm. Moreover, when a firm is "financially constrained", it tends to overinvest compared to a non constrained levered firm. Thus, the financial constraint induces firms to play a "bird in the hand" investment strategy.

We analyse empirically the relationship between financial imperfections and firms’ innovative activities over the business cycle, using an Italian firm-level dataset based on survey data on innovation and balance sheet information over the period 2004–10. We explore how innovative investment decisions changed prior to and after the credit crunch of 2008, also focusing on the effect of firm’ financial vulnerability measured by the Whited and Wu (2006) index (WW index). Results show that the link between innovative expenditure patterns and the business cycle is very weak in the absence of credit restrictions and financial vulnerability. The crisis, per se, and the financial vulnerability, per se, do not change this weak relation. The latter becomes highly pro-cyclical only in one case: when firms are financially vulnerable and have to face tight credit conditions.

The essay is devoted to analyze the key threat to SMEs’ innovation capacity represented by counterfeiting, which is a substantial share of the illegal and criminal part of the so called informal economy. After a review of the so called “spirit of entrepreneurship” and its concrete expression, i.e. the SME based productive sector, the risks deriving to the economy (and to society in large) from counterfeiting activities are considered and it is shown how counterfeiting can severely undermine SMEs’ innovation processes.

This article aims at assessing the innovative performance of Italian SMEs through the analysis of the many dimensions which together define firms’ innovative capability. The European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) classifies Italy as a moderate innovator. However, when disaggregating the data, it is possible to observe that Italy performs below the European average, when considering Innovation Enablers (e.g. Human Resources, R&D and Financial Support) and Firms’ Innovation Activities, and above the European average, when focusing on the the Output of innovation, i.e. its economic effect on exports and sales. Thus, it seems that Italian SMEs have been able to exploit agglomeration economies, due to the fruitful activity of industrial districts, and have been the actors of a success story, which combines growth and innovation. Finally, the article identifies and briefly examines three key questions: the impact of capital structure on innovation, the role of public funding in addressing R&D strategies and the potential benefit of the cooperation between firms and universities.

The purpose of the article is to provide some evidence on the interconnection between capital structure, R&D investment and ownership concentration using a unique panel data-set of Italian firms. We study the effect of R&D intensity on leverage for two groups of firms which are different in terms of their degree of ownershipconcentration. Our results suggest for Public Limited Companies, a nonlinear relationship between R&D intensity and leverage, with the latter first increasing and then decreasing. Interestingly, the same result is not found to hold true for Private Limited Companies, which are characterized by a more concentrated ownership.

The essay aims at emphasizing the crucial role of subsidiarity, both internal and external, for financial institutions proper functioning. Overall the issues investigated fall inside the more fgeneral debate about corporate governance of financial institutions.

This study investigates whether the receipt of public R&D funding determines firm's R&D strategy selection. Using the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) dataset including more than 3000 Italian manufacturing companies, we adopt a multinomial logit model after controlling for sample selection and endogeneity issues which arise when dealing with CIS data. The main finding is that public R&D funding in uences whether firms select the make, the buy or the make&buy strategy and in particular firms, after receiving public support, prefer the composite strategy rather than the single strategies. This result turns out to be good news given that government support, correcting for the market failures which characterize the combined strategy, favors the strategy which seems to enhance a positive synergy between in house R&D and external sourcing.

Il volume raccoglie gli atti dei convegni promossi dalla Fondazione Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice (FCAPP) tra settembre 2013 ed ottobre 2014. In particolare il volume contiene le relazioni finali: “The Good Society and the Future of Jobs: Can Solidarity and Fraternity be Part of Business Decisions?” (Città del Vaticano 8-14 maggio 2014); “Poverty and Development: A Catholic Perspective” (organizzato dalla Fondazione Pro Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice statunitense in collaborazione con la Fordham University a New York il 26 e 27 settembre 2014). Il volume contiene anche i report riassuntivi e le proposte finali delle due consultazioni internazionali sul tema “A Dialogue on finance and the Common Good” (Città del Vaticano 27 e 28 settembre 2013; Dublino 24 e 25 ottobre 2014). Il volume ha una prefazione di alberto Quadrio curzio e Giovanni Marseguerra (rispettivamente Presidente e Segretario del Comitato Scientifico della fondazione CAPP) e dalla Dichiarazione della FCAPP 2015.

The short introduction to the book provides an overview of the main issues addressed in the volume and aims at emphasising, within the general framework of the Catholic Social Teaching, the importance of solidarity and subsidiarity to guide community towards true human development.

This paper aims at investigating the determinants of firms’ technological competencies and capabilities as defined by von Tunzelmann and Wang (Economie Appliquée 6:33–64, 2003). The analysis carried out in the paper shows that some company characteristics, such as size, being part of a group and internationalization, as well as cooperation channels significantly impact on the innovative behavior of Italian firms, in increasing both their likelihood of becoming actively innovative and their potential to economically exploit the returns from innovative activity. Moreover, also geographical location appears to be a significant relevant factor. The findings are based on firm-level data provided by the Italian Community Innovation Survey (CIS).

The essay seeks to shed light on some of the main ideas that have characterized the work of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation over the last three years.

The articles collected in this volume report, with a few minor changes, presentations given during the international annual Conference and Consultation organized by the Foundation in 2017. Overall, the papers here collected provide the main ideas that have characterized the work of the Foundation over the last two years and illustrate the efforts made by the Foundation to respond to the concerns raised by the Holy Father on the occasion of the audiences granted to the Foundation in 2016 and 2017. Specifically, three broad topics are addressed in the volume, all related to the transformations of the digital age. First the role of catholic social teaching in the current global turmoil, then the future of jobs and wages in a rapidly changing and technology driven environment and, finally, some relevant recently emerged ethical issues in economics and finance. The common thread running through all the contributions is the multidimensional nature of solidarity, here envisaged as a crucial community value of our society and a key principle of catholic social teaching which should guide our behavior in a forward looking manner. In this respect, intergenerational solidarity acquires a special relevance for its capacity to take into consideration future generations in current decisions.

Siro Lombardini, uno dei massimi economisti italiani del XX secolo, introdusse nella pratica della scienza economica nuovi approcci metodologici, anche attraverso l'ispirazione che gli veniva dal coltivare, con attenzione e curiosità, altre discipline. Il saggio da' conto di uno di questi approcci, denominato computational economics.