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A close relationship with customers, mainly achieved through the opening of local branches, has long been a fundamental key to competitive advantage in the banking sector. Financial innovation, changes in customer behavior and competitive dynamics have transformed this relationship over time, leading to the closure of numerous branches. This work explores the determinants of branch evolution in an advanced and notoriously bank-centric country (Italy) using NUTS 3 panel data over the 2000-2016 time-span. Results show how - in general - demographic, industrial and economic variables explain the dynamics of banks’ branch location strategy. However, more heterogeneous evidence emerges when North and South Italy are taken into consideration separately suggesting that territorial and regional dimension might play a role even in the banking sector.

The growing attention to sustainability has generated increasing interest in its relevant determinants and a possible relationship with economic growth’s main drivers. Our paper contributes to this literature in three ways, by proposing the following empirical analysis of most innovative companies listed worldwide (909 firms over the 2013–2017 time-span): firstly, market-perceived innovation—proxied by the interaction between R&D intensity and the market-to-book ratio—has a positive impact on economic sustainability; secondly, when the three ESG pillars are considered, the social one turns out to have the highest effect on economic sustainability; thirdly, results are confirmed even when we control for context-specific conditions.

This paper addresses, both theoretically and empirically, the sectoral patterns of job creation and job destruction in order to distinguish the alternative effects of embodied vs disembodied technological change operating into a two-sector economy. Disembodied technological change turns out to positively affect employment dynamics in the “upstream” sectors, while expansionary investment does so in the “downstream” industries. However, these labour-friendly impacts are barely significant from a statistical point of view. Conversely, the replacement of obsolete capital vintages tends to exert a negative impact on labour demand and this effect turns out to be highly significant.

There is a need for scaling-up agroecology to promote sustainable agriculture at global level. Although, recent studies show that agroecological approaches can achieve both high yields and profits compared with conventional systems, the performance of other socioeconomic indicators remains unknown. This study has two objectives (i) identify the main characteristics of small-scale producers who represent the target-groups of the SDG 2; (ii) provide a comparison between push–pull and conventional farming systems of maize production to explore and possibly implement sustainable systems. In collaboration with Biovision Africa Trust, a participatory assessment framework was implemented in Western Kenya. Twenty-three farmers were selected and data were analysed showing that the push–pull contributes to social/cultural and natural/ecological capitals. In particular, push–pull farmers are more focused on socially oriented groups (75%); moreover, they cultivate smaller plots (1.9 ha) compared to conventional farmers (3.1 ha) without showing a reduction in profitability. The benefits of adopting push–pull system indicated by farmers (e.g. diminished Striga weed) are consistent with the advantages reported in relevant scientific literature. Considering the explorative nature of this study, the article makes a key contribution by pointing towards important questions for future research on agroecology in Sub-Saharan African countries.

Using a unique firm-level database comprising the top European R&D investors over the period 2002–2013 and running LSDVC estimates, this study finds a significant labor-friendly impact of R&D expenditures. However, this positive employment effect appears limited in magnitude and entirely due to the medium- and high-tech sectors, while no effect can be detected in the low-tech industries. From a policy point of view, this outcome supports the EU2020 strategy but—taking into account that most European economies are specialized in low-tech activities—is also worrying in terms of future perspectives of the European labor market.

Interplay between regional and industrial aspects in the R&D-productivity link: evidence from Europe. Regional Studies. The paper tests the effect of the interplay between regional and sectoral dimensions in the firm-level research and development (R&D)-productivity link. Using a longitudinal database of innovative publicly traded European companies between 1991 and 2008, the following main results arise. First, the elasticity of value added with respect to R&D is larger in regions characterized by a higher innovation performance (knowledge hubs versus industrial zones). Second, in knowledge hubs, industry affiliation mediates the gains from R&D: high-tech manufacturing firms profit more from R&D than low-tech ones. This evidence suggests that an innovative regional environment increases the capacity to translate R&D investments into productivity for European high-tech industries. This virtuous circle is not at work in services and in low-tech manufacturing industries.

The aim of this chapter is twofold. On the one hand, the economic insights on the employment impact of technological change are discussed considering both theories and empirical studies. On the other hand, an empirical test is provided: longitudinal data – covering manufacturing and service industries over the 1998-2011 period in 11 European countries – are used to run GMMSYS estimates. Two are the main results: 1) a significant labor-friendly impact of R&D expenditures (related to product innovation) is found; 2) capital formation turns out to be negatively related to employment; this outcome suggests a possible labor-saving effect due to the embodied technological change incorporated in gross investment (related to process innovation).

Book review

The definition of wellbeing and the subsequent search for its determinants are the subject of a great deal of debate and the focus of numerous surveys at national and international level. This has led to a spread of models analyzing collective happiness, life satisfaction and quality of life. We position our paper among the studies on the role of territory on individual and community wellbeing considering the conceptual background of sustainability and, more in detail, the resilience area (OECD, 2014). In our study on the determinants of regional wellbeing, a sustainability-oriented approach- from both a subjective and an objective point of view – is proposed. Our aim is to analyze the effect of adaptation capacity on life satisfaction, studying the role played by resilience in its economic, social and environmental dimensions. The econometric analysis is applied to 238 European regions at NUTS-2 level observed over the last decade. The main empirical result is that resilience is highly significant in explaining life satisfaction: the more resilient the region is, the more satisfied its inhabitants are.

The present technological revolution, characterized by the pervasive and growing presence of robots, automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, is going to transform societies and economic systems. However, this is not the first technological revolution humankind has been facing, but it is probably the very first one with such an accelerated diffusion pace involving all the industrial sectors. Studying its mechanisms and consequences (will the world turn into a jobless society or not?), mainly considering the labor market dynamics, is a crucial matter. This chapter aims at providing an updated picture of the main empirical evidence on the relationship between new technologies and employment both in terms of overall consequences on the number of employees, tasks required, and wage/inequality effect.