In this paper we consider the experience of transport and environmental evaluation in the framewo... more In this paper we consider the experience of transport and environmental evaluation in the framework of the Cohesion Fund, established by the EU in 1993 to co-finance through grants infrastructure projects in Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece, and more recently in the new Member States. We focus on the regulatory requirement to provide the Commission a cost-benefit analysis of the
<b>Italian Abstract:</b> La questione delle imprese pubbliche, in particolare quelle ... more <b>Italian Abstract:</b> La questione delle imprese pubbliche, in particolare quelle che operano su scala internazionale, sta guadagnando sempre più attenzione. Questo documento valuta le prestazioni delle imprese pubbliche contemporanee. Per prima cosa identifichiamo le imprese pubbliche secondo l'approccio OCSE, quando il controllo del proprietario pubblico è superiore al 50% (Christianen 2011, Kowalski et al., 2013) e analizziamo circa 1.000 società quotate (private e pubbliche) estratte dal Forbes Global 2000 - che elenca le più grandi aziende del mondo - considerando alcuni indicatori di performance (ROS, ROA, ROE); indicatori di dimensione, e il loro settore e paese di origine. Successivamente, passiamo ad analizzare il comportamento di imprese pubbliche e private attive nel mercato del controllo aziendale (fusioni e acquisizioni, fusioni e acquisizioni). In questa seconda fase, adottiamo una definizione più flessibile di impresa pubblica, in quanto consideriamo pubblica ogni azienda in cui il principale azionista è un'istituzione pubblica. Secondo Musacchio e Lazzarini (2014), questo approccio consente di prendere in considerazione diversi tipi di imprese pubbliche contemporanee. Combinando i dati e le informazioni riportate da Orbis e Zephyr (BVD) selezioniamo solo le M &amp; A per le quali è possibile determinare la natura proprietaria dell'acquirente nell'anno precedente all'operazione e dove i dati economici pre-deal sulle performance aziendali sono simultaneamente disponibile sia per l'acquirente che per l'azienda acquisita. Il nostro campione finale è composto da 25.322 operazioni, di cui 2.488 eseguite da un acquirente pubblico. Sia l'analisi delle prestazioni delle grandi aziende su scala globale, sia l'analisi delle operazioni di fusione e acquisizione confermano che le imprese pubbliche sono attualmente attive nell'arena del mercato globale e mostrano prestazioni paragonabili a quelle private e persino superiori in alcune specifiche settori. Le preoccupazioni sulle distorsioni del mercato determinate dalle imprese pubbliche contemporanee non sembrano essere supportate dalle prove empiriche. <br> <b>English Abstract:</b> The issue of public enterprises, especially those operating on an international scale, is gaining increasing attention. This paper evaluates the performance of contemporary public enterprises. We first identify public enterprises according the OECD approach, when the control of the public owner is greater than 50% (Christianen 2011, Kowalski et al. 2013), and we analyze about 1,000 listed companies (private and public) extracted from the Forbes Global 2000 - which lists the largest companies in the world - considering some performance indicators (ROS, ROA, ROE); size indicators, and their sector and country of origin. Next, we move to analyze the behavior of public and private enterprises which are active in the market for corporate control (mergers and acquisitions, M&amp;As). In this second step, we adopt a more flexible definition of public enterprise, as we consider to be public every firm where the top shareholder is a public institution. According to Musacchio and Lazzarini (2014), this approach allows to take into account different types of contemporary public enterprises. By combining data and information reported by Orbis and Zephyr (BVD) we select only the M&amp;As for which it is possible to determine the proprietary nature of the acquirer in the year before the deal, and where pre-deal economic data on firm performance are simultaneously available for both the acquirer and the acquired company. Our final sample is composed of 25,322 deals, of which 2,488 are performed by a public acquirer. Both the analysis of the performance of large companies on a global scale, and the analysis of M&amp;A deals, confirm that public enterprises are currently active in the global market arena, and they show a comparable performance with private ones, and even higher in some specific sectors. The concerns about market distortions determined by contemporary public enterprises do not seem to be supported by the empirical evidence.
Over the past decade, an increasing number of high-resolution satellite images have become availa... more Over the past decade, an increasing number of high-resolution satellite images have become available to public administration, policymakers and scientists, boosting the amount of information they can obtain to manage and analyse different issues. Satellites allow observing different natural and socio-economic phenomena that would be very hard and costly to monitor from the ground with the same optimal coverage, accuracy and consistency, providing valuable information both to the private and public sector. These phenomena include global societal challenges, such as climate change and air pollution, as well as local ones such as precision farming, urbanisation and transport infrastructures monitoring. This working paper aims at paving the way to a comprehensive assessment of the socio-economic impact of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) concerning the creation of innovative products and services generated by the Earth Observation (EO). Although the wide range of potential applications of...
In this paper we consider the experience of transport and environmental evaluation in the framewo... more In this paper we consider the experience of transport and environmental evaluation in the framework of the Cohesion Fund, established by the EU in 1993 to co-finance through grants infrastructure projects in Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece, and more recently in the new Member States. We focus on the regulatory requirement to provide the Commission a cost-benefit analysis of the
<b>Italian Abstract:</b> La questione delle imprese pubbliche, in particolare quelle ... more <b>Italian Abstract:</b> La questione delle imprese pubbliche, in particolare quelle che operano su scala internazionale, sta guadagnando sempre più attenzione. Questo documento valuta le prestazioni delle imprese pubbliche contemporanee. Per prima cosa identifichiamo le imprese pubbliche secondo l'approccio OCSE, quando il controllo del proprietario pubblico è superiore al 50% (Christianen 2011, Kowalski et al., 2013) e analizziamo circa 1.000 società quotate (private e pubbliche) estratte dal Forbes Global 2000 - che elenca le più grandi aziende del mondo - considerando alcuni indicatori di performance (ROS, ROA, ROE); indicatori di dimensione, e il loro settore e paese di origine. Successivamente, passiamo ad analizzare il comportamento di imprese pubbliche e private attive nel mercato del controllo aziendale (fusioni e acquisizioni, fusioni e acquisizioni). In questa seconda fase, adottiamo una definizione più flessibile di impresa pubblica, in quanto consideriamo pubblica ogni azienda in cui il principale azionista è un'istituzione pubblica. Secondo Musacchio e Lazzarini (2014), questo approccio consente di prendere in considerazione diversi tipi di imprese pubbliche contemporanee. Combinando i dati e le informazioni riportate da Orbis e Zephyr (BVD) selezioniamo solo le M &amp; A per le quali è possibile determinare la natura proprietaria dell'acquirente nell'anno precedente all'operazione e dove i dati economici pre-deal sulle performance aziendali sono simultaneamente disponibile sia per l'acquirente che per l'azienda acquisita. Il nostro campione finale è composto da 25.322 operazioni, di cui 2.488 eseguite da un acquirente pubblico. Sia l'analisi delle prestazioni delle grandi aziende su scala globale, sia l'analisi delle operazioni di fusione e acquisizione confermano che le imprese pubbliche sono attualmente attive nell'arena del mercato globale e mostrano prestazioni paragonabili a quelle private e persino superiori in alcune specifiche settori. Le preoccupazioni sulle distorsioni del mercato determinate dalle imprese pubbliche contemporanee non sembrano essere supportate dalle prove empiriche. <br> <b>English Abstract:</b> The issue of public enterprises, especially those operating on an international scale, is gaining increasing attention. This paper evaluates the performance of contemporary public enterprises. We first identify public enterprises according the OECD approach, when the control of the public owner is greater than 50% (Christianen 2011, Kowalski et al. 2013), and we analyze about 1,000 listed companies (private and public) extracted from the Forbes Global 2000 - which lists the largest companies in the world - considering some performance indicators (ROS, ROA, ROE); size indicators, and their sector and country of origin. Next, we move to analyze the behavior of public and private enterprises which are active in the market for corporate control (mergers and acquisitions, M&amp;As). In this second step, we adopt a more flexible definition of public enterprise, as we consider to be public every firm where the top shareholder is a public institution. According to Musacchio and Lazzarini (2014), this approach allows to take into account different types of contemporary public enterprises. By combining data and information reported by Orbis and Zephyr (BVD) we select only the M&amp;As for which it is possible to determine the proprietary nature of the acquirer in the year before the deal, and where pre-deal economic data on firm performance are simultaneously available for both the acquirer and the acquired company. Our final sample is composed of 25,322 deals, of which 2,488 are performed by a public acquirer. Both the analysis of the performance of large companies on a global scale, and the analysis of M&amp;A deals, confirm that public enterprises are currently active in the global market arena, and they show a comparable performance with private ones, and even higher in some specific sectors. The concerns about market distortions determined by contemporary public enterprises do not seem to be supported by the empirical evidence.
Over the past decade, an increasing number of high-resolution satellite images have become availa... more Over the past decade, an increasing number of high-resolution satellite images have become available to public administration, policymakers and scientists, boosting the amount of information they can obtain to manage and analyse different issues. Satellites allow observing different natural and socio-economic phenomena that would be very hard and costly to monitor from the ground with the same optimal coverage, accuracy and consistency, providing valuable information both to the private and public sector. These phenomena include global societal challenges, such as climate change and air pollution, as well as local ones such as precision farming, urbanisation and transport infrastructures monitoring. This working paper aims at paving the way to a comprehensive assessment of the socio-economic impact of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) concerning the creation of innovative products and services generated by the Earth Observation (EO). Although the wide range of potential applications of...
Eighty years after the Great Slump of 1929, the world re-discovers to be exposed to a pandemic ec... more Eighty years after the Great Slump of 1929, the world re-discovers to be exposed to a pandemic economic crisis. There is the urgent need to read again old medicine books, that were prematurely forgotten. I comment some recent papers by economists of various orientation, all published between end 2008 and 2009. The rediscovery of old recipes for economic policy will be painstaking. The central tenet of this paper is that the current financial crisis is rooted in the fall of labor income share in the US, and in the abnormal creation of private debt to sustain capital income.
The paper contributes to the empirical literature on M&A deals performed by SOEs with a detailed ... more The paper contributes to the empirical literature on M&A deals performed by SOEs with a detailed analysis of the reported rationales from a sample of SOE-led acquisitions over the last decade. The sample includes 355 worldwide M&A deals performed by SOEs as acquirers over the period 2002-2012. The data set was obtained by combining firm-level information from two sources, Zephyr and Orbis (Bureau Van Dijk). The analysis is on a case-by-case basis for the rationales of the sample. Overall, the most important message arising from our analysis is that rescue of firms in financial distress is a relatively minor one role played by contemporary SOEs in spite of the Great Recession, while shareholder value maximization and long term strategic goals are more frequently the objective of the observed deals.
We study the way in which public procurement by big research infrastructures enhances suppliers’ ... more We study the way in which public procurement by big research infrastructures enhances suppliers’ performance. Using survey data on 669 CERN suppliers, we built a unique data set to analyse, through an ordered logit model and Bayesian networks, the determinants of suppliers’ sales, profits and development activities. We find that collaborative relations between CERN and its suppliers improve suppliers’ performance and increase positive spill overs along the supply chain. This suggests that public procurement for innovation policies should promote cooperative relations and not only market mechanisms.
How can socio-economic resources be mobilized to pay for works that offer benefits only in the fu... more How can socio-economic resources be mobilized to pay for works that offer benefits only in the future, often in the distant future? We discuss what we understand by infrastructure, a term that can have different meanings/semantic contents, and whose definition issues reveal some recurrent conceptual problems. Finance is here understood in the very broad sense of a set of mechanisms bringing to investment, and future benefits, the resources needed in advance to pay for it. We offer a brief discussion of technological and organizational change, as several of our examples and other literature that we cite show that investment and finance decisions are deeply interwoven with knowledge, management, and technical progress. The paper analyses government involvement on both sides of our theme: investment and financing decisions, but also on the wider issue of service provision in the context of emerging widespread social needs. In fact, the social demand for infrastructures often manifests itself as only mediated by governments or a small group of players, while the services offered by the infrastructure have subsequently created general interest, sometimes unexpectedly. We mention the tension between the national and the international dimensions and suggest a taxonomy of the macrotypes of infrastructure financing we have identified, and sums up their spread and evolution over the long term.
Building the Large Hadron Collider (1995-2008) required frontier technologies. We wanted to disco... more Building the Large Hadron Collider (1995-2008) required frontier technologies. We wanted to discover whether there has been a long-term "learning by doing" effect on CERN suppliers' profitability, beyond the initial order. The evidence on this effect was until now fragmentary, mainly based on interviews or case histories. CERN granted us access to their LHC procurement database, including 1360 suppliers from 35 countries for a total of 11969 orders. We collected 23-year long time series of financial data (1991-2013) for a large sample of companies. After controlling for time fixed-effects and trends, firm-level and country-level possible confounding factors, we observe a statistically significant (p<0.01) 'CERN effect' on long-run profit margin of high-tech suppliers, while the effect on non-high-tech suppliers is not statistically significant.
More than 36,000 students and post-docs will be involved in experiments at the Large Hadron Colli... more More than 36,000 students and post-docs will be involved in experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) until 2025. Do they expect that their learning experience will have an impact on their professional future? By drawing from earlier salary expectations literature, this paper proposes a framework aiming at explaining the professional expectations of early career researchers (ECR) at the LHC. The model is tested by data from a survey involving 318 current and former students (now employed in different jobs) at LHC. Results from different ordered logistic models suggest that experiential learning at LHC positively correlates with both current and former students' salary expectations. At least two not mutually exclusive explanations underlie such a relationship. First, the training at LHC gives early career researchers valuable expertise, which in turn affects salary expectations; secondly, respondents recognise that the LHC research experience per se may act as signal in the labour market. Respondents put a price tag on their experience at LHC, a 'salary premium' ranging from 5% to 12% in terms of their future salaries compared with what they would have expected without such experience.
An increasing number of countries and institutions are investing in large-scale research infrastr... more An increasing number of countries and institutions are investing in large-scale research infrastructures (RIs) and in basic research. Scientific discoveries, which are expected thanks to RIs, may have a non-use value, in analogy with environmental and cultural public goods. This paper provides, for the first time, an empirical estimation of the willingness to pay (WTP) for discoveries in basic research by the general public. We focus on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest particle accelerator worldwide, where in 2012 the Higgs boson was discovered. Nobody knows the practical value of such discovery, beyond knowledge per se. The findings of our study are based on a dichotomous choice contingent valuation (CV) survey carried out in line with the NOAA guidelines. The survey involved 1,022 undergraduate students enrolled in more than 30 different degrees (including the humanities) at five universities located in four countries (Italy, France, Spain, UK). We ask two main research questions: Which are the determinants of the WTP for the LHC discoveries? What is the average contribution that the respondents would be willing to pay? Our results confirm that income, interest and attitudes towards basic research are positively associated with the WTP, while other potential explanatory variables play a limited role. The estimated mean of WTP for basic research in particle physics is EUR 7.7 per person una-tantum. Although this is a small amount compared to other CV studies for environmental and cultural goods, it points to positive social attitudes for basic science as a public good.
We study the effectiveness of the ‘Technological Credit’ (TC) instrument in supporting innovation... more We study the effectiveness of the ‘Technological Credit’ (TC) instrument in supporting innovation in Polish SMEs. Our research question is: to what extent does providing credit to SMEs tied to technological investment affect capital expenditure and how does this change the innovativeness of firms? So far, the evidence on the impact of this policy instrument is unsystematic. To answer the question, we use an approach which is novel in innovation policy studies: we perform a Bayesian Network Analysis of survey data. Our data include a unique sample of 200 Polish firms that received TC support during the 2007-2013 programming period. Our findings confirm short-term positive effects (i.e. a wider range of products/services offered and increased sales and exports) and we also have many interesting results related to behavioural changes in firms (which are not necessarily quantifiable economically). We also find that only more financially solid and more internationalized firms were able to take advantage of the policy. These findings suggest that schemes based on technological credits are not appropriate for promoting innovation in all types of SME and should be designed to shift the technological frontier rather than to sustain a catching up process for firms lagging behind the frontier.
Governments, funding agencies and policy makers have high expectations on research, development a... more Governments, funding agencies and policy makers have high expectations on research, development and innovation (RDI) infrastructures in the context of science and innovation policies aimed at sustaining economic growth in the long term. The stakes associated with their selection and evaluation are therefore high. Cost-benefit analysis of RDI infrastructures is a new field. The intangible nature of some benefits and the uncertainty associated to the achievement of research results have often discouraged the use of a proper CBA for RDI infrastructures. Recently, some attempts to develop a CBA theoretical framework for RDI infrastructures have been made in the context of the use of Structural Funds by the Czech government and JASPERS. Moreover, the new Guide for the CBA of investment projects in the context of Cohesion Policy, recently adopted by the Euro-pean Commission (2014) provides guidelines to appraise RDI projects, but also admits that – due to lack of experience and best practices – further steps are needed to improve the evaluation framework. This paper presents the results and the lessons learned on how to apply ex-ante CBA for major RDI infrastructures by a team of economists and scientists at the University of Milan and CSIL during a three-year research project supported by a EIBURS grant of the European Investment Bank Institute. Albeit the comprehensive conceptual framework presented in the paper builds on principles firmly rooted in CBA tradition, their application to the RDI sector is still in its infancy. So far, the model has been applied on two cases in physics involving particle accelerators (the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN and the National Centre for Oncological Treatment (CNAO) in Italy)). In a nutshell, the model presented break down benefits into two broad classes: i) use benefits, held by different categories of infrastructure's users such as scientists, firms, students and general public visitors, and ii) non-use benefits, denoting the social value for the discovery potential of the RDI infrastructure regardless of its actual or future use. We argue that the social value of discovery can be estimated with contingent valuation techniques. Another significant feature of our approach is the stochastic nature of the CBA model, intended to deal with the uncertainty and risk of optimism bias in the estimates.
Between 2003 and 2013, according to Zephyr (BvD) data, 22% of M&A deals between banks have involv... more Between 2003 and 2013, according to Zephyr (BvD) data, 22% of M&A deals between banks have involved state-owned banks, either as targets (12%) or as acquirers (10%). The behavior of state-owned banks in the market control is, however, under-researched. The standard Inefficient Management Hypothesis suggests that more efficient managerial teams target less performing firms. The IMH, however, has never been tested for deals involving state-owned banks, nor the pre-deal operating characteristics of state-owned banks involved as acquirers in M&A deals. We build up a unique dataset of 3,682 deals between banks that allows us to classify M&As into four categories, depending on the ownership of the acquirer and the target: 1) public re-organization (deals between two state-owned banks), 2) publicization (a state-owned bank acquiring a private bank) 3) privatization and 4) private re organization (deals between two private banks). Our findings confirms for the first time the IMH also for state-owned banks. We also find that stateowned banks active as acquirers in the market for corporate control have a better pre-deal performance compared to the private benchmark; this evidence is stronger for development banks.
Si assiste recentemente ad una ripresa di interesse per le imprese pubbliche, soprattutto per que... more Si assiste recentemente ad una ripresa di interesse per le imprese pubbliche, soprattutto per quelle operanti su scala internazionale. Per valutare la loro performance, inizialmente adottiamo la definizione usata dall’OCSE, che si limita a considerare come pubbliche quelle imprese dove il controllo dell’azionista pubblico è superiore al 50% (Christianen 2011, Kowalski et al. 2013). A questo scopo esaminiamo circa mille imprese quotate (private e pubbliche) estratte dalla lista Forbes Global 2000 delle maggiori imprese del mondo. Consideriamo ROS, ROA, ROE e indicatori dimensionali, settoriali e geografici. Passiamo poi a studiare le operazioni di mergers e acquisitions (M&As). Come Musacchio e Lazzarini (2014), in questo caso, per allargare l’orizzonte consideriamo come pubblica ogni impresa in cui il principale azionista sia un’istituzione governativa. Combinando le informazioni riportate da Orbis e Zephyr (BVD) selezioniamo solo le transazioni per cui è possibile determinare nell’anno precedente la M&A sia la natura proprietaria dell’acquirente sia i relativi dati economici per l’acquirente e per l’impresa acquisita. Il nostro campione risulta così composto da 25.322 osservazioni, di cui 2.488 sono M&As effettuate da un acquirente pubblico. Sia l’analisi della performance delle grandi imprese su scala globale che l’analisi delle M&A suggeriscono che sono attualmente presenti sul mercato globale imprese pubbliche con performance comparabili con quelle private, e perfino superiori per alcuni settori. Le preoccupazioni di distorsione del mercato a riguardo appaiono al momento poco fondate sotto il profilo dell’evidenza empirica.
This note provides preliminary results from a survey of 384 fellows and students previously or cu... more This note provides preliminary results from a survey of 384 fellows and students previously or currently working and studying at different experiments on particle accelerators at CERN. The aim of the survey was to understand the impact, in terms of both monetary and non-monetary outcomes, of a research and study period at CERN. The first results suggest that the majority of respondents, irrespective of their working status, report a positive impact of the period at CERN, and expect this effect to hold also with respect to future career and salary outcomes.
Public enterprises never disappeared in spite of several privatization waves in the last three de... more Public enterprises never disappeared in spite of several privatization waves in the last three decades. This paper offers some trends and possible rationales for their resilience. In a sample of the Forbes 2000 top corporations, as reviewed by OECD economists (Kowalski et al. 2013), we show that the around ten per cent of state-owned enterprises perform better in financial terms than their private counterparts. The Great Recession has also shown that governments had to take over failing major private enterprises, including particularly banks. In several countries, particularly in Western Europe, there is municipalization of electricity and water distribution. In the EU/15, there is also evidence that in electricity and gas, government owned incumbents offer fairer prices to households than private competitors. Recent research on mergers and acquisitions confirms that in the last ten years there has been an increase of publicization relative to privatization, including through trans-border deals.
When decision-makers consider pure and applied research infrastructures, such as genomics platfor... more When decision-makers consider pure and applied research infrastructures, such as genomics platforms, astronomic observatories, nanoelectronic laboratories, oceanographic vessels, or particle accelerator facilities (just to mention some examples) are faced by this question: what is the net social benefit of these costly scientific ventures and of the public goods they produce? The answer is often given qualitatively, or even rhetorically, by scientists and other stakeholders in these projects. But can we go beyond anecdotal evidence, narratives and ad hoc studies and try a structured ex-ante and ex-post evaluation of the socio-economic impact of research infrastructures? This paper explores some of the methodological issues involved in a CBA framework for capital-intensive scientific projects. The paper proposes a conceptual model based on the estimation of quantities and shadow prices of cost aggregates, and of six main categories of economic benefits (pure value of discovery, knowledge outputs, technological spillovers, human capital formation, cultural effects and services to third parties). Empirical approaches are suggested for further applied research, including the use of probability distribution functions to generate expected net present values of research infrastructures by Monte Carlo methods.
This paper briefly reviews some of the empirical findings of a research team of the University of... more This paper briefly reviews some of the empirical findings of a research team of the University of Milan on privatization in different countries. The discussed effects include: effects on consumers, tax-payers, workers, shareholders; on aggregate growth, public finance, firms‟ productivity, research and development, quality of government.
This paper analyses the micro-history of an irrigation infrastructure in the Alps, the Rû Courtau... more This paper analyses the micro-history of an irrigation infrastructure in the Alps, the Rû Courtaud, bringing water from the glacier of Ventina along the Ayas Valley, until some villages in the countryside of Saint-Vincent. Established in 1393, the infrastructure is still working and serving the local communities. The peculiar interest of this history lies in the way the investment and the maintenance costs were afforded by the project promoters. After an initial payment of 80 golden florins to the Seigneur of Challant, who held the water rights, the households promoting the infrastructure offered a very well tuned supply of labour in the form of corvées. These were established in a voluntary contract binding the promoters and their heirs. This was indeed a very long term venture, as-given the hard local conditions-the construction of the Rû took fifty years. The returns, however, were satisfactory, and the Rû Courtaud is still operated after six centuries, and has still a not for profit consortium. The opportunity to substitute money finance with labour 'finance' is analysed, and the arrangement is found to be efficient in terms of minimising ownership-related costs. Several other water infrastructures in the Alps were provided by similar schemes. This seems an interesting example of a 'bottom up' mechanism for the provision of public investment.
In this paper we examine the emergence over the last two decades in the EU of a dominant policy p... more In this paper we examine the emergence over the last two decades in the EU of a dominant policy paradigm on the reform of network industries. We consider the broad recommendations by the OECD and the European Commission, and the Directives adopted by the European Union on the reform of some public services, such as electricity, gas, and telecom. These recommendations, in their strongest form, advocate the divestiture of public ownership (openly by the OECD, but not by the EC), unbundling (by both organizations, but with differences across sectors), liberalization (again by both organization, but with variations in the role of market regulation). We contrast the predictions and prescriptions of the paradigm, with a theoretical discussion of the welfare impact of the reforms. This discussion, based on a review of some standard microeconomic assumptions on the role of ownership, economies of scale and scope, governance, and market forms, shows that the dominant policy paradigm oversimplifies a very complex story. We suggest that the actual success of the reform is conditional to a large number of economic and institutional factors, and that it is far from obvious that the adoption of the same policy pattern in any and all the EU countries is always welfare improving. Empirical analysis does not support the paradigm.
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Papers by Massimo Florio
meanings/semantic contents, and whose definition issues reveal some recurrent conceptual problems. Finance is here understood in the very broad sense of a set of mechanisms bringing to investment, and future benefits, the resources needed in advance to pay for it. We offer a brief discussion of technological and organizational change, as several of our examples and other literature that we cite show that investment and
finance decisions are deeply interwoven with knowledge, management, and technical progress. The paper analyses government involvement on both sides of our theme: investment and financing decisions, but also
on the wider issue of service provision in the context of emerging widespread social needs. In fact, the social demand for infrastructures often manifests itself as only mediated by governments or a small group of players, while the services offered by the infrastructure have subsequently created general interest, sometimes unexpectedly. We mention the tension between the national and the international dimensions and suggest a taxonomy of the macrotypes of infrastructure financing we have identified, and sums up their spread and evolution over the long term.
innovativeness of firms? So far, the evidence on the impact of this policy instrument is unsystematic. To answer the question, we use an approach which is novel in innovation policy studies: we perform a Bayesian Network Analysis of survey data. Our data include a unique sample of 200 Polish firms that received TC support during the 2007-2013 programming period. Our findings confirm short-term positive effects (i.e. a wider range of products/services offered and increased sales and exports) and we also have many interesting results related to
behavioural changes in firms (which are not necessarily quantifiable economically). We also find that only more financially solid and more internationalized firms were able to take advantage of the policy.
These findings suggest that schemes based on technological credits are not appropriate for promoting innovation in all types of SME and should be designed to shift the technological frontier rather than to sustain a catching up process for firms lagging behind the frontier.
Management Hypothesis suggests that more efficient managerial teams target less performing firms. The IMH, however, has never been tested for deals involving state-owned banks, nor the pre-deal operating characteristics of state-owned banks involved as acquirers in M&A deals. We build up a unique dataset of 3,682 deals between banks that allows us to classify M&As into four categories, depending on the ownership of the acquirer and the target: 1) public re-organization
(deals between two state-owned banks), 2) publicization (a state-owned bank acquiring a private bank) 3) privatization and 4) private re organization (deals between two private banks). Our findings confirms for the first time the IMH also for state-owned banks. We also find that stateowned banks active as acquirers in the market for corporate control have a better pre-deal performance compared to the private benchmark; this evidence is stronger for development banks.
dell’acquirente sia i relativi dati economici per l’acquirente e per l’impresa acquisita. Il nostro campione risulta così composto da 25.322 osservazioni, di cui 2.488 sono M&As effettuate da un acquirente pubblico. Sia l’analisi della performance delle grandi imprese su scala globale che l’analisi delle M&A suggeriscono che sono attualmente presenti sul mercato globale imprese pubbliche con performance comparabili con quelle private, e perfino superiori per alcuni settori. Le
preoccupazioni di distorsione del mercato a riguardo appaiono al momento poco fondate sotto il profilo dell’evidenza empirica.
reform of some public services, such as electricity, gas, and telecom. These recommendations, in their strongest form, advocate the divestiture of public ownership (openly by the OECD, but not by the EC), unbundling (by both organizations, but with differences across sectors), liberalization (again by both organization, but with variations in the role of market regulation). We contrast the predictions and prescriptions of the paradigm, with a theoretical discussion of the welfare impact of
the reforms. This discussion, based on a review of some standard microeconomic assumptions on the role of ownership, economies of scale and scope, governance, and market forms, shows that the
dominant policy paradigm oversimplifies a very complex story. We suggest that the actual success of the reform is conditional to a large number of economic and institutional factors, and that it is far from obvious that the adoption of the same policy pattern in any and all the EU countries is always welfare improving. Empirical analysis does not support the paradigm.