Environmental Kuznets Curves for Air Pollutant Emissions in Italy: Evidence from Environmental Accounts (NAMEA) Panel Data

This paper provides new empirical evidence on delinking and Environmental Kuznets Curves (EKC) for greenhouse gases and other air pollutant emissions in Italy. A panel dataset based on the Italian NAMEA (National Accounts Matrix including Environmental Accounts) for 1990–2001 is analysed. The highly disaggregated dataset (29 production branches, 12 years and nine air emissions) provides a large heterogeneity and can help to overcome the shortcomings of the usual approach to EKC based on cross-country data. Both value added and capital stock per employee are used as alternative drivers for analysing sectoral NAMEA emissions. Trade openness at the same sectoral level is also introduced among the covariates. We find mixed evidence supporting the EKC hypothesis. The analysis of NAMEA-based data shows that some of the pollutants such as two greenhouse gases (CO₂ and CH₄) and CO, produce inverted U-shaped curves with coherent within-range turning points. Other pollutants (SO_X, NO_X, PM₁₀) show a monotonic or even N-shaped relationship. Macro sectoral disaggregated analysis highlights that the aggregated outcome should hide some heterogeneity across different groups of production branches (industry, manufacturing only and services). Services tend to present an inverted N-shape in most cases. Manufacturing industry shows a mix of inverted U and N-shapes, depending on the emission considered. The same is true for industry (all industries, not only manufacturing): although a turning point has been experienced, N-shapes may lead to increased emissions with respect to very high levels of the economic driver. In general, EKC evidence is more pronounced for greenhouse gases. The results suggest that analysis at macro sector (whole industry, manufacturing only and services) can be the most promising approach to future research on EKC.     

On the relationship among efficiency,capitalization and risk: does management matter in local banking market?

By employing a Granger causality methodology in a panel data framework, this article explores the relationship among efficiency, capitalization and credit risk within the local Italian banking system. Focusing the attention on cooperative banks, we specifically test whether managers take more risks in highly concentrated markets (i.e. monopoly) than in partially competitive markets (i.e. duopoly). The evidence shows that in more concentrated markets, management efficiency generates a decrease in risk-taking (rejecting the bad management hypothesis) with respect to the partially competitive markets. Results are consistent with the idea that banks with less local competition are able to increase their profits by indulging more freely in rent-seeking behaviour, minimizing their risk-taking and, consequently, improving the quality of their assets through additional screening processes. The financial crisis does not seem to affect the conduct of management in terms of bank investment decisions and risk-taking. A series of robustness tests generally confirms our findings.     

The Role of Bank and Corporate Balance Sheets on Early Warning Systems of Currency Crises—An Empirical Study

This study analyzes the role of bank and corporate balance sheets on early warning systems (EWS) of currency crises. Using firm-level data on debt structure, leverage, liquidity, and profitability, this study presents estimations of EWS for a panel of emerging markets. Using calibration experiments, we assess the performance of alternative EWS specifications in a comprehensive range of crisis-probability cut-offs?. These models supplement EWS based on traditional macroeconomic indicators, improving forecasting performance substantially. The results support the third-generation models of currency crises and can assist policymakers on the design of surveillance strategies tailored for heterogeneous levels of risk tolerance and country specificities.     

Corporate Default Prediction Model Averaging: A Normative Linear Pooling Approach

Focusing on credit risk modelling, this paper introduces a novel approach for ensemble modelling based on a normative linear pooling. Models are first classified as dominant and competitive, and the pooling is run using the competitive models only. Numerical experiments based on parametric (logit, Bayesian model averaging) and nonparametric (classification tree, random forest, bagging, boosting) model comparison shows that the proposed ensemble performs better than alternative approaches, in particular when different modelling cultures are mixed together (logit and classification tree). Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Planned Flexibility: Linking Anticipation and Reaction in Product Development Projects

The early phases of a product development project (i.e., concept generation and product planning) are commonly acknowledged to play a central role in the success of product innovation. Early decisions are unlikely to be changed during downstream phases, unless high costs and time are experienced. They have therefore the highest influence on project performance. However, early analysis and problem solving is also a difficult task, because the necessary information and insights are not available until one gets into detailed design. Most companies are locked in this dilemma between anticipation (i.e., anticipating decisions in the early phases of product development, where influence on performance is substantial) and reaction (i.e., delaying decisions to downstream phases, where information and opportunities are manifest). This article investigates early development practices in 18 Italian and Swedish companies, operating in the vehicle, helicopter, and white-goods industries. It shows that neither anticipation nor reaction may be considered a best practice in absolute terms. Rather, it identifies four possible approaches to manage the early phases (detailed, selective, comprehensive, and postponed), where anticipation and reaction have different balances. In addition, the article shows how anticipation and reaction are not contradictory or mutually exclusive, but strongly interact with each other through a mechanism that we call planned flexibility, i.e., the capability to build flexibility into the development process due to decisions taken early in the project.     

Feasible implementation of taxation methods

This paper studies implementation of taxation methods in one-commodity environments in which the incomes of the agents are unknown to the planner. Feasibility out of equilibrium imposes that the mechanism depend on the environment. We present two mechanisms. The first one, which requires complete information, implements every taxation method in Nash, strong and coalition-proof equilibrium. The second, where informational requirements are relaxed, implements a large class of consistent and monotone methods in subgame perfect equilibrium. Neither mechanism employs the off-equilibrium devices used by the general theory. Under fully private information no method is implementable. Received: 12 March 1997 / Accepted: 21 July 1998     

Minimum‐data analysis of ecosystem service supply in semi‐subsistence agricultural systems

Antle and Valdivia (2006, Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 50, 1–15) proposed a minimum‐data (MD) approach to simulate ecosystem service supply curves that can be implemented using readily available secondary data and validated the approach in a case study of soil carbon sequestration in a monoculture wheat system. However, many applications of the MD approach are in developing countries where semi‐subsistence systems with multiple production activities are being used and data availability is limited. This paper discusses how MD analysis can be applied to more complex production systems such as semi‐subsistence systems with multiple production activities and presents validation analysis for studies of soil carbon sequestration in semi‐subsistence farming systems in Kenya and Senegal. Results from these two studies confirm that ecosystem service supply curves based on the MD approach are close approximations to the curves derived from highly detailed data and models and are therefore sufficiently accurate and robust to be used to support policy decision making.     

Income Distribution and Monopoly: Price and Quantity Patterns with Intra‐ and Inter‐class Income Dispersion

We analyze the direction of the co‐movements of price and output in a monopolistic market when an expansive shock occurs. Price and quantity patterns are shown to depend on the consumers' income distribution. In particular, a low degree of income dispersion is associated with price and quantity reacting in opposite directions to demand shocks.