Heterogeneity in health responses and anchoring vignettes

In this article we employ the tool of anchoring vignettes to analyze gender differences in self-assessments of health in Europe. We propose and estimate an extension of the basic vignette model for correcting the lack of interpersonal comparability of self-assessments on a categorical scale. Our extension allows for potential correlation in the self-assessments of health on different domains by including an unobservable individual effect, common to all domains but different across individuals, in both the thresholds and the equations for the latent health problems. After applying this model to the SHARE data, we find that vignettes help narrow gender differences in self-assessments of health, although these differences are not entirely eliminated.     

The burden of the family company: Leopoldo Pirelli and his times

Leopoldo Pirelli was the third generation to run the family firm and a key character of Italian capitalism. He played a major role in Italy’s biggest merger and served as Head of the Committee for Reforms of the Italian Confederation of Industrialists. As head of Pirelli, he was appreciated by shareholders and by management. Though intent on internationalisation, he failed twice (the ‘Union’ with Dunlop and later with Continental). After this second failure he resigned. A respected leader of the international business community, Pirelli failed at his most important task – transforming a family firm into a public company.     

Estimating Engel curves under unit and item nonresponse

This paper estimates food Engel curves using data from the first wave of the Survey on Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Our statistical model simultaneously takes into account selectivity due to unit and item nonresponse, endogeneity problems, and issues related to flexible specification of the relationship of interest. We estimate both parametric and semiparametric specifications of the model. The parametric specification assumes that the unobservables in the model follow a multivariate Gaussian distribution, while the semiparametric specification avoids distributional assumptions about the unobservables. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quality as an autonomous body of knowledge. An in-depth survey on Italian higher education

The need of people skilled on quality topics is strongly increased in Italy, in the last 10 years, and new professional figures that are specialized in quality have been recently recognized by the Italian official classification of occupations. However, there seems to be a lack of empirical studies that analyse education about quality supplied by Italian universities and business schools. This paper shows the results of an exploratory survey on the education in quality offered by Italian universities. The research was conducted on a reasoned sample of Italian universities, selected on the basis of the number of students enrolled and the number of supplied degree courses, in the academic year 2005/2006. Thanks to the findings of the survey it is possible to know what (what subjects related to quality concepts and tools are taught), where (within which degree programs they are taught), and when (at which degree level they are taught) Italian higher education is devoted to quality.     

Segmentation and motivation of foreign tourists in world heritage sites. A case study,Quito (Ecuador)

This paper presents an analysis of the current relationships between three fundamental constructs in the decision-making process of the visitor – motivation, satisfaction and loyalty – of a tourist destination World Heritage Site like the city of Quito, Ecuador. The results demonstrate the existence of three motivational dimensions among foreign visitors to visit the city: firstly cultural, secondly circumstantial and finally hedonic-gastronomic. Additionally, and tending to the motivational schemes, four types of foreign visitors have been identified: a hedonic-gastronomic cultural tourist, a hedonic-gastronomic tourist, a circumstantial hedonic-gastronomic cultural tourist and an alternative tourist. The reasons or motives of the visit reveal that only the hedonic-gastronomic dimension discriminates significantly as far as the degree of perceived satisfaction and loyalty declared by the visitors are concerned.     

Networked research: European policy intervention in ICTs

We use social network analysis to evaluate ‘behavioural’ additionality aspects of public programmes supporting research and development (R&D). The paper appraises empirically the partnership and knowledge networks created around the R&D activities of the Information Society Priority of the Sixth Research Framework Programme of the European Community. These emergent, scale-free networks are found to play an important role in generating and, especially, in diffusing knowledge by attracting key industry actors and by strengthening overall network connectivity through public support. Public policy should try to facilitate the development of more European organisations that can be characterised as global network hubs, on the one hand, and to draw larger numbers of the most dynamic small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) into these programmes, on the other, to avoid technological lock-ins and mitigate the resistance or network reorientation toward more productive research areas.     

Efficiency and risk in European banking

We assess the inter-temporal relationship between bank efficiency, capital and risk in a sample of European commercial banks employing several definitions of efficiency, risk and capital and using the Granger-causality methodology in a panel data framework. Our results suggest that lower bank efficiency with respect to costs and revenues Granger-causes higher bank risk and that increases in bank capital precede cost efficiency improvements. We also find that more efficient banks eventually become better capitalized and that higher capital levels tend to have a positive effect on efficiency levels. These results are generally confirmed by a series of robustness tests. The results have potentially important implications for bank prudential supervision and underline the importance of attaining long-term efficiency gains to support financial stability objectives.     

Post-merger Price Dynamics Matters,So Why Do Merger Retrospectives Ignore It?

Review of Industrial Organization - The overwhelming majority of retrospective merger studies pool the post-merger data to estimate the average price effect of the merger. Pooled post-merger...