The long-run impact of ICT

This paper examines the growth impact of digital capital in the US and the EU-15 countries from a long-run perspective. It estimates the elasticity of output with respect to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) within a production function framework, by means of a panel cointegration analysis. ICT capital is found to significantly spur GDP growth over time, and above its income share. This sharply contrasts with existing aggregate evidence, and with the view that the growth impact of this factor is confined to the contribution given to the productivity resurgence of the 1990s.     

Economies of scale and scope in the European banking sector

In this article, using the data of 2008, we try to describe the impact of scale and product differentiation in 282 European banks. While evidence of the economies of scale is less clear, the results obtained using a translogarithmic function system show that significant economies of scope do exist even for new banking products like derivatives.

Strategizing corporate social responsibility: evidence from an Italian medium-sized, family-owned company

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming a mainstream issue as both researchers and managers are realizing its importance, but knowledge gaps persist. In particular, the processes underlying the adoption of responsible managerial practices and the effects associated with them are still at the centre of intense debate. Not surprisingly, managers expect formalized procedures that might influence corporate managerial processes and especially corporate strategies. Given the growing emphasis on the integration of CSR into corporate strategy, the purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the antecedents of this process and the dynamics underlying it. We focus on a medium-sized, family-owned Italian company, SABAF SpA. We find that: the beliefs and value systems of entrepreneurs play a fundamental role in shaping a sustainable corporate strategy; the importance of the relationship between social performance and financial performance depends to some extent on the kind of competitive strategy that a company has selected; and people need to be aware of it – that is, CSR strategies must be explicit and codified into specific managerial procedures.     

Identifying factors affecting the status of superhost: evidence from Sardinia and Sicily

Quality & Quantity - Airbnb is currently one of the most developed new forms of hospitality. It is essentially an online platform that connects the owners of apartments or rooms with potential...     

Radicalness of blockchain: an assessment based on its impact on the payments industry

Blockchain is receiving considerable attention among practitioners and academics. However, a detailed analysis investigating how the impact of blockchain is going to unfold is still missing. Our article sets out to assess the radicalness of blockchain at an early stage of its development and substantiates the analysis with evidence from the payments industry. We start by distilling five key aspects of radical innovation from extant literature. Our analysis of blockchain then focuses on the payments industry, which represents a major business field of banking and the cradle of this technology. The results of a Delphi study provide 17 statements about the current development of blockchain. The statements deliver insights into the impact of blockchain on the payments industry and reveal the radicalness of the technology. Based on these insights, we investigate how blockchain affects the five key aspects of radical innovation and develop contributions from an innovation management’s perspective.     

Asymmetric information and deal selection: evidence from the Italian venture capital market

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - The aim of this study is to show how information asymmetry affects the venture capital (VC) deal selection process in the Italian capital...     

Mixture of Truthful–Untruthful Responses in Public Surveys

When sensitive issues are surveyed, collecting truthful data and obtaining reliable estimates of population parameters is a persistent problem in many fields of applied research mostly in sociological, economic, demographic, ecological and medical studies. In this context, and moving from the so‐called negative survey, we consider the problem of estimating the proportion of population units belonging to the categories of a sensitive variable when collected data are affected by measurement errors produced by untruthful responses. An extension of the negative survey approach is proposed herein in order to allow respondents to release a true response. The proposal rests on modelling the released data with a mixture of truthful and untruthful responses that allows researchers to obtain an estimate of the proportions as well as the probability of receiving the true response by implementing the EM‐algorithm. We describe the estimation procedure and carry out a simulation study to assess the performance of the EM estimates vis‐à‐vis certain benchmark values and the estimates obtained under the traditional data‐collection approach based on direct questioning that ignores the presence of misreporting due to untruthful responding. Simulation findings provide evidence on the accuracy of the estimates and permit us to appreciate the improvements that our approach can produce in public surveys, particularly in election opinion polls, when the hidden vote problem is present.     

The determinants of business contribution to the 2030 Agenda: Introducing the SDG Reporting Score

Within the 2030 Agenda, the United Nations have explicitly required that the Member States introduce within their jurisdictions new forms of regulations about non-financial reporting practices. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects related to the transposition of Directive 2014/95/EU by analyzing firm-level, governance-level, and report-level determinants of business reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To conduct such an analysis, this study defines and introduces the SDG Reporting Score (SRS)—a qualitative proxy representing a firm orientation toward SDG reporting. The study sample includes the non-financial reports of 153 Italian Public Interest Entities. The results show a positive relationship between a firm's SRS and various determinants, such as the presence of independent directors on the board, expertise with non-financial reporting, and length of the report. Finally, the highest levels of SRS are achieved by firms operating in environmental sensitive sectors.     

Public budgetary rules and GDP growth: An empirical study on OECD and twelve european countries

We study the long-term effects of budgetary rules on GDP growth rate and analyse the determinants of the short-term GDP growth dynamics. For both a sample of 19 OECD and a subsample of 12 European countries, we show that, in the long run, improvements in the cyclically adjusted budget balance, as well as increases in the tax burden, have negative effects on GDP growth. The highest effect of fiscal policy on GDP growth would be obtained if the structural deficits were used to increase the market size by reducing the tax burden. In line with Barro (1990), a deficit-financed reduction of tax burden has a stronger effect for European than for OECD countries, because in Europe the government size with respect to market size is too large. Therefore, if GDP growth is a dominant policy objective, in Europe specific actions should redress the 2012 Treaty toward a reduction of the tax burden.