Dynamic patterns in similarity-based cooperation: an agent-based investigation

Understanding what motivates and fosters collective actions has major implications in the governance and management of organizations, in the regulation and design of public policies, and has long attracted the interests of scholars and practitioners in business and economics. This paper deals with how groups of agents emerge in a dynamic contest characterized by lack of formal structure and uncertainty regarding the possible individual outcomes, focusing on the features of the cooperators and on the dynamics emerging among them. Through the development of a stylized agent-based model we start by showing how similarity in values can be a successful driver for cooperation but are also able to highlight the limits of such process, by looking at how and how much agents cooperate with similar others. A second-version of the model, where memory of past interactions has a role, introduces further dynamics and is able to create successful and relatively stable groups.     

COMPETITION AND THE STRATEGIC CHOICE OF MANAGERIAL INCENTIVES: THE RELATIVE PERFORMANCE CASE

We investigate how market competition affects the incentive to adopt a non‐profit‐maximizing behaviour. The analysis is developed in a strategic delegation framework in which owners delegate output decisions to managers interested in firm's relative performance. We study how the optimal delegation scheme is affected by market concentration and the elasticity of market demand. We prove that the distortion from a profit‐maximizing rule decreases as market becomes less concentrated, while it increases as demand becomes more elastic. Finally, we discuss the impact of market competitiveness on the welfare‐enhancing ability of delegation contracts.     

R&D intensity of investment across Europe before and after the crisis

In this paper we investigate the comovements between the R&D intensity of private investment and GDP growth in different European Union (EU) areas over the period 1999–2014. Our empirical analysis shows that only core countries display a common countercyclical mechanism leading to an increased intensity of R&D over prolonged downturns. The lack of an effective countercyclical pattern of R&D intensity over the evolution of GDP growth in periphery countries makes this area highly vulnerable to persistent recessions, with potentially harmful consequences for long‐term growth. For recent EU members the evidence of acyclicality should be evaluated in the light of the catching‐up process still at work in this area. Our analysis suggests that any successful EU innovation policy should not disregard the potential divergence in R&D performance due to the dispersion of the countercyclical properties of the investment intensity in productivity enhancing activities in the different EU areas.     

Out of Welfare: Functioning of Income Support in Torino

This paper explores the opportunities provided by a file of longitudinal data regarding income support benefits for able bodied poor in order to understand the functioning of the local social assistance system in Torino. The features of this system, its selective-categorized character and the differences from universalistic systems are analyzed. In this framework, the duration of the periods users receive benefits has been studied by means of event history analysis. The probability of exit from welfare is related to socio-demographic characteristics of recipients. In particular we observe a lower propensity to exit for female headed households and households with children. The probability of exit appears to be affected also by labour market conditions, being higher when these are more favourable. The exit rate does not decrease as time elapsed in welfare moves on. We observe the existence of different styles of assistance among the different social services within the city. Difficulties related to the interpretation of the empirical results, given the selective-categorized features of the social assistance system, are emphasized. Finally, we discuss some theoretical issues about evaluation of income support policies.All the sections of this paper are the result of the cooperation of the authors. Nicola Negri has coordinated the various steps of the work and has written Section 5 with Contini. Nicoletta Bosco has mainly worked with Nicola Negri to prepare the data archive and has written Sections 2 and 3. Dalit Contini has discussed with Negri and Bosco the model of empirical analysis and has implemented it; she has written Sections 4 and 6. All authors share Section 1 and 7.     

The relationship between firm growth and labor demand

Gibrat's Law is tested on a sample of Italian firms. The results are similar to those recently obtained on various sets of U.S. data and confirm that departures from Gibrat's Law are modest, also when firms' age is accounted for.     

Organizational Structure and the Choice of Price versus Quantity in a Mixed Duopoly

We consider the choice of price/quantity of a public and a private firm in a mixed differentiated duopoly. First, we study the way in which the strategic choice of the market variable is affected by different given organizational structures (managerial or entrepreneurial) of the public and the private firm. Second, we investigate how the price/quantity choice interacts with the endogenous choice of the organizational structure, thus determining a subgame perfect equilibrium at which firms choose to behave as price‐setters and to adopt a managerial structure.     

On the regulation of spatial externalities: coexistence between GM and conventional crops in the EU and the ‘newcomer principle’*

Pollen‐mediated gene flow is one of the main concerns associated with the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops. Should a premium for non‐GM varieties emerge on the market, ‘contamination’ by GM pollen would generate a revenue loss for growers of non‐GM varieties. This paper analyses the problem of pollen‐mediated gene flow as a particular type of production externality. The model, although simple, provides useful insights into coexistence policies. Following on from this and taking GM herbicide‐tolerant oilseed rape (Brassica napus) as a model crop, a Monte Carlo simulation is used to generate data and then estimate the effect of several important policy variables (including width of buffer zones and spatial aggregation) on the magnitude of the externality associated with pollen‐mediated gene flow.     

Growth‐Friendly Tax Structures: An Indicator‐Based Approach

This paper designs a horizontal indicator‐based assessment methodology aimed at identifying those EU countries presenting a potential need and scope for shifting taxation away from labour to other tax bases less detrimental to growth. The assessment methodology, as a first step, selects a set of indicators measuring specific aspects of tax policy. Subsequently, for each individual indicator, performance thresholds are calculated based on a benchmarking approach. Finally, a screening algorithm based on commonly accepted findings from the relevant economic literature is used to assess the overall performance of a country in two policy areas, namely the need for a tax shift and the scope for it. Various robustness checks are performed.