FDI and Growth: What Cross‐country Industry Data Say

The theoretical literature has discussed different channels through which foreign direct investments (FDI) promote host country’s economic growth, but empirical analyses have so far been rather inconclusive. In this paper, exploiting the information of a disaggregated data set on a panel of 14 manufacturing sectors for (a sample of) developed and developing countries over the period 1992–2004, we are able to provide robust evidence on the positive and statistically significant growth effect of FDI in recipient countries. Moreover, we find that this effect is stronger in capital‐intensive and technologically advanced sectors. The growth enhancing effect comes primarily from an increase in total factor productivity (TFP) and from factors accumulation. Our results are robust to the inclusion of other determinants of economic growth and to controlling for potential endogeneity.     

Reducing the effects of work–family conflict on job satisfaction: the kind of commitment matters

The way in which organisational commitment influences the relationship between work–family conflict and job satisfaction is a question that has produced contradictory results. We address this issue by developing and testing a model that integrates role conflict theory and major research on organisational commitment, to elucidate the consequences that time‐, strain‐ and behaviour‐based conflict have on job satisfaction. The research is based on data collected among Italian nurses, and the results show that time‐ and strain‐based conflict are negatively related to job satisfaction. In addition, affective commitment moderates the relationship between strain‐based conflict and job satisfaction, whereas normative commitment moderates the relationship between time‐based conflict and job satisfaction. We discuss the implications of these results for theory and practice.     

Households technology adoption and use patterns: the case of digital terrestrial television in six Italian regions

The paper explores the technology adoption and use patterns of households. Many theories are focusing on the adoption; however, some studies show that the adoption mechanisms in households are still unknown. Before any sound theoretical proposals could be made, additional exploratory studies in this field are necessary to discover the relations between use behaviour and adoption determinants. To demonstrate this, our exploratory study uses the case of digital terrestrial television (DTT) introduction in Italy. The study incorporates exploratory factor analysis to identify dimensions of DTT adoption and use. These dimensions were further investigated through their relations with demographic variables of primary decision-makers in households. We found that DTT adoption and use relate to household characteristics in a relatively complex way, but clear systematic use patterns are evident. These patterns can serve as an empirical evidence to further develop theories in this field.     

Cognitive job crafting: A possible response to increasing job insecurity and declining professional prestige

Recent research has shown that job crafting, which describes individuals' attempts to craft a job to make it correspond more to personal inclinations, skills, and abilities, can generate significant work and nonwork benefits for individuals. Using the theoretical lens of activation theory, we examined whether professionals are prompted to cognitively craft their jobs in response to the increasing perception of precarisation of their profession, measured in terms of job insecurity and perceived external prestige. We adopted a mixed methods approach among professional accountants operating in Southern Italy and the results indicated the presence of two curvilinear relationships. More specifically, we found that accountants were more likely to engage in cognitive crafting when experiencing moderate levels of job insecurity (rather than high or low) and in the presence of both low and high levels of perceived external prestige (rather than a moderate level). Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Symmetry-breaking in two-player games via strategic substitutes and diagonal nonconcavity: A synthesis

This paper is an attempt to develop a unified approach to symmetry-breaking in strategic models arising in industrial organization by constructing two general classes of two-player symmetric games that always possess only asymmetric pure-strategy Nash equilibria. These classes of games are characterized in some abstract sense by two general properties: payoff nonconcavities and some form of strategic substitutability. Our framework relies on easily verified assumptions on the primitives of the game, and relies on the theory of supermodular games. The underlying natural assumptions are satisfied in a number of two-stage models with an investment decision preceding product market competition. To illustrate the generality and wide scope for application of our approach, we present some existing models dealing with R&D, capacity expansion and information provision, which motivated this study.     

Financial consequences of cross-compliance and flat-rate-per-ha subsidies: The case of olive farmers on sloping land

Under the past Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) olive oil subsidy regime, farmers were eligible for subsidies on the basis of amount of olive oil produced. This led to an intensification of production and negative environmental effects on sloping land, such as loss of biodiversity and more soil erosion. In 2004 the olive and olive oil regime changed, with integration of support to olive farmers in the Single Payment Scheme (SPS). From 2006 to 2013 farmers receive a constant amount of subsidies, based on the average amount they received in the 4-year reference period 1999–2002.     

First-best health policy in vaccine markets with health and network externalities

This paper considers an oligopolistic market for a vaccine, characterized by negative network effects, which stem from the free-riding behavior of individuals engaged in a vaccination game. Vaccine markets often suffer from three imperfections: high concentration, network effects, and a health externality (contagion). The first conclusion of the paper is that the negative network externality is important as a market distortion, as it may lead to significant welfare losses. The second and main part of the paper develops a two-part per-unit subsidy scheme that a social planner could use to target both consumers and producers of vaccines. The scope of such a subsidy scheme to induce the firms to produce the first-best output without network effects (which is the most ambitious first-best target) is investigated. In many cases, while the first-best is attainable, it requires negative prices for vaccines, which amounts to rewarding consumers to induce them to vaccinate.