Environmentally oriented innovative strategies and firm performance in services. Micro‐evidence from Italy

This paper aims at analysing the impact of environmentally oriented innovative strategies on firms’ economic performance in terms of employment, turnover and labour productivity growth. We exploit a unique dataset of 773 Italian service firms with 20 or more employees, based on 1993–1995 Community Innovation Survey (CIS) II data on innovation strategies and 1995–1998 System of the Enterprise Account (SEA). Using a Gibrat‐like empirical model, our findings show a negative link between environmental motivations and growth in employment and turnover in the short term, which then associates to a not significant or even negative effect on labour productivity growth, a result which is explainable by various factors: non‐mature markets; early movers that need more time to grasp the benefits of innovative actions; weaknesses of some service branches. The effect on employment is in part compatible with the existing evidence and may be based on efficiency improvements (dematerialisation processes), which also impact on efficiency by reducing workforce numbers. The effect on turnover of environmental innovation strategy is negative, implying either a short‐medium effect, possibly balanced in the long run by net benefits in terms of higher added value, or a real negative impact, which may be contingent on the period of observation, when environmental strategies where not at the heart of strategic management policies. Neither Porter‐like effects nor virtuous circles among environmentally strategies and performance seem to be present, at least in the short run and for services firms, calling for the necessity of further analyses on medium‐ long‐term effects and performances of specific service branches. Though effects on performances could turn out positive in the long run when mature green markets and investments provide their benefits, our evidence highlights that services could still find hard times in tackling the well‐known low productivity ‘disease’ even in the environmental realm.     

农村居家养老服务的需求强度与需求弹性——基于浙江农村老年人问卷调查的研究

在农村地区发展居家养老服务面临严格的预算约束,不同居家养老项目的实施应有先后次序。一般来说,老年人对不同居家养老项目的需求强度、迫切性和不可或缺性存在差异,这个差异即为需求弹性,基于浙江老年人的问卷调查的实证研究证明了居家养老项目需求弹性的客观存在,根据弹性居家养老项目分为四类,对各类项目可确定轻重缓急不同的工作策略。     

Food Stamp Benefits and Child Poverty

In 2000, 8.8 million children lived in households participating in the Food Stamp Program, making this assistance program a crucial component of the social safety net. Despite its importance, little research has examined food stamps' effect on children's overall well-being. Using the Current Population Survey from 1989 to 2001, we consider the impact of food stamps on three measures of poverty—the headcount, the poverty gap, and the squared poverty gap. We find that in comparison to the headcount measure, food stamp benefits lead to large reductions in the poverty gap and squared poverty gap measures.     

The Land Administration Domain Model – A literature survey

The international standard for land administration, LADM, ISO 19152, has been the subject of numerous research activities during the last one and a half decade, with topics ranging from technical implementation issues and the registration of real property to legal and organisational aspects. However, some areas have been more researched than others.The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the research as evidenced by research publications 2001–2015 to discuss the distribution of interest areas within LADM research.In total 184 publications on LADM have been analysed in the study. The result shows that technical and real property registration issues have been in focus throughout the surveyed period, whereas there has been less focus on research on legal and organisational matters. There has, however, in recent years been an slight increase in legal research, whereas research on organisational matters, such as efficiency and how to organise and manage interests in land and the benefits and costs for implementing the standard, still is lacking in comparison with the other investigated fields of research, and should be an important area to research now during the implementation phase of LADM.