The present paper investigates the impact of financial constraints on the Italian biomass production by adopting a multi-level perspective approach. In particular, it explores to what extent (i) financial constraints at regime level and (ii) internal barriers at niche level hinder the biomass niche to enter the current fossil fuel based regime. Results highlight that the most critical external barriers which impede the biomass producers in securing finance are uncertainty about government policy and potential investors that do not have sufficient experience in the field of biomass while the most relevant internal barriers are represented by the lack of technical expertise perceived by potential investors and the excessive administrative burden of the Italian system. Keywords: biomass production; financial aspects; financing

This paper analyzes the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on wages paid by domestic firms in the Italian manufacturing sector over the period 2002-2007. In particular, we investigate the impact of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) on wages paid by local firms which operate in the same industry (horizontal wage spillovers) or have linkages with MNEs in both downstream and upstream industries (vertical wage spillovers). By using a large panel dataset, we find evidence that wage spillovers at both intra- and inter-industry level are affected by the technological gap between local and foreign firms. In particular, in case of medium gap, workers employed in domestic firms in upstream and downstream sectors seem to benefit from the presence of MNEs in terms of higher wages. This happens also in case of high gap but only for workers employed in domestic firms at intra-industry level: local workers in upstream and downstream sectors seem to suffer from the presence of MNEs in terms of lower wages.

This paper investigates the impact of incoming foreign direct investment on local wages in the Italian manufacturing sector. We find that wage spillovers take place mainly when the technological gap between domestically owned firms and foreign-owned firms is large. Specifically, a large technological distance between domestically owned and foreign-owned firms has positive effects on wages paid by domestically owned firms in the same industry and negative on domestic wages in upstream and/or in downstream industries. Finally, inward investment may indeed improve the domestic sectors, although such linkage depends on different characteristics of domestically owned firms and sectors where firms operate.

The present work tests the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis (EKC) in Italy for three air pollutants, namely CO2, NOx and SOx, using an emissions data-set disaggregated at the provincial level. An empirical investigation, conducted through both a panel data and a cross-section approach, suggests the existence of the EKC at the national level for CO2 and NOx, but not for SOx. Even more interestingly, the results achieved seem to be affected by the geographical dimension. When the data-set is split into two sub-samples of southern and central-northern provinces, the EKC is in fact found exclusively in the centre-north. This suggests that the inverted U-shaped relationship at the national level is mainly caused by the contribution of provinces that more than offset the environmental performance of their southern counterparts. The sub-sample estimation reveals that the geographical dimension also affects the inverted U-shaped relationship for SOx and income, which is found exclusively in the southern provinces of the peninsula, although it does not contribute towards the EKC at the national level.

The crisis in the US mortgage market that started on the last quarter of 2007 has produced a long term crisis in the EU real economy, resulting in the bankrupt of many companies and banks, high levels of unemployment and public debt, and a general decline in GDP. In this framework, many EU countries have adopted a number of protective measures against non-EU third parties with the aim to hinder the negative effects of the crisis by supporting their national economies. Overall, the number of protectionist measures adopted by EU countries amounts approximately to 700 since 2008 and include importation and exportation quotas and tariff along with new protectionist strategies, like invisible trade obstacles and stand by credits by governments to strategic sectors. This paper reviews the protectionist policies (in foreign trade, in finance and capital market in monetary market, in labor market) adopted in the EU focusing, in particular, on some relevant examples from UK, Germany, France, and Italy. On the whole, such protectionist measures seem not to represent an effective way to deal with the ongoing crisis and could originate a risky rebound effect over other economies as already happened during the 1929 Great Depression.

The present paper contributes to the debate on eco-innovations (EIs) by comparing their role within the framework of two contrasting theoretical perspectives: the neoclassical vs. the evolutionary viewpoint. In the neoclassical approach, EIs play a crucial role in achieving the goal of environmental sustainability mainly through their contribution to the technological progress that can offset the negative effects of the exhaustion of natural resources. By contrast, evolutionists analyse EIs in their dynamic and multi-dimensional nature, recognising the important role played by organisational, social, and institutional innovations for environmental sustainability. In this framework, the deterministic neoclassical perspective seems to be particularly useful to investigate specific characteristics of EIs, such as efficiency and role of environmental regulation. By contrast, the evolutionary theories are suitable to investigate radical innovations and to avoid any technology bias, by stressing the need for consideration of social and institutional dimensions.

In recent years biomass production for energy purposes has gathered increasing attention as a feasible alternative to traditional energy sources. Biomass represents the biggest renewable energy source in the EU and is expected to contribute significantly to achieving the 20% EU renewable energy target by 2020 by reducing the dependence on fuel from non-member countries, emissions from greenhouse gases, and energy costs from oil prices. However, the transition towards a biomass-based economy can occur only when the biomass niche has reached a sufficient degree of maturity in terms of (i) network formation among niche actors, (ii) expectations about the future development of the niche, and (iii) learning processes at multiple dimensions (technical, cultural, infrastructural, societal and environmental). Using the social network analysis, the present paper aims to investigate the level of readiness achieved by the Lithuanian niche of biomass producers. Results suggest that, although such producers have increased their extent of knowledge exchange, their expectations about the future development of the niche are still too weak. However, institutions might play a crucial role in raising the level of expectations and knowledge of biomass producers given their central position in the investigated network.

Following a multi-level perspective (MLP), a sustainability transition is the consequence of destabilization pressures from the landscape level that are exerted towards the current unsustainable regime contributing thus to the emergence of niche-level eco-innovations (EI). However, the existence of financial barriers to eco-innovative companies may hinder the development and diffusion of EIs at regime level, jeopardising the creation of windows of opportunity that are necessary for niche-level innovations to succeed. In this framework, the present paper investigates to what extent financial constraints are hampering the eco-innovative investments at regime level, by employing an ad hoc designed survey addressed to a sample of Italian manufacturing enterprises. Results reveal the existence of significant financial barriers to eco-innovative companies which are hindering the development and adoption of incremental technological EIs and organizational EIs at regime level, delaying the transition towards a more sustainable regime. Moreover, findings suggest that environmental reputation of companies can positively contribute to reducing asymmetric information in eco-innovative investments, relieving thus the financial constraints faced by eco-innovative enterprises.

The present article provides preliminary results about the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in the Italian case for some less investigated air contaminants, such as benzene, sulphur hexafluoride and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). By using an emission data set disaggregated at the provincial level, it investigates whether the EKC is influenced by the geographical dimension, by splitting the national sample into four provincial subsets, according to the characteristics of the Italian productive system. Results suggest that southern provinces follow an EKC for the benzene and sulphur hexafluoride emissions, along with north-eastern provinces that follow a U-shaped trend for HFCs, thus providing evidence that geographical dimension significantly influences the relationship between income and pollutant emissions.

The absorptive capacity—the ability of enterprises to efficiently absorb and internalise knowledge from outside sources—represents the link between firms’ capabilities to implement new products and the external stock of technological opportunities, such as those gleamed from Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). This paper explores whether the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the productivity of Italian domestically-owned firms (DOFs) is dependent on their absorptive capacity. In particular, given the peculiar characteristics of the Italian productive system, our analysis focuses on three different dimensions of the absorptive capacity: the size of the technological gap between foreign-owned firms (FOFs) and DOFs, firm size, and the regional distribution of firms. Our findings suggest that technological gap and firm size matter considerably for the spillover effect. Moreover, spillovers exhibit a sub-national dimension present only in the northeastern region of the peninsula.

The present paper investigates the impact of the current economic crisis on the process of sustainability transitions by exploring the case of a green niche, namely the biofuel sector. From a methodological point of view, we employ a social network analysis aimed at comparing the Italian biofuel niche in two different time periods, specifically before and during the crisis. Our findings provide evidence that biofuel actors are are exhibiting a general scepticism about the future development of the niche, showing a lower level of expectations compared to that of 2007 (i.e. before the crisis). These results suggest that the economic crisis is concretely hindering the transition towards a biofuel-based regime by affecting the degree of maturity of the niche.

Following a multi-level perspective, a sustainability transition occurs only when destabilization pressures from the landscape level are exerted towards the current (unsustainable) regime, creating thus windows of opportunity for radical eco-innovations at niche level to emerge. However, the existence of financial constraints to eco-innovating companies can seriously hinder the possibility for a sustainability transition to occur by impeding the development and adoption of eco-innovations at regime level which create the favourable conditions for niche-eco-innovations to succeed. In this framework, the present paper explores the impact that financial constraints exert in the process of environmental sustainability by analysing the case of the Italian eco-innovating manufacturing companies. In particular, it employs an ad hoc designed survey to investigate to what extent financial constraints are creating a barrier to the alignment process between sociotechnical regime and nicheeco- innovations. Results seem to suggest the existence of a hierarchy of finance which could be delaying the alignment process between sociotechnical regime and niche-EIs required for the transition towards a more sustainable regime.

The present paper aims at assessing the contribution of the Italian Technology Agri-food Cluster (CL.A.N.) in fostering scientific and technological collaborations between the Southern and the Central-Northern regions of Italy in the agri- food domain. The CL.A.N. is a network composed of the main agri-food players at national level, whose aim is to promote the sustainable growth of the sector by stimulating innovation along the whole value chain and optimising the results of scientific collaboration between companies, research centres, and institutions. To address our research question, we employed a Social Network Analysis (SNA) based upon the responses from two ad-hoc designed questionnaires that were administrated to the CL.A.N. actors located, respectively, in the Central-Northern and in the Southern regions of the country. Our findings allow a preliminary assessment about how the cross-regional collaborations among the agri-food key-players have changed due to the cluster establishment.

This paper investigates the determinants of sovereign bond yields in the case of ten Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) countries (five core economies and five peripheral countries) for the period of 2001-2015. To this end, we carry out a two-step methodology based on (i) a principal component analysis of the countries’ yields, which is aimed at splitting our sample into sub-periods, and (ii) a random forest model to investigate the determinants of bond yields in any identified sub-period enhanced with a variable selection process with simulated annealing. Our analysis indicates that macroeconomic fundamentals (especially the unemployment rate, the inflation rate and the government debt to the GDP change rate) are the main variables responsible for the sovereign bond yields in all the countries analyzed, both core and peripheral. In contrast, the bond yields do not seem to be intensively influenced by global indicators over the whole sampling period.

By focusing on a sufficiently developed green niche, namely the biofuel industry, we investigate whether the ongoing worldwide economic crisis is contributing towards a more sustainable regime. To do this, we adopt a social network strategy based on a comparison between the current status quo of the Italian biofuel industry to that before the crisis. Results suggest that, although biofuel actors have reacted to the crisis by increasing their extent of knowledge exchange, their expectations about the future development of the niche have decreased. More critically, expectations are low for those agents occupying central positions in the network, which might eventually jeopardize the niche development process.