Several investment decisions deal with non-marketable assets. Non-marketable assets are available only to one investor and are often indivisible. This has relevant consequences on investor investment opportunities. Adhering to a mean–variance representation of the investment space and considering a non-marketable asset (divisible or not), we derive some possible investment scenarios an investor may face. Furthermore, we show how a limited ability to gather and process information affects investor portfolio choices. Our results define a set of conditions under which the non-marketable asset represents a good investment and show that, under certain assumptions, the efficient frontier exhibits non-linearities and intervals of discontinuity.

Entrepreneurship and the creation of new businesses are two key drivers of economic growth and innovation of industries, regions and countries. The paper presents a model of entrepreneurial choice based on the modern portfolio theory. The model has been further developed to take account of the non-marketable nature of business opportunities, given that, traditionally, financial assets are treated as marketable. The extended model indicates that Jensen’s alpha influences the decision of whether or not to launch an entrepreneurial activity. However, Jensen’s alpha depends not only on the entrepreneurial opportunity and efficient portfolio returns, but also on their covariance. In other words, our model emphasizes the importance of factoring in the relationship between the entrepreneurial opportunity and the economy as a whole, an aspect that previous analyses have largely ignored.

Libro di macroeconomia contenente parti teoriche ed esercizi

The topic of work safety is a very relevant and multifaceted problem for workers, firms and policy makers. Differing from other narrow-scope studies, this article aims to enrich the understanding of workplace safety as a whole by applying econometric techniques on data from the Italian Labour Force Survey. Findings show poor working conditions are the most significant determinants of accidents and illnesses occurring at work, while having a fixed-term (temporary) contract is not significant. Other significant determinants of work safety are: not being new to the workforce; dissatisfaction with the current job; gender; and a latent proneness observed with occurrence of accident on the way to work. This article also highlights that work related accidents and illnesses are two deeply correlated phenomena and that there is a structural break after three years on the job.

la sicurezza sul lavoro dipende da molteplici fattori. Con l’obiettivo di indagare sulle cause degli infortuni sul lavoro e delle malattie professionali, si sono analizzati i dati provenienti dall’Indagine sulle forze di lavoro del 2007. Il tipo di rapporto di lavoro, in particolare il tipo di contratto (a tempo determinato o indeterminato), non sembra avere un effetto preciso sulla sicurezza sul lavoro. Maggiori probabilità di infortuni e malattie si hanno a causa di: cattive condizioni nelle quali di fatto si presta l’attività lavorativa, non essere al primo lavoro, insoddisfazione verso l’attuale lavoro, essere maschi (per gli infortuni) o femmine (per le malattie) e una propensione latente osservata attraverso il verificarsi di incidenti nel tragitto casa-lavoro. l’analisi evidenzia, inoltre, che gli infortuni e le malattie professionali sono due fenomeni fortemente correlati. Work safety depends on several factors. In order to investigate the causes of work related accidents and illnesses, we analysed the data coming from the 2007 labour Force Survey. The type of labour relationship, in particular the type of labour contract (fixed-term or open-ended), does not seem to have a definite effect on work safety. Higher probabilities to incur in accidents and illnesses correspond to: poor actual working conditions, not being new to the workforce, dissatisfaction with the current job, being male for accidents (female for illnesses), and a latent proneness observed with occurrence of accidents on the way to work. The analysis also shows that work related accidents and illnesses are two deeply correlated phenomena.

I lavoratori delle "industrie creative" sono soggetti paradigmatici del processo di "frammentazione lavoro" nell'era post-fordista. Superando le categorie dicotomiche che tradizionalmente hanno regolato vita e lavoro, occupazione e disoccupazione, lo spettacolo è per molti versi un laboratorio di flessibilità del lavoro che presenta accordi contrattuali e traiettorie professionali innovativi. Dati empirici ricavati sia da una survey quantitativa sia da interviste in profondità con artisti, tecnici e organizzatori che lavorano nei campi del teatro, della musica, della danza, e video-making, vengono qui utilizzati per mappare la molteplicità di queste forme di lavoro, il cui status ibrido è esemplificato dalla condizione paradossale di quello che abbiamo definito il "datore di lavoro salariato". L'obiettivo è quello di fornire un'analisi multilivello delle interazioni reciproche tra le condizioni socio-economiche, lo sviluppo della carriera, e gli aspetti culturali, cioè le aspettative, la reputazione, la percezione di sé e il riconoscimento sociale di questi posti di lavoro. Di conseguenza, questi tipi di lavoro sono studiati come strategie di lavoro autonomo sulla base della diversificazione delle attività e competenze e, allo stesso tempo, come tentativi per mettere a punto nuove configurazioni spaziali e temporali di lavoro. Da questo punto di vista la precarietà emerge come un terreno in cui affiorano soggettività ambivalenti. Da una parte, la forza lavoro è mobilitata spontaneamente e organizzata autonomamente dalla sollecitazione del desiderio, espressione e realizzazione di sé, al di là di meri benefici economici. D'altra parte, il lavoro diventa sempre più intrecciato con la vita e diventa incommensurabile, in quanto il tempo perde la sua funzione di unità di misura della compensazione (cioè le opere sono retribuite con un importo forfettario). Questa situazione porta spesso a uno spread del lavoro in altre sfere della vita e a un rischio di auto-sfruttamento. Per concludere, l'analisi dei dati quantitativi mostra come la diversificazione dei tipi di lavoro e datori di lavoro sia proporzionale alla soddisfazione sul lavoro. La precarietà deve essere considerata, al di là del mito del lavoro a tempo indeterminato, come condizione del lavoro contemporaneo. (The workers of the “creative industries” are paradigmatic subjects of the process of “work fragmentation” in the post-Fordist era. Cutting across any division between life and work, employment and unemployment, performing arts are, in many ways, a laboratory of job flexibility, where innovative contractual arrangements and professional trajectories have been advanced. Empirical data from a combined method based on both a quantitative survey and in-depth interviews with artists, technicians, and organizers working in the fields of theatre, music, dance, and video-making are used to map the multiplicity of these forms of labour, whose hybrid status is epitomized by the paradoxical condition of what we have defined as the “salaried employer”. The aim is to provide a multi-layered analysis of the mutual interactions between socio-economic conditions, career development, and cultural aspects, i.e. expectations, reputation, self-perception and social recognition of these jobs. Accordingly, these patterns of work are studied as self-employment strategies based on diversification of activities and expertise, and at the same time, as attempts to devise new spatial and temporal configurations of labour. From this perspective, precariousness emerges as a generative terrain of ambivalent subjectivities. On the one hand, the workforce is mobilized spontaneously and organized autonomously by the mobilization of desire, expression, and self-fulfilment, beyond mere economic rewards. On the other hand, labour becomes increasingly intertwined with life and becomes immeasurable, since time loses its function of measurement unit f

Due to fierce competition in the marketplace, globalization, and an explosion of technology in recent years, the strategic orientation – “the overall strategic direction of the company and the need to design new initiatives” (Okumus, 2001) – is considered as a necessity for every company in order to achieve market success and sustain a competitive advantage. Despite a large number of studies, which have paid attention to service organization, empirical works related to the impact of strategic orientation on the hotels’ performance is still quite scarce. However, due to the constant change and increasing competitive pressures on today’s hotel industry, a deep analysis concerning the strategic orientation adoption and its impact on the performance could be very interesting. In fact, demanding customers, new regulations, globalization, and the destabilizing effects of technological advancement change the hotel landscape significantly and are introducing new challenges and imposing hotels to be innovative, accelerate their learning activities and develop long-term relationships with their customers. In summary, in view of the nature of the hotel industry, a more strategic-oriented approach might be especially required of them for improved performance. In this paper, we examine the impact of strategic orientation upon hotels’ performance in Italy. We adopt a multidimensional conceptualization of strategic orientation to acknowledge the input of entrepreneurial, learning, and market orientations (Miller, 1983). An entrepreneurial orientation combines innovative, proactive, and risk-seeking behavior that create value in organizations. A learning orientation is based on market, technological, and social aspects that constitutes a significant internal organization value that can explain the hotels’ performance. A market orientation is the “degree to which the business unit obtains and uses information from customers, develops a strategy which will meet customer needs, and implements that strategy by being responsive to customers' needs and wants” (Ruekert, 1992). Differently from the majority of the studies, we adopt a multidimensional approach to strategic orientation, in an attempt to highlight the importance of all three dimensions. This interpretation highlights that a hotel needs to possess these different, interrelated elements if it is to achieve superior performance. Starting from the idea that hotels differ in their strategic orientations, we analyze how different strategic orientations influence the hotels’ performance. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 120 hotels operating in Rimini, an Italian mature tourism destination. Inferential statistics based on a probit regression model allows us to ascertain if strategic orientation can be considered as the most important driver of a successful lodging firm. The dependent variable is the performance of hotels. The independent variables are innovation (entrepreneurial orientation), customer-based services offered by hotels (market orientation) and learning propensity by leveraging collaborations (learning orientation). We also take into account the effects of quality (stars hotel) and size (number of rooms). Our results verify that both innovation and customer orientation significantly influence the hotels’ performance, while learning orientation does not influence the performance. Thus our results confirm first of all that the current competitive business environment where hotels have to act calls for a continuous emphasis on delivering superior quality products and services; second, that innovativeness must be seen as one of the most important entrepreneurial orientations for hotels to achieve long-term success. On one hand, our result reinforce the marketing theorists view that hotels which focus their activities on the needs of their customers, i.e., behave in a customer-oriented way, perform better than those hotels that

Relevant incoming immigration flows to Italy are novel for a country that has been source of emigrants for a long time. Immigrants are often discriminated against in housing, education, health and work. The perceptive aspect (how much immigrants actually feel discriminated) reveals the inner world of the stranger, a world made of priorities which absorb a huge emotional investment, given her/his unstable situation. Work, in absence of other agencies of socialization, takes on a strategic role and is used on many fronts to manage material and emotional needs. 220 questionnaires to the immigrant population in Rimini were conducted. A strong negative relationship between level of job satisfaction and level of perceived discrimination emerged. Therefore, work is invested emotionally, not only financially. Work is the link with the host society, both for economic benefits and for the investment undertaken prior to the time of departure from the country of origin. In other words, work is what a person asks and is expected to have by the host country, it is the reason why an immigrant is required. In the absence of a plurality of shared cultural aspects, work is the main meeting ground between individuals belonging to societies with different histories.

We analyse the current Italian economic crisis as a phase of a major systemic decline. We argue that ‘Italy’s system’ has forced the country to abandon a dynamic view of comparative advantage, crucial for sustained economic growth, in favour of a static view of specialisation. Creative destruction has been hampered and sectoral restructuring has not occurred, resulting in stagnation. The roots of this decline lie in collective action issues and an implicit contract between elites and civil society. We suggest that these issues must be resolved if the Italian economy and society are to revive.