In this paper we investigate the diffusion process of renewable energy technology in Italy through the study and estimation of different mathematical models proposed in the literature. Basing the estimation on historical data of the installed power, we find that the pioneer of new product diffusion models, the Bass model, is appropriate to represent the photovoltaic technology diffusion process, whereas after a comparison among the most important models discussed in the literature, we conclude that the Non-Uniform Influence (NUI) model describes the wind technology diffusion process in the most accurate way. The NUI model is also used as a prediction instrument for the diffusion dynamics of wind technology. In fact, we fixed the level of installed power to reach at a future data, and simulated the diffusion curve to find how many years are needed to get to the target.

The authors investigate the existence of statistical arbitrage opportunities by focusing on long-term pricing relation- ships between natural gas futures prices and a portfolio of replicating assets traded in equity markets. They use coin- tegration techniques in order to track per- sistent pricing equilibria, and they posit that mispricing arises when natural gas futures at the London ICE diverge from the price of a replication portfolio com- posed by an ETC and an ETF invested in natural gas. They verify that mispric- ing dynamics revert back to cointegrated equilibria with predictable behavior, and exploit this stylized fact by testing in this commodity market trading strate- gies commonly used in equity markets.