The central aim of this paper is to examine the relationships and implications of the education-employment nexus for recent university graduates in Italy by analysing the main elements that influence college graduates’ employment probabilities three years after graduation. In addition, it provides a comparison among Italian macro-areas regarding graduates’ region of residence in 2010. In this sample, continuous work experience during undergraduate studies, further postgraduate studies, older graduation ages and being married or divorced are characteristics that increase the probability of being employed compared to being unemployed three years after graduation. We used micro-data from a nation-wide survey carried out by the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) in 2011 on a representative sample of 33,696 graduates belonging to the 2007 cohort. The results confirmed the existence of significant differences in graduates’ employment among Italian macro-areas. Graduates who were employed in the South in 2010 have shown a strong marked profile that is unfavorable to women and is distinguished by the oldest ages of graduates at the time of graduation and in post-graduation pursuits.

Food safety could be considered as a representative case of "market failure”. This would justify State regulatory intervention. Unfortunately, the lack of an organically policy framework is causing large loopholes specially in the quality control system which normally developed on the whole production process of value, including supply chain. The Common Agriculture Policy for 2014-2020 looks to be once again based on a partial and micro-economic approach while the growing interdependences between agriculture, industry and services are suggesting a different “macro-policy” method in theoretical, technical and political settings. An industrial macro-policy is more “holistic” than micro and sectoral one able to intervene on market in order to contribute to a stronger governance and control system of food safety and consumers choices.

The New Economic Geography explained spatial concentration of the economic activities through the agglomeration concept, i.e. through self-reinforcing mechanisms created and sustained by the market. But it didn’t deepen its policy implications. This suggests there cannot be only an agglomeration model or a set of rules that leads to the agglomeration because the market selects according to the economic benefit and territorial quality, i.e. according to the factors endowment. So, a holistic industrial policy is required because there are stronger and weaker areas which coincide with a different dynamic uncertainty. Concluding, agglomeration –in the meaning of the NEG- can be considered as a benchmarking tool in a macro holistic policy, which regards sectoral and factors micro policies and micro-territorial ones. In this paper we try to give an answer to these issues by using industrial policy as "macro-policy", i.e. including other micro policies like the regional one.

In this paper we discuss the role of industrial policy trying to overcome the traditional method based on sectors and factors. We adopt a kind of holistic method whose pillars are the rules and the tools on one side and the relationships between firms and other social-economic institutions on the other side. Through a process based on a stronger organisation and shared agreements among stakeholders, agriculture could be converted into a rural system. This last is the hardest step if we consider the governance capacity is largely missing. The Common Agricultural Policy does not suggest any model but highlights best practices according to the basic principles of the European Community. Conversely, the CAP enhances the risk of growth of rural components not so strong in agricultural production and does not strengthen agricultural areas having a weaker ability to self-organise their growth although mainly oriented to food production.

During the socialist regime in Albania the government policy of full employment boosted female participation and, consequently, employment rates were higher than in most part of OECD countries. Other set of policies, such as the investments in childcare facilities and education, undoubtedly stimulated women to enter and remain in the labour market. Since the beginning of the transition to a market economy, women’s participation in the labour market has consistently decrease, as confirmed by the reduction of the number of employed women, the higher number unemployed and the larger share of housewives. The gap between men and women in productive activities has become larger than during the socialist period, negatively influencing gender equality in the country. The purpose of this paper is to identify and measure the effects of some social, economic, demographic, cultural and regional determinants that influence female employment in Albania. Data are drawn from the last micro-dataset of the European Social Survey (2012). Logistic regression techniques are employed on survey data to estimate the odds ratios of female employment. The econometric findings will be extremely useful to feed knowledge-based policies aimed at increasing female labour force participation in Albania.

Universities are one of the key actors within national and regional innovation systems. The nature of university-industry collaboration has changed during the last decades and it varies across countries and regions. Different factors determine the interaction among both organizations, from those related to the industrial structure of the territory to others related to institutional and legal frameworks. In this paper we aim at adding to the understanding of this process based on the comparison between two European regions, Apulia in Italy and Galicia in Spain. Our results show that a progressive transition from a separated to a more integrated approach has occurred at the relational framework affecting universities and industry in both regions. Public policies, particularly from the regional level, have been relevant for promoting university-industry collaboration in Galicia and Apulia. Nevertheless, there still remain cultural and institutional barriers, both from the academy and business sphere, which impede a closer and more fruitful interaction. Besides, the poor innovative culture of traditional industries which dominate in both regions, might affect university-industry interaction. However, an adjustment of the university offer in terms of research is also needed as we observe that collaboration is too much biased by the university scientific and departmental specialization and too little by local and regional industrial specialization.