Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Joze Mencinger Author-Name: Meta Ahtik Author-Name: Robert Volcjak Title: Taxation and cross-border purchases of automotive fuels Abstract: The drivers of a small country such as Slovenia can buy fuel for their vehicles in either their homeland or in a neighbouring country, therefore its relative prices have a vital impact on tax revenue. The significant reduction in other tax revenues triggered by the economic crisis has made it necessary to analyse the Slovenian government?s excise tax policy. A simple demand model enables us to identify the impact of changes in tax policy on automotive fuel purchases, tax revenues, and the distributors? earnings in the country?s inland and border regions. A spatial partition of the three hundred and twenty petrol stations sampled shows the allocations implemented by the petrol station owners, while the estimated "volume of transportation" is based on the number of vehicle crossings at road sites with automatic traffic meters. The direct- and cross-price elasticity of the demand for petrol and automotive diesel are estimated using panel and regional monthly time series data. The results indicate that the current excise tax policy has a strong impact on the sales of automotive diesel but has a weaker impact on petrol purchases. The excise tax policy generated a significantly higher increase in tax revenues and reduced the distributors? net income. Classification-JEL: L81, H2, D40, C23 Keywords: Commercio al dettaglio, tassazione, elasticit? dei prezzi, modello panel, carburanti per automobili, accise Note: Pages:5-23 Volume: 2012/4 Year: 2012 Issue:4 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=47057&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:polipo:v:html10.3280/POLI2012-004001 Number: 1 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Enrico Tundis Author-Name: Enrico Zaninotto Author-Name: Roberto Gabriele Author-Name: Sandro Trento Title: Crescita della produttivit?, progresso tecnico e impiego del lavoro nelle imprese manifatturiere italiane: 1996-2006 Abstract: The article analyses the productivity dynamics of a sample of Italian manufacturing firms in the period 1996-2006. The first part computes Malmquist measures of productivity using non parametric techniques. Our measures show that the low rate of growth in productivity is due to the different models used to adapt to the changes in the competitive environment. Up to 2000, all the firms attempted to improve efficiency, whereas technical progress is absent. After 2000, there is evidence that a group of firms advance the technical frontier, while many firms lag behind and increase the frontier gap. The second part of the article correlates the observed measures of productivity to some characteristics of the employed labor. The hypothesis that productive performances could be put in relation to the two tiers of the labor markets resulting from the reforms adopted at the end of the century is supported. Highly productive firms use a higher share of skilled labor and fewer part-time workers. The reverse is true for less efficient firms. Jel classification: Classification-JEL: L16, L60, D24, C14 Keywords: Produttivit? totale dei fattori, settore manifatturiero italiano, indice di Malmquist, DEA, mercato del lavoro stratificato Note: Pages:25-61 Volume: 2012/4 Year: 2012 Issue:4 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=47059&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:polipo:v:html10.3280/POLI2012-004002 Number: 2 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Valter Di Giacinto Author-Name: Giacinto Micucci Title: Il miglioramento qualitativo delle produzioni italiane: evidenze da prezzi e strategie delle imprese Abstract: Even before the global crisis, the Italian economy was experiencing international difficulties, although the slow growth and declining share of world trade were accompanied by a perceptible process of manufacturing transformation. The paper uses data from the Bank of Italy?s survey of manufacturers to measure a crucial aspect of the transformation, namely quality upgrading, from 2000 to 2006. The gauge of upgrading, not used in earlier literature, is the portion of price changes representing the return to value creation, both tangible (new products and the improvement of existing products) and intangible (branding policies). We find evidence that upgrading is responsible for a quarter of the firms? average annual price increases (about zero point five out of two percentage points), with roughly equal effects from the tangible and the intangible components. The analysis also shows that product upgrade strategies help to foster job creation and sales growth. Classification-JEL: L11, L15, L60, M30 Keywords: Miglioramento della qualit? dei prodotti, innovazione, cambiamento di strategia Note: Pages:63-110 Volume: 2012/4 Year: 2012 Issue:4 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=47062&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:polipo:v:html10.3280/POLI2012-004003 Number: 3 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Valentina Morandi Author-Name: Paolo Malignetti Author-Name: Renato Redondi Author-Name: Stefano Paleari Title: L?accordo open skies EU-U.S.: una prima valutazione degli effetti per l?Italia Abstract: The aim of the paper is to evaluate the effects of the EU-U.S. open skies agreement on the Italy U.S. air transportation market. The EU-U.S. open skies agreement, which came into force in March 2008, is an important example of the liberalization of the air transport industry the goal of which is to improve consumer welfare. Enabling any European carrier and any U.S. airline to fly between EU and U.S. destinations without restrictions on frequencies and fares is the first step in creating an EU-U.S. open aviation area. This agreement harmonizes the fragmented and diversified regulation on transatlantic market access in EU countries. The study focuses on passenger traffic in terms of both direct flights and one-stop flights from Italy to the U.S. to analyze the changes in competition and service quality induced by the EU-U.S. open skies agreement. A pre- and post deregulation comparison of the transatlantic market highlights that the number of flights and destinations decreased, while the service coverage in Italy improved. Moreover, although the number of carriers offering transatlantic services decreased, fewer routes are monopolized by only one carrier. Classification-JEL: L93, L51 Keywords: Liberalizzazione, trasporto aereo, accordo EU-U.S. open skies Note: Pages:91-110 Volume: 2012/4 Year: 2012 Issue:4 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=47200&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:polipo:v:html10.3280/POLI2012-004004 Number: 4 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Sergio Beraldo Author-Name: Stefania Ottone Author-Name: Gilberto Turati Title: "Are genetically modified foods bad for my health?". Consumer evaluation and preferred information source Abstract: We investigate the impact of competing information on the consumer?s evaluation of food products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). We provide three main results. First, we show that introducing mandatory labels to identify whether or not a food product contains GMOs significantly reduces the consumer evaluation. Second, providing additional information on GMOs with respect to labels significantly affects evaluation. Third, no matter what kind of information previously received, the consumer prefers to seek additional information from the information source they trust the most, i.e., their general practitioner (GP). Overall, these results indicate that the crucial issue for regulating GMOs is not the presence of the label per se, but the availability of the necessary information to make good use of the label content in order to assess potential health risks deriving from genetically modified foods. In particular, our findings suggest that this can be achieved by properly informing (and convincing) GPs and other health professionals that the risks for human health are minimal. Classification-JEL: C91, D82 Keywords: Alimenti geneticamente modificati, etichettatura, rischi per la salute, fonti di informazione, medici di medicina generale Note: Pages:111-133 Volume: 2012/4 Year: 2012 Issue:4 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=47063&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:polipo:v:html10.3280/POLI2012-004005 Number: 5 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Chiara Balderi Author-Name: Claudia Daniele Author-Name: Andrea Piccaluga Title: Gli uffici di trasferimento tecnologico delle universit? italiane: numeri ma non solo numeri Abstract: The paper provides detailed evidence on technology transfer offices (TTOs) in Italian universities by analyzing a large and original university-level database built by Netval for the 2002-2010 period and providing updated empirical results on the three main channels of research valorization: (i) patenting; (ii) licensing; and (iii) spin-off creation. The evidence highlights the progress achieved in Italy?s technology transfer dynamics over recent years and the possible future developments. Classification-JEL: O31, O32, O33, O34 Keywords: Universit?, trasferimento tecnologico, valorizzazione della ricerca, uffici di trasferimento tecnologico, Italia Note: Pages:135-159 Volume: 2012/4 Year: 2012 Issue:4 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=47065&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:polipo:v:html10.3280/POLI2012-004006 Number: 6 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Massimo G. Colombo Author-Name: Diego D'Adda Author-Name: Lorenzo H. Pirelli Title: La partecipazione delle giovani imprese ad alta tecnologia ai progetti collaborativi finaziati dall?unione europea: un confronto Europa-Italia Abstract: Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages:161-177 Volume: 2012/4 Year: 2012 Issue:4 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=47069&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:polipo:v:html10.3280/POLI2012-004007 Number: 7