RISULTATI RICERCA

The article offers a synthesis of how the commercial landscape of Naples’ historic center has evolved: first, the changes that took place at the turn of the twentieth century; then the process of development that, from the post-World War II period to the end of the Eighties, laid the foundations of trade in the consolidated city; and, finally, the transformations that commerce has undergone in the last two decades. As early as the nineteenth century, there was a high city and a low city, matched by gradations in the social scale, with a select group of small merchants in the one, and a myriad of tiny shops and craftsmen in the other. Though commerce retained its pride of place on the Neapolitan scene after the Second World War, between the end of the Fifties and the beginning of the Sixties, the city was engulfed by a speculative boom that pushed the urban area well beyond its old boundaries. The commercial area, however, saw no change until a decade later, as the Sixties gave way to the Seventies. In the Eighties, commerce was hit by a crisis that cut deep into city’s economy as well as into the spaces traditionally given over to trade. The most significant changes in the commercial landscape of Naples’ historic center have occurred when urban dynamics overlap the sectorial dynamics of commerce. To climb out of the crisis, the more innovative enterprises were able to win back consumers by leveraging the connection between shopping and leisure, while more traditional retailers were marginalized. This is a situation that is now being replaced by a fluid, diversified commercial geography, where a post- hierarchization is superimposed on the traditional hierarchization of space. This brings us back to the relationship between city and commerce, in the sense that the bidirectional link between the two can produce effects that are as noticeable as they are new or, conversely, become weaker, contradictory and unclear.

La dematerializzazione dei sistemi di produzione, della logistica e del consumo sta modificando radicalmente gli assetti fisico-funzionali degli insediamenti umani, dilatando le esperienze acquisitive e di vita in inedite dimensioni semantiche e connettive. Ponendo particolare attenzione al ridisegno critico della città, questo volume, oltre a costituire un’occasione di networking territoriale tra pubblica amministrazione, università e realtà confederali, rappresenta un’opportunità per sperimentare e diffondere nuovi percorsi di rigenerazione urbana e valorizzazione commerciale.

The increasing pervasiveness of technologies in social life bring to the dematerialization of the social life. In other words, people tend to consider increasingly important the automatic processing of information in the production processes and in communication. The authoress started her essay wandering how much this tendency alters our relationship with the world takes consistence from it, and taking meaning from inter-subjective backgrounds. By assuming that consuming is a significant social acting, the authoress has analysed the processes of virtualisation that have to do with this part of the social life through the exam of a real case, looking for possible spaces of consuming: the BOPERVOI project of the Town of Bologna, Telecom and Coop Adriatica, which have offered on-line services and goods to a panel of families in Bologna.

E-commerce for the dynamics of international agri-food chains: an adoption potential analysis - Business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce is an innovative use of information and communication technologies (ict) and refers to the exchange of goods and related information between companies supported by Internet-based tools such as electronic marketplaces (also called electronic trade platforms) or online shops. It provides opportunities for cost-efficiency in supply chain management processes and access to new markets. With regard to the food sector with its chain levels input - agriculture - industry - retail - consumer, B2B e-commerce would take place in the exchange of food products between all levels except retail to consumer (business-to-consumer ecommerce). B2B e-commerce demonstrated to be able to bring key advantages and potentials for European consumers and the European food sector, for instance easier traceability, cost-efficiency in supply chain management processes, better competitiveness, lower transaction costs, etc. In recent years, the availability of sophisticated B2B e-commerce technology improved tremendously and the applications became more powerful, flexible, and user-friendly. However, the "European e-Business Market Watch" initiative from the Directorate-General Enterprise and Industry from the European Commission showed that only large multinationals exploit the potentials of B2B e-commerce. smes instead, which create the largest share of turn over in the European food sector and therefore create jobs and welfare in Europe, are reluctant to take up existing B2B ecommerce technologies into their supply or selling operations. Trust issues were identified as one of the factors hindering adoption of this new technology among smes. In this paper, different food chain scenarios with their transaction processes and risks regarding food quality and food safety and related trust elements are analysed and differences in trust in several European food chains need to be considered within the context of the existing scientific literature. We identify food chains with trans- European cross-border exchange of food and international food chains in order to analyse the transaction processes and typical risks regarding food quality and food safety. The analysis focuses on trans-European cross-border and international food chains with their chain levels (e.g. production to wholesale trade, wholesale trade to industry, or wholesale trade to retail). In particular, it regards the food categories meat, grains, fresh vegetables, and fresh fruits and the particular risks regarding food quality and safety along the chains. The results are useful to identify relevant trust issues within the food supply chains, which can be addresses by innovative and trust building features of the B2B e-commerce tools.

JEL Codes: M15, M16

Key words: e-commerce, transaction risks, trust, trade stream analysis

The end of the last century and the dawn of the new millennium brought the phenomena defined as globalisation and the digital revolution. When national borders are dismantled, the effects are evident in the sense both of the extension and of the reduction of the radius of action of systems of communication, economics and politics. The concrete problem that occurs to the mind of the lawyer is that of the normative source responsible for the task of disciplining these phenomena. The web surfer needs to know the resulting rules. To these rules, other more general ones must be added to cover the protection of personal data. The harmonisation of legal rules is an indispensable precept for the creation of an efficient single market. Harmonisation to the maximum degree appears to be desirable in the interests of facilitating the flow of information about products and services and their appraisal on the part of consumers. At the same time, a minimum of harmonisation, leaving optional spaces entrusted to EU Member States, seems to be more advisable so that business still has the leeway to offer differentiated services that are better than the standard. A balanced solution could encompass two objectives: (i) to achieve maximum legal harmonisation both of terminology and of concepts and legal instruments, an objective pursued by attempts to draw up a European code of private law; (ii) to maintain differentiated treatment for forms of protection that tend to improve on the minimum threshold, together with differentiated treatment, dictated by market requirements, for the economic contents of pricing, risk, advantages etc.

Ai problemi che riguardano la protezione del consumatore nel mercato finanziario si affiancano ora i problemi di tutela dei consumatori che ricorrono agli strumenti elettronici per l’acquisizione di beni e servizi. Le finalità da perseguire in questa nuova dimensione, che è propria della società dell’informazione, sono state sottolineate in un rapporto dedicato alla costruzione delle reti per i cittadini e le loro comunità, ove si segnala l’esigenza di garantire ai singoli l’accesso alle reti, la trasparenza delle operazioni, l’adeguatezza delle informazioni, la correttezza dei comportamenti dei professionisti. In questa prospettiva, in cui si coniugano il trend che si propone di tutelare i consumatori nei loro rapporti con i professionisti e il trend che si propone di tutelare gli utenti dei mezzi informatici nei loro rapporti con i fornitori dei servizi e con gli utenti professionali degli stessi servizi, si colloca la vicenda della distribuzione di servizi finanziari on line. Il commercio elettronico, la firma digitale, i pagamenti e, ovviamente, la conclusione del contratto telematico, le clausole abusive nei contratti dei consumatori, la protezione dei dati personali, i rimedi applicabili e la risoluzione stragiudiziale delle controversie sono, tra gli altri, alcuni dei problemi certo i più rilevanti che emergono in questa nuova dimensione.

Il presente lavoro analizza da una prospettiva giuslavoristica il recente accordo di libero scambio concluso tra Unione europea e Giappone (EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement): dopo una breve comparazione tra i due sistemi lavoristici, il saggio analizza il capitolo dell’accordo in materia di sviluppo sostenibile, evidenziandone la debolezza in ragione dei meccanismi unicamente di soft law; nell’ultima parte viene affrontato l’unico aspetto ancora oggetto di negoziazione, ovvero i meccanismi arbitrali di risoluzione delle controversie in materia di investimenti (Investor-State dispute settlement) ed i connessi problemi di compatibilità col diritto dell’Unione Europea.

Il testo fornisce le nozioni indispensabili per la formazione dei manager delle aziende dedite al commercio con l’estero, degli specialisti import-export e degli operatori doganali. La preparazione di un “doganalista” deve avvenire alla luce delle più recenti disposizioni, in particolare nell’Unione Europea, dove le procedure hanno subito un processo di adeguamento alle nuove esigenze del contesto economico e commerciale. È stato pertanto necessario introdurre contenuti inediti, come le procedure informatizzate di accettazione delle dichiarazioni e l’audit doganale per le imprese.

Commerce in urban areas and town centre management: simplification of the legislation and the legal principle of subsidiarity - This study contains brief considerations on some aspects of urban planning and administrative law governing shopping districts with regard to urban areas and town centre management. These questions, which are of particular relevance today, are mentioned with specific regard to the need to simplify legislation and administrative procedures, all with a view to concrete implementation of the fundamental constitutional principle of subsidiarity. The role of regional programming is underlined in this respect when guidelines are laid down for local initiatives for the development of urban commerce, with special attention paid to existing town and city centres as natural shopping centres. The study also highlights the advantages of urban planning regulations which also meet the requirements of town centre management and it refers to the functions, which are mutually convergent in this sense, of both local administrations (municipalities above all) and stakeholders in society and private sector operators in creating and consolidating urban shopping districts.