This paper investigates whether the production efficiency of Norwegian local governments exhibits a spatial pattern that is compatible with the hy­pothesis of yardstick competition. In order to check whether yardstick com­petition is really responsible far the observed spatial pattern, and to...

A common argument against compulsory licensing of intellectual property maintains that it facilitates the entry of inefficient producers, which may reduce social welfare independently of any effects on R&D incentives. We study the issue in a model where the innovative firm, under the threat of...

The share of elected positions held by women in democratic countries is still very small. To increase this share many countries have introduced gender quotas in their electoral rules. In Italy gender quotas, requiring a minimum number of women in electoral lists, have been introduced for...

This paper provides an analysis of the impact of migration and remittances on the inter-generational evolution of human capital in an economy that is characterized by the existence of a poverty trap at a low level of human capital. The analysis is conducted within an overlapping generation...

Recent research suggests that consumption-based measures offer an insightful perspective on the debate on the relationship between economie growth and the environment. In this article, we deepen the eonsumption-based line of inquiry by investigating the empirical èvidenee in support of the...

Agents capable of adaptive behavior can be obtained by means of AI tools. Thanks to these, they develop the ability to vary their Behavior in order to achieve satisfying results in the simulated environment. In the paper, artificially intelligent agents play an iterated prisoner' s dilemma...

In a future time in the world the water will be a basic problem. At the moment in Italy the water’s problem is represented by her reduction, in front of a growing demand, while for the drinkable water always more numerous administrators are in budget deficit. The causes of this last national...

In this paper, we aim to explore the impact of social policies and labour market characteristics on the woman’s joint decisions of working and having children, using data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). We include in the analysis, beyond personal characteristics, variables...

A part of the literature on fiscal federalism aver the years has dealt with environmental policy as a particular case of the supply of public goods. The centrai issue is the identification of criteria on how to allocate powers and functions aver environmental management at different levels of...

The paper proposes an experimental setup to compare different representations of artificial adaptive agents (genetic algorithms, artificial neural networks, and classifier systems) and suggests some criteria to assess equivalence and robustness of performance. In economie theory, the use of...