In this paper we investigate the economic rationality of the bed downsizing process characterising the hospital industry worldwide in the last decades, providing new evidence on the factor substitutability in the production of hospital services. We consider a sample of Italian regional producers...

In this paper we analyse the cost structure of a sample of Italian Local Public Transport (LPT) companies operating in large urban centres, so as to extend the evidence of some recent studies focused on small-sized and medium-sized operators. The main focus is to verify the presence and the...

The empirical literature on the cost structure of multiproduct firms (e.g., public utilities providing in combination gas, water, and electricity) traditionally assumes a common technology across different products and stages of production, letting the issue of poolability unexplored. The...

The empirical literature on the cost structure of the electric utility industry traditionally focused on the measurement of specific technological properties: i) scale economies in generation or distribution; ii) multi-product (or horizontal) economies of scope at the downstream stage; iii)...

In the last decade a new regulatory framework for electric utilities, aiming at a gradual liberalization of the sector, has been set in Europe. The promotion of competition among generators implies the need to separate power generation from downstream transmission and distribution activities....

The presence of extensive housing subsidies characterises the current tax systems as inefficient. In this paper, we study whether inefficiency is the price to be paid to improve equity, by assessing the actual distributive impact of housing taxation on Italian households. We concentrate on the...

The upward trend in the incidence of caesarean deliveries is a widespread stylised fact in many countries. Several studies have argued that it does not reflect, at least in part, patients' needs but that it is also influenced by other factors, such as providers/physicians incentives. Not...

Recent theories on fiscal decentralization support the view that sub-national governments who finance a larger share of their spending with taxes raised locally by themselves are more accountable towards their citizens. Whilst evidence on improvements in spending efficiency is relatively common,...

Anti-money laundering regulations have been centred on the Know-Your-Customer rule so far, overlooking the fact that criminal proceedings that need to be laundered are usually represented by cash. This is the first study which tries to provide an answer to the question of how much of cash...