The paper addresses the relevancy of networking activities and R&D as main drivers of productivity performance and ouput innovation, for small and medium enterprises (SME) playing in a local economic system. Given the intangible nature of many techno organisational innovation and networking...

The strong adverse selection that immigrants face in hosting labour markets may induce them to adopt some behaviours or signals to modify employers’ beliefs. Relevant mechanisms for reaching this purpose are personal reputation; exploiting ethnic networks deeply-rooted in the hosting country;...

Though reduction is at the top of the waste management hierarchy, EU policies have historically introduced waste management incentives mainly concerning waste recovery and recycling, in addition to actions aimed at reducing disposal in landfills. Only very recently have EU policies started...

Innovation is a key element behind the achievement of desired environmental and economic performances. Regarding CO2, mitigation strategies would require cuts in emissions of around 80-90% with respect to 1990. We investigate whether complementarity, namely integration, between the adoption of...

The achievement of positive environmental performance at national level could strongly depend on differences in local capabilities of both institutions and the private business sector. Environmental regulation alone is a weak instrument if the institutional and business environment cannot...

This paper aims to explore how the competitiveness of the EU economy, here captured by export dynamics over the medium run (1996-2007), has been affected by environmental regulation both on the public and private sector side. The strong and weak versions of the Porter hypothesis are tested by...

The pollution haven hypothesis affirms that an open market regime will encourage the flow of low technology polluting industries toward developing countries, due to potential comparative advantages related to low environmental standards. In contrast, the hypothesis suggested by Porter and van...

Over the last few years, environmental issues have entered into policy design, particularly development and growth policies. Natural resources are considered necessary production inputs and environmental quality is considered a welfare determinant. The integration of environmental issues into...

This paper investigates the empirical link between emission intensity and economic growth, using a very large data set of 61,219 Italian manufacturing firms over the period 2000-2004. As a measure of lagged environmental performance (efficiency) at firm level we exploit NAMEA sector for CO2,...