Postal Services play a fundamental role in each nation, because of the double impact they generate from a social and economic point of view. The introduction of the European directives opens the way towards a larger importance of free competition. But, even if liberalisation of postal markets...

Along the last two decades Italian industrial districts have been touched by two main phenomena: internationalization of production and international migration. While the first has been extensively studied, the latter has not received the same degree of attention. This paper shows that...

L’obiettivo del lavoro è di fornire una esposizione compatta, ma il più possibile esaustiva, delle questioni teoriche che si generano laddove un’impresa dominante, verticalmente integrata, controlli l’offerta di un input indispensabile alle concorrenti (“rete”). Il conseguente...

This paper outlines the evolution of the regulatory framework for the supply of local public utilities, social and health services since the early nineties. That framework is rendered complex by frequent legislative reforms, the overlap of general rules and specific rules for some services, and...

The main viewpoint related to privatisation is concerned with the aim of verifying the presence of incentive mechanisms on the managerial behaviour. This paper, differently from other earlier studies on this topic, is aimed to study, with an econometric approach, the dynamic of economic...

After a review of the governance of welfare policies and of subsidiarity experiences in the third sector, the Social Agency Model is proposed. It integrates in a structured way public and private action against poorness, above all the activity of the third sector. The model is based on the...

Profit share in Italy has been growing between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s, remaining stable at historically high levels since than. After dropping in the first half of the 1970s, owing to an unprecedented rapid rise in wages, profit share started to recover. The rise during the 1980s...

The paper discusses the evolutionary path of the European postal industry turned from a inefficient state-owned monopoly into highly competitive market, in sight of the envisaged market liberalization by the year 2011. National operators adopt different strategies toward the increasing...

The paper summarizes the framework used in a research project on local public services carried out by Bank of Italy researchers. It discusses motivations, characteristics, results and general lessons of the project, whose sector-specific results are detailed in individual papers. The project was...

This paper analyzes the potential and the limits of project finance for the provision of local public services and compares them with alternative instruments in the light of current regulation. The main requirements for project finance, even in non “pure” forms, to justify its complex...