This paper investigates the relationship between bank concentration and the real economy by analyzing the number and average size of firms in manufacturing industries in two samples of countries with differing levels of economic development. We use a panel of 42 countries and 27 manufacturing...

The paper reviews the literature on the evaluation of the macroeconomic of the EU Structural Funds and it focuses on the macroeconomic models used by the European Commission for the assessment of the Objective 1 Community and Structural Frameworks. It emerges that more detailed Structural Funds...

Procurement (and concession) contracts are agreements granting the right to construct public works, operate and provide a service/good. Themain advantage of a procurement contract is that it passes full responsibility for investment and operations to the private sector and consequentlyprovides...

To avoid high profit levels often experienced in countries where monopolies in public utility sectors are regulated through price-cap mechanisms, several regulatory agencies have recently introduced profit-sharing (PS) clauses aimed at obtaining price reductions to the benefit of consumers....

Procurement awarding mechanisms based on average price have been advocated to soften price competition and reduce cost overruns. We show that their theoretical support is shaky. When the bid closest to the average is awarded, firms submit identical bids, making the selection extremely costly and...