The purpose of this paper is to test whether finance constraints create an incentive for debt-constrained firms to improve efficiency along time, using a sample of 1124 firms from the Italian manufac- turing over the period 1989-1994. Technical efficiency change indices are derived using a new...

It is well known that innovation is the engine that drives the growth machine of modern capitalist economies. Therefore, not surprisingly, substantial attention has been devoted by economists to the process behind the production of innovations. Three areas have recently emerged as relevant in...

Destefanis S. and Sena V. (2005) Public capital and total factor productivity: new evidence from the Italian regions, 1970-98, Regional Studies 39 , 603-618. This paper analyses the relationship between industrial total factor productivity and public capital across the 20 Italian administrative...

We survey the economic literature, both theoretical and empirical, on the choice of intellectual property protection by firms. Our focus is on the tradeoffs between using patents and disclosing versus the use of secrecy, although we also look briefly at the use of other means of formal...

As competition in the banking sector has intensified over the last two decades, commercial banks have started to use trademarks to differentiate their products and services from those offered by their competitors. Less clear are the implications of the trademarking activities on the commercial...

We survey the economic literature, both theoretical and empirical, on the choice of intellectual property protection by firms. Our focus is on the trade-offs between using patents and disclosing versus the use of secrecy, although we also look briefly at the use of other means of formal...

A surprisingly small number of innovative firms use the patent system. In the UK, the share of firms patenting among those reporting that they have innovated is about 4%. Survey data from the same firms support the idea that they do not consider patents or other forms of registered IP as...

We use an extended version of the well-established Crepon, Duguet and Mairesse model (1998) to model the relationship between appropriability mechanisms, innovation and firm-level productivity. We enrich this model in several ways. First, we consider different types of innovation spending and...

type="main" xml:lang="en" <title type="main">Abstract</title> <p>Economists have long agreed that the local availability of a more qualified workforce generates significant spillovers. This study suggests that these externalities may arise because plants by having access to a more qualified workforce at a regional level, can...</p>