This paper aims at estimating the value of legal patent protection of environment-related technologies, using the real options approach. In particular, we manage to overcome the problem of the lack of data for those countries that do not collect patent renewal data. Following this estimation...

This paper revises the estimation of the dose-response function as in Hirano and Imbens (2004) by proposing a flexible way to estimate the generalized propensity score when the treatment variable is not necessarily normally distributed. We also provide a set of programs that accomplish this task...

After deriving a model describing the law of evolution of innovators and imitators the article focuses on their relationships under two different scenarios: prey-predator, in which innovators are regarded as preys, and competing species. Analytic results show that among the feasible equilibria...

Using data for the Italian Central Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium Enterprises, the paper analyses the effect of partial credit guarantees on firms’ financing. We show that neglecting heterogeneity in guarantee intensities, namely considering all firms as equally treated, leads to a...

In this paper, we investigate the economics of concession under dynamic uncertainty using real option theory. We analyze the properties of concession as an instrument to privatize investment and management of public resources. In this context, we explore, in particular, three issues: (1) the...

Nel saggio si affronta la questione della rispecializzazione produttiva delle imprese italiane. Tramite un’accurata analisi dei Censimenti Industriali 1991-2001 si vuole appurare se nei distretti industriali dei quattro comparti chiave del made in Italy vi sia stato uno spostamento di addetti...

In this paper we model concession contracts between a public and a private party, under dynamic uncertainty arising both from the volatility of the cash flow generated by the project and by the strategic behaviour of the two parties. Under these conditions we derive three notions of equilibrium...

This article evaluates patents in a stochastic discrete time framework following the real options approach. By modeling the dynamics of the underlying as a spatial point process both size and time of the jumps can be treated as random variables. The propagation of the jumps from the underlying...

Can the media play a significant role in shaping pricing behaviour at retail level? What empirical evidence, particularly for inflation after the euro changeover? A model of the news impact on inflation is constructed in terms of a sticky-information Phillips curve with an epidemiology approach...