Suchergebnisse

Questo capitolo si propone di analizzare gli effetti della corruzione percepita sulla probabilità che le piccole e medie imprese (PMI) hanno di domandare e usare sussidi pubblici, nella forma di finanziamenti diretti o prestiti agevolati (quali ad esempio prestiti con garanzia pubblica o prestiti a tasso di interesse ridotto). L'analisi utilizza 114.443 osservazioni relative ad un campione di PMI di 31 Paesi, distribuite nel periodo 2009-2018, estratto dai dati semestrali dell'indagine Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE) della Banca Centrale Europea. I dati relativi alla corruzione sono misurati attraverso i principali indicatori internazionali disponibili a livello paese. I risultati evidenziano che la percezione della corruzione, sia corrente sia passata, ha un impatto negativo sull'uso dei sussidi. Questo impatto tuttavia è minore nei paesi in cui il grado di corruzione percepito è meno elevato. ; This chapter aims at analyzing the effects of perceived corruption on the probability of demanding public subsidies in the form of support from public sources, such as guarantees or reduced interest rate loans, by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The empirical analysis is based on a sample of 114,443 observations related to SMEs located in 31 countries, over the period 2009-2018. The firm level data come from the Survey Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE) run by the European Central Bank, while the country level data on corruption are retrieved from the leading international indicators. Our results show that both, current and past corruption have a negative impact on the use of public subsidies. However, this impact is lower in countries where the perceived corruption is lower.

This paper uses a novel micro econometric approach to analyze the impact of social benefits on the individual probabilities of poverty exit and entry in Italy, and their relative importance with respect to other socio-economic determinants of poverty transitions. Year to year transitions are defined as dichotomous variables capturing the changes of the individual poverty status, and are analyzed using random effects probit models estimated on pooled Italian data from 9 longitudinal components of IT-SILC covering the period 2004-2015. Our results show that social benefits strongly counteract the adverse effects of individual characteristics like unemployment, work intensity, inactivity, household size (and composition) and past poverty experience on the individual probabilities of poverty exit and entry. Despite their important effects on the individual probabilities of transitions, however, social benefits have a limited coverage among the vulnerable groups of the population, which strongly limits their aggregate impact on transition rates and poverty rates.

The article focuses on the measurement of a relevant component of the human capital, the managerial ability (MA). Quantifying MA is central to management literature. Prior research indicates that manager specific features (ability, talent, reputation, or style) affect economic outcomes but, in management literature, most of the measures used in archival research also reflect significant aspects of the firm that are outside of management's control. The article aims to find a measure, better than existing ones, which allows distinguishing the effect of the manager from the effect of the firm in creating firm value. The article uses the "two‐stage SFA‐DEA" approach, in which both Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) are used to estimate the efficiency scores firms adopt to derive a measure of MA. The idea is to obtain a measure of MA as a residue of the inefficiency equation of SFA and to use it as a new input to insert in the "second/third" DEA stage. Italian banks have been chosen as the sample to investigate and implement the model. The differences in results with or without this new MA measure provide evidence of the existence of this contribution. The originality of the article consists in the proposition of a new model to measure MA, which outperforms the alternative measures, simple to use as it is based on easily obtainable financial data and available for a broad cross section of firms, so opening the door to a wide array of studies previously difficult to conduct. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PurposeThe article investigates whether variety of democracy affects the probability to employ public subsidies for credit support by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) led by female entrepreneurs.Design/methodology/approachBuilding on the literature on democracy and on gender differences, it leverages a large firm- and country-level dataset (SAFE) of 31 democracies in Europe (EU and non-EU) over the 2009–2014 period by using probit models and instrumental variable approaches.FindingsResults from the different econometric techniques and samples suggest that variety of democracy affects female-led SMEs in using public subsidies for credit support. The evidence is robust to endogeneity concerns.Research limitations/implicationsThe empirical evidence presents a time frame limitation. At the same time, SAFE is the only database that supplies information about the gender of firms and public subsidies for credit support, rendering it the only resource that allows the test of the hypothesis proposed. The article therefore offers insights for scholars to revisit our results in future studies that make use of datasets with a longer time span – when they will become available.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, the article is the first to study the effect of democracy on female entrepreneurial behavior in the use of public subsidies for credit support.

Does a corrupt politico-institutional environment affect the demand of public subsidies for credit access – so-called public guarantee schemes – by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) helmed by female entrepreneurs? The paper tackles this question by using a large sample of European SMEs over 2010–2014 while also carefully addressing possible endogeneity issues. It provides robust evidence that, compared to their male counterparts, female entrepreneurs: (a) tend to demand more public subsidies, and (b) are more sensitive to the quality of the politico-institutional environment. The upshot is that a corrupt environment is not gender neutral: in light of 'essential gender features,' corruption negatively influences SMEs helmed by female entrepreneurs more than male ones.