Suchergebnisse

Italian industrial districts (IDs) recently attracted international attention because their performance during the last few decades contradicted the alleged weakness of industrial structures based on SMEs in "traditional" sectors. The book analyses some developments taking place in Italian IDs and local systems of production that can represent a new stage of evolution for the backbone of the Italian economy. Based on the extensive use of original databases three main trajectories of change in IDs are presented. The first trajectory is the increasing role of "groups" of manufacturing SMEs arising from mergers and acquisitions as well as spin-off growth processes at the "family firms" level. The second one is the consolidation of innovation capabilities in IDs. And the third one is the internationalisation process of Italian IDs through both trade and foreign direct investment. The essays suggest that Italian IDs are again evolving by coherent adaptations which will have, however, uncertain outcomes

- This study suggests the possibility of developing an analysis of Italian infrastructures on the basis of municipal data analysed through the use of multivariate statistical techniques. The empirical results of this work confirm some well-known characteristics of the infrastructural Italian system and identify some less obvious features. In fact, while on the one hand there emerges the usual picture of a country characterised by a North-South dualism, on the other hand, various clusters are identified within each macro-region North-West, North-east, Centre and South which give a more complex picture. This article also provides a comparative analysis with earlier studies.

Waste generation and waste disposal are issues that are becoming increasingly prominent in the environmental arena both from a policy perspective and in the context of delinking analysis. Waste generation is still increasing proportionally with income, and economic and environmental costs associated to landfilling are also increasing. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of waste generation, incineration, recycling and landfill dynamics based on panel data for the EU25, to assess the effects of different drivers (economic, structural, policy) and the eventual differences between western and eastern EU countries. We show that for waste generation there is still no Waste Kuznets Curve (WKC) trend, although elasticity to income drivers appear lower than in the past. Landfill and other policy effects do not seem to provide backward incentives for waste prevention. Regarding landfill and incineration, the two trends, as expected, are respectively decreasing and increasing, with policy providing a strong driver. It demonstrates the effectiveness of policy even in this early stage of policy implementation. This is essential for an ex post evaluation of existing landfill and incineration directives. Eastern countries appear to perform generally quite well, thus benefiting from their EU membership and related policies in terms of environmental performances. We may conclude that although absolute delinking is far from being achieved for waste generation, there are first positive signals in favour of an increasing relative delinking for waste generation and average robust landfill diversion, and various evidence of a significant role of the EU waste policies implemented in the late 1990s and early 2000s on landfill diversion. Waste prevention is nevertheless the next necessary target of waste regulatory efforts.

The paper addresses the dynamic-incentive effect of environmental policy instruments when innovation is uncertain and occurs in very complex industrial subsystems. The case of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) is considered focusing predominantly on the effects of the European Directive adopted in 2000 which stipulated economic instruments as free take-back, and on the voluntary agreements in place in many EU countries. The ELV case study is an example of a framework where policy-making faces an intrinsic dynamic and systemic environment. Coherent sequences of single innovations taking place in both upstream (car making) and downstream (car recycling/recovery) of the ELV system can give rise to different "innovation paths", in accordance with cost-benefit considerations, technological options and capabilities associated to the different industrial actors involved. The impact of economic instruments on innovation paths, in particular free take-back, is considered. Deficiencies or difficulties concerning the transmission of incentives between different industries can prevent the creation of new recycling/recovery/reuse markets, giving rise to other less preferable and unexpected outcomes. The implication for policy is a need for an integrated policy approach, as enforceable VAs, in order to create a shared interindustry interest for innovation and to reduce the possible adverse effects which economic instruments exert on innovation through cost benefit impacts on key industrial and waste-related agents involved in the ELV management system. These advantages should be taken into account vis à vis the emergence of Integrated Product Policy (IPP) as a leading concept of EU environmental policy and the associated shift from extended producer responsibility to extended product responsibility.

Ingenio Working Paper Series ; Eco-innovation is an explicit aim of major EU policy strategies. Many environmental policy de facto require firms to eco-innovate to comply with policy requirements, while the overlap between policy-driven and market-driven eco-innovation strategies is increasingly important for many firms. Barriers to eco-innovation can then emerge as a critical factor in either preventing or stimulating EU strategies, policy implementation, and 'green strategies' by firms. In this paper, we propose a taxonomy of EU SMEs in terms of barriers to eco-innovation. The aim is to discriminate among SMEs on how they differ in terms of perception of barriers and engagement in environmental innovation, thus highlighting the need to look at eco-innovation barriers in relation to firms' attitudes, technological and organizational capabilities, and strategies. We identify six clusters of SMEs. These clusters include firms facing 'Revealed barriers', 'Deterring barriers', 'Cost deterred' firms, 'Market deterred' firms, 'Non eco-innovators' and 'Green champions'. The clusters show substantial differences in terms of ecoinnovation adoption. We show that our proposed taxonomy has little overlap with sector classifications. This diversity should be taken into account for successful environmental innovation policies. ; Peer reviewed

This paper investigates the environmental Kuznets curves (EKC) for CO2 emissions in a panel of 109 countries during the period 1959-2001. The length of the series makes the application of a heterogeneous estimator suitable from an econometric point of view. The results, based on the hierarchical Bayes estimator, show that different EKC dynamics are associated with the different sub-samples of countries considered. On average, more industrialized countries show evidence of EKC in quadratic specifications, which nevertheless are probably evolving into an N shape based on their cubic specification. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the EU, and not the Umbrella group led by US, has been driving currently observed EKC-like shapes. The latter is associated to monotonic income-CO2 dynamics. The EU shows a clear EKC shape. Evidence for less developed countries consistently shows that CO2 emissions rise positively with income, though there are some signs of an EKC. Analyses of future performance, nevertheless, favor quadratic specifications, thus supporting EKC evidence for wealthier countries and non-EKC shapes for industrializing regions.

Using data sets from Italian provinces that include rich northern and poorer southern regions, this article examines to what extent income and municipal waste generation are linked and at what level of income they become delinked. The analysis shows that the turning point occurs at very high levels of value added per capita (in the range of 22,586 to 31,611), exemplified by a very limited number of wealthy (northern) Italian provinces. The authors also find that some recently adopted waste policy and waste management instruments have influenced waste generation at source, independent of socioeconomic characteristics. This supports the argument that more effective waste management instruments that target waste prevention at the source need to be implemented in line with the stated priorities of the EU and member countries. The findings also imply that developing countries in particular should not wait to implement waste reduction policies until household incomes and consumption levels increase.

This paper provides empirical evidence on delinking and Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for municipal waste production in Italy. First, methodological issues and literature on delinking and EKC for waste are critically re-examined. Secondly, we analyse two very disaggregated panel datasets on Italian Regions and Provinces (1996-2004 data for the 20 regions, 2000-2004 data for the 103 provinces) to estimate the extent to which delinking between waste production and economic drivers is taking place. The empirical analysis of different specifications shows mixed evidence in favour of an EKC relationship. Evidence supporting an EKC hypothesis significantly arises at a provincial level, which presents a very high data heterogeneity. Nevertheless, the turning point is at very high levels of added value per capita (around 23,000-26,000€), which characterise a very limited number of wealthy (Northern) Italian provinces. The analysis does not reveal a similar evidence for the regional dataset: only a relative delinking dynamic emerges at the provincial level, we also note a positive relationship between waste production and the share of separated waste collection, which can be explained by the sharp difference in income and waste-policy performance between Northern and Southern Italy. Population density is not significant. Finally, the test on some policy proxies, i.e. the diffusion of the new waste tariff regime at the local-level and the ability of utilities to recover waste service cost, leads to the conclusion that they are not (yet) impacting waste production. To lower the turning points and to avoid an increasing gap between geographical areas, innovative (market based) and more effective policy instruments should be implemented. In particular, the weight of waste policies should be rebalanced towards waste prevention targets and instruments, in line with the priorities stated by the EU and Member Countries. In fact, the indirect feedback effect of good post-production waste management policies/practices on reducing waste production at a source can be weak and slow. In general, the results confirm that more geographically-disaggregated data may offer more insights with respect to cross-country datasets, also from the policy perspective.