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Some recent patent infringement litigations initiated by universities have resulted in multi-million dollar damages and have attracted public attention and stimulated research especially among law scholars. In this paper, we build a brand new database that include patents filed by universities at the United States and Trademark Office (USPTO), their characteristics and, eventually, the information about whether they have been used in infringements lawsuits by universities in the years 1990–2019. Our study is articulated in two parts. First, we show that, although it is still a quite rare phenomenon, patent litigation involving universities has been significantly growing in the last 2 decades. Second, we study the characteristics of university patents that have been litigated vis-à-vis non-litigated university patents. In this respect, we find that public universities and non-US universities are less inclined to litigate their patents compared to private and US universities. In addition, we also find that patent quality is an important determinant in the decision of university litigation. This result holds for patents in the Electrical Engineering sector, which is traditionally prone to opportunistic litigation, and no matter what type of university involved (public vs private, or US vs non-US).

Selective migration does not necessarily imply a unique unidirectional or ‘synchronized’ flow from the poorer to the richer regions. Indeed, migration is selective to individual characteristics of migrants, but also places. Therefore, it is likely that migrants with different skill levels, age, and gender select different destinations—irrespective of regional disparities—with a greater degree of synchronization by similar individuals. The article explores these processes in Italy using inter-provincial migration flows (NUTS3) data for the years 1975, 1985, 1995, and 2005 and dividing migrants into 18 categories based on their human capital (proxied by education), age, and gender. Findings confirm the hypothesis of selective migration flows with clear-cut differences in choosing locations according to individual characteristics.

This paper employs provincial data to study the spatial and intersectoral spill-overs in aggregate failure rates in Spain, by using an Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation. The analysis is based on NUTS3 data over the time span 2005Q1-2013Q4. By speculating on the effects of the Spanish financial crisis, we document empirical evidence of the presence of spatial spill-overs among neighboring counties. Furthermore, some intersectoral spill-overs are also detected: we observe that Industry and Agriculture exhibit a positive impact on the Service sector. These results can be useful to design proper policy rules to better manage the spread of bankruptcies over time and space Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature

In the last decades, wildfire hazards have increased to dangerous levels, becoming the focus of debate among policymakers both at the local and national levels. This paper proposes a Spatio-temporal approach to study the determinants of fire size distributions taking Sardinia as a case study in the time span 1998-2009. Special attention is devoted to socioeconomic factors of local communities where wildfires occurred. The main finding of this study is that the proportion of public lands in a given municipality tends to mitigate the extent of the burned area. In addition, communities with a higher percentage of people employed in the primary sector are less likely to experience large burned extents.

This study uses a bargaining power model to examine the relative bargaining power of those who self-identify as being either residential home traders or investors, both in the Corsican housing mark...

Purpose Research on the association between individual characteristics of undergraduate students, drop-out and delayed graduation is still evolving. Therefore, further evidence is required. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach This paper reports on an empirical study examining the relationship between students’ individual characteristics and delayed graduation. The analysis is based on a sample of 1,167 students who have registered on and have completed a full-time undergraduate programme in Italy. Using a Probit model, the findings document the individual, background and environmental indicators that play a role in explaining delayed graduation. Findings The study observes that students who commute to university perform better than those residing on campus. Other factors increasing the probability of completing the undergraduate programme on time include individual characteristics (e.g. gender and age), student background (family income, education), institutional environment (teaching and research quality) and student satisfaction. Finally, some policy implications are discussed. Social implications A direct policy implication of these findings is that supporting academic staff in order to enhance their performance in both research and teaching has a positive effect on the performance of the students. Originality/value This paper contributes to the debate on the impact of institutional quality on students’ performance, aiming to address the question of balance between teaching and research orientation.

International audience

The second home is an important issue for a housing market and has effects on local land use. Conventional approaches do not consider second homes varying across space and time. Hence, spatial models, such as the Besag, York and Mollie (BYM) model and its variants, offer a feasible way to model both covariates and spatial, temporal dependence. This model is applied in our study to analyse the second home incidence rate at a county level in Corsica, France, over the period 2006���16. We investigate the spatially referenced covariates and localize ���hot spots��� of the incidence rate across Corsican counties. Further, the temporally structured component reveals that there was a gradual increase in the incidence rate over the period under study.

We investigate the impact of the consolidation of local agencies publicly providing services, focusing on the prosecution of crime. In many states in the United States, prosecution is a county office with a head prosecutor directing decisions. Other states merge counties into prosecutorial districts. We show that, along with the cost savings that arises, the evidence suggests that prosecutorial services benefit from increasing returns to scale. The efficiency of prosecutorial output is higher in consolidated districts. Further, we show that it is not owing to differing outcomes of the criminal justice system but to fewer inputs used.

International audience

This paper extends the bargaining model of Harding et al. (Harding J, Rosenthal S and Sirmans CF (2003) Estimating bargaining power in the market for existing homes, Review of Economics and Statistics 85: 178–188), to a latent class framework. This allows for differences in market power in thin and segmented markets. We estimate a latent class model using data on apartment sales in Corsica over the period 2006 to 2016. Our results indicate that the Corsican housing market has two distinct segments or regimes and that bargaining power of buyers and sellers is not the same in these two segments. In particular, we find that local French residents have strong bargaining power in Regime 1 but non-French residents have weak bargaining power. Regime 2 is characterised by strong bargaining power for local French, Corsican French and non-French participants. Based on auxiliary regressions and a comparison of weighted means associated with each regime, we conclude that compared with Regime 2, the apartments associated with the first regime are more spacious, less likely to be new, more likely to have a garden and typically have longer travel times to local amenities such as doctors, pharmacies and the downtown area. From this we conclude that apartments associated with Regime 1 are more likely to be rural and at a greater distance from the coast. Distance from a city is likely to present an informational disadvantage to non-French residents, who may already face language and legal obstacles.

The resilience of cooperatives and their positive contribution to employment in times of crisis is well established. However, their overall economic performance relative to conventional firms is still controversial, casting doubt on the ability of this alternative organizational form to govern the fundamental drivers of productivity. To shed new light on the issue, we study the comparative technical efficiency of agricultural cooperatives (ACs) and conventional firms (CFs), drawing on a unique data set comprising all wine‐producing companies in Sardinia (Italy) from 2004 to 2009. Due to the similarity of the habitats in which the firms operate and the careful measurement of several key inputs, the observed units are ‘twins’ in all non‐organizational respects, providing an ideal setting for comparison. Having generated efficiency scores through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), we regressed the scores on external covariates and ownership type using a pooled truncated maximum likelihood formulation. Our findings, which survive correction for spatial correlations, indicate that cooperatives are less technically efficient than their capitalist counterparts and struggle more to adapt to extreme weather fluctuations. Both results are particularly worrying in light of the main challenges facing the wine industry in the near future: liberalization of EU planting rights and climate change.

International audience

This work deals with computer simulation of complex spatiotemporal systems based on Agent-Based Models of Land Use Cover Change (ABM/LUCC). We propose an ABM/LUCC for modelling the complex system of tourist areas facing an intense residential development. In this paper, we present a model suited to the geographical context of the Corsica, which is sufficiently flexible to be adapted to others similar contexts to simulate and evaluate territorial planning policies. The model describes a collection of tourist areas that have faced -and still face- an intense residential development leading to a huge pressure on land prices as well as to land-use conflicts (local residential market, tourist rental investment, agricultural production). The objective is to realize simulations of new management practices, able to combine economic development and land competition in a strongly constrained environment. By means of computer models, we intend to represent the behavior of heterogeneous economic agents in both time and space. Existing spatial territory management models are mostly analytically intractable. Agent-based modeling formalisms offer practicable solving techniques. In particular, they allow to compute ABM/LUCC models dealing with heterogeneous behavior shaped by many interacting components. In this work we present the main assumptions and the structure of the ABM/LUCC model and his expression as a conceptual model that is an essential prerequisite for further development in this field.

Spanish small businesses rarely file for bankruptcy, and Spanish bankruptcy rates are abnormally small. The historical inadequacy of the Spanish insolvency system has led most enterprises to rely on the de facto alternative mortgage system and to overinvest in fixed tangible assets: a distortion that may trigger significant adverse effects, for instance on the enabling environment of novel entrepreneurship. The reform of the bankruptcy law that took place in Spain some 10 years in order to modernise the insolvency system involved, as a main novelty, the establishment of specialised commercial courts (Juzgados de lo Mercantil). Since the net benefits of specialised judicial functions are in principle ambiguous, we study empirically whether these new bodies had any impact, over and above the economic crisis, on the use of the bankruptcy system. Exploiting the staggered timing of the new courts geography, we estimate an endogenous treatment model with a binary policy variable which allows to measure the effect of the reform on bankruptcy rates. The results support the view that the new bankruptcy law took the right path, but the size of the estimated parameters call for further policy efforts in that direction.

No effort has been made to connect good governance and the performance of the tourism industry at the country level. We take a first step to provide empirical evidence of this positive effect. Based on a data set of 100 countries between 2002 and 2012, the impact of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) on the tourism industry is analyzed, controlling also for demographic, economic and environmental factors. Using a dynamic panel data approach, we highlight the role played by good governance in explaining differences in countries’ tourism performances, measured here as inbound tourism expenditures per inhabitant. We also observe that the impact of WGI is even higher among low-openness countries.

International audience

The aim of this contribution is, focusing on the case of Corsica, to quantify the identity value of local production. Apart from the nutritional, healthy and organoleptic features of local products, from the consumer point of view, their consumption tends to develop a sense of belonging to the place it is produced in: in other words, it is not just food, but it is also an experience allowing individuals to connect with local heritage. For instance due to the originality of the techniques or the quality of the employed ingredients. One can say that both material and immaterial local patrimony are transferred to the product, increasing consumers' willingness to pay and therefore its market value. It is precisely this identity value that we would like to isolate and estimate combining a choice experiment method with a geographical qualitative approach. To this end, a geographical survey has been undertaken. It aims to identify typical consumption profiles depending on the link between the consumer, the place and the product. This survey is complemented with an econometric analysis in order to identify consumers' motivations and measure the related values., Ce texte propose d'explorer la valeur identitaire des produits de terroir à partir de l'exemple de la Corse. Dans ce contexte territorial particulier, la demande touristique tendrait à valoriser fortement la représentation de conservatoire d'authenticité que renvoie l'île. Au-delà des qualités nutritives, sanitaires et organoleptiques des produits, les touristes chercheraient à s'immiscer dans le territoire et à opérer une rencontre avec la culture locale. C'est précisément cette « sur- » valeur patrimoniale investie par les touristes que nous cherchons à mesurer. Pour cela, une enquête géographique a été conduite de façon à mettre en évidence différents profils de consommateurs en fonction de leurs liens aux produits et au territoire. Celle-ci est complétée par une analyse économétrique devant conduire à identifier et classer les motivations des consommateurs et à mesurer quantitativement les différentes valeurs.

International audience

This paper studies the impact of a set of managerial characteristics on performance in the top division (Serie A) of the Italian football league during seasons 2000/2001−2009/2010. We employ a bivariate ordered probit model applied to match‐level data, which allows for asymmetric effects at home and away matches and in goals scored and conceded. Our set of coach characteristics includes indicators of skill, experience, innate features as well as empathy with the team. We find that some managerial features matter even when we control for club power and past results. Performance is positively correlated with the manager having had experience abroad and with the manager being a former player with the club; but performance is worsened by lack of managerial experience. Other features affect only some particular aspects of performance. In particular, Italian managers are more defensive in home games while older managers are more defensive in away games. Our approach also identifies a negative effect of managerial turnover on defensive performance, an effect which is masked when a more traditional aggregated model is used.

International audience

This study aims to analyse the co-occurrence of gambling activity and the consumption of addictive substances, such as tobacco, alcohol and drugs. By using a sample of 709 gamblers in Sardinia (Italy), a multivariate probit approach is proposed since it allows simultaneous study of the extent of correlation between the consumption of different substances.Our findings document that, on the one hand, betting more money leads to an increase in the propensity to consume tobacco in the middle of the game, and, on the other hand, the simultaneous co-occurrence of smoking, alcohol and drugs drives up the probability of getting more involved in gambling activity. Knowing the positive reinforcing effects of addictive substances is the first step towards implementing the most effective prevention and treatment modalities for problem/pathological gamblers.

International audience; Empirical evidence of the marginal deterrent effect is provided. Exploring a data set of kidnapping crimes in Italy between 1960 and 2012, changes in Italian policy regarding sanctions for kidnapping and their associated impact on murders is considered. Deaths associated with kidnappings increase in prevalence when the kidnapping sanction increased, causing a decrease in the marginal sanction for murder. Death rates reversed when enhanced sanctions for murder were later introduced.

International audience

We study the relationship between suicide rates and socioeconomic factors by using a panel data at Italian province level in the time span 1996–2005. Our analysis focuses on the impact of social norms on suicidal behaviors. In particular, beyond the usual social correlates of suicide rates, we propose an aggregate measure of social conformity which refers to the religious sphere as an area of conflict between individual and social behaviors. GMM and dynamic spatial panel data approach are implemented to control for serial and spatial autocorrelation. The results confirm the primary role of family, alcohol consumption and population density in explaining the suicide rates in Italy, while the economic variables, namely income per capita and economic growth, do not appear to have any effects.

International audience; Economic freedom, which measures the protection of property and freedom to contract, is generally argued to capture the quality of a state’s institutions regarding market activity. As to be expected, numerous studies have found that economic freedom is associated with good economic outcomes. Additionally, much effort in public economics has worked to identify the features of quality non-market public institutions. No effort has been made to connect institutions that influence market activity and institutions that govern non-market activities. We take a first step. We employ a linear programming method for measuring relative efficiencies known as Data Envelopment Analysis. We apply this technique to information on the use of inputs to the production of the prosecution of crime across the thousands of local prosecutor offices in the U.S. We then compare state-level measurements of prosecution productivity with data on state-level economic freedom from the Economic Freedom of North America index. We show that there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between the two. Those states that develop institutions respecting economic freedom also tend to be the states that develop efficient publicly-provided services. The results are extended to complementary economic freedom measurements.

National audience; Les modèles cellulaires multi-échelles (Cellular Automata Model-CAM) [9, 1, 3, 2] sont souvent utilisés pour déterminer les facteurs-clés qui influencent les variations spatio-temporelles et l'utilisation des sols sur un territoire, notamment leurs déclinaisons de type " syst emes multi-agents d'utilisation et de couverture des sols " (Multi-Agent System models of Land-Use/Cover Change-MAS/LUCC)[4, 5, 10]. Dans ce travail, nous envisageons de développer un CAM de type MAS/LUCC afin d'´ etudier par la simulation informatique la multifonctionnalité du foncier rural en Corse. Nous allons nous intéresser plusparticulì erement a l'approché economique décrivant des usages multiples, en conflit ou complémentaires : tourisme/agriculture, chasse/agriculture, agriculture/environnement, etc. Il s'agit ici de développer un mod ele capable d' expérimenter virtuellement des politiques de projet de territoire, afin que l'on puissé etudier l'impact de l'homme sur la ressourcefoncì ere. Il s'agit notamment de poursuivre les travaux de 2010, en nous inspirant des mod eles décisionnels que nous avons déj a développés dans [7, 6, 8]. Dans ce travail préparatoire , nous discutons précisément de l'opportunité d'initialiser le mod ele MAS/LUCC depuis des données expérimentales provenant d'un SIG 1. En effet, les données SIG ne pouvent pas etre intégrées en l'´ etat dans le mod ele. L'utilisation des données provenant du SIG nécessite un travail de " rasteurisation ". Celui-ci doit permettre de rendre les données digestes par le CAM. Nous pro-posons dans ce travail une méthode d' intégration fondée sur l'analysé econométrique. Pour cela, nous allons utiliser les sciences mathématiques et statistiques afin d'exprimercompì etement les données SIG dans le mod ele MAS/LUCC. Ce traitement d' intégration est illustré sur la figure 1. Nous exprimons rationnellement a l'aide des outils de la science Figure 1 – Traitement d' intégration des données expérimentales SIG.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to employ provincial data to study the relationship between several crime typologies, namely murder, robbery, extortion and fraud and economic output in Italy. Design/methodology/approach – The authors propose a spatial econometric approach where the spatial proximity is defined by a measure of physical distance between locations, in order to take into account possible spill-over effects. Findings – The results of the spatial estimation suggest that criminal activities, namely murder and robbery, exhibit a negative impact on Italian gross domestic product while fraud and total crime do not affect economic output and that there are beneficial spill-overs from neighbouring provinces. Originality/value – The study empirically shows that only violent crimes have a crowding-out effect on economic output.

The aim of this paper is to gauge the cost of crime in Italy by concentrating on a subset of offences covering about 64% of total recorded crime in year 2006. Following the breakdown of costs put forward by Brand and Price, we focus on the costs in anticipation, as a consequence and in response to a specific offence. The estimated total social cost is more than € 38 billion, which amounts to about 2.6% of Italy's GDP. To show the usefulness of these measures, we borrow the elasticity estimates from recent studies concerning the determinants of crime in Italy and calculate the cost associated with the surge in crime fuelled by unemployment and pardons. Indeed, in both cases such costs are substantial, implying that they should no longer be skipped when assessing the relative desirability of public policies towards crime.

SUMMARY Criminal activity acts like a tax on the entire economy: it discourages domestic and foreign direct investments, it reduces firms' competitiveness, and reallocates resources creating uncertainty and inefficiency. Although the impact of economic variables on crime has been widely investigated, there is not much concern about crime also affecting the overall economic performance. This work aims to bridge this gap by presenting an empirical analysis of the macroeconomic consequences of criminal activity. Italy is the case study for the time span 1979–2002. Dealing with a state space framework, a time varying parameter approach is employed to measure the impact of criminality on real Gross Domestic Product along time, and to measure the asymmetric impact in recession and expansion periods. The analysis is completed evaluating the effects of crime fluctuations in the long period by an impulse response analysis.

International audience; This paper aims at assessing the causal and temporal relationships between crime and the economic indicators related to the aggregated demand function. The case study is Italy and a quarterly frequency is used (1981:1 - 2005:4). A Vector Autoregressive Correction Mechanism (VECM) is employed after having assessed the integration and cointegration status of the variables under investigation. Long and short run dynamics are estimated. A Granger causality test is also implemented to establish temporal interrelationships. The main findings are that, in the short run, crime positively effects GDP and government expenditure, while has a crowding out effect on exports. In the long run, crime positively leads imports and inflation, whereas negatively investments and government expenditure.

International audience

This paper analyses the productivity of the hospitality sector (hotel and restaurants) in Italy at a regional level by using a mix of non-parametric and parametric approaches. A novel pooled-truncated and spatial analysis is employed, based upon a window data envelopment analysis (WDEA), where pure technical efficiency is computed. The WDEA results show that Lombardy is the best relative performer. However, overall Italian regions reveal important sources of inefficiency mostly related to their inputs. As a post-WDEA, the pooled-truncated estimation indicates that the rate of utilisation and regional intrinsic features positively affect hospitality efficiency. Nevertheless, the spatial analysis does not support evidence of spill-over effects amongst Italian regions.

What factors drive the length of a kidnapping experience? A theoretical model is developed to conduct comparative statics. A unique data set covering all kidnappings for ransom in Sardinia between 1960 and 2010 is analyzed. Factors related to the ability to pay and cost of abduction matter. Policies aimed at deterring kidnapping have mixed effects on its duration.

Empirical evidence of the marginal deterrent effect is provided. Exploring a data set of kidnapping crimes in Italy between 1960 and 2012 changes in Italian policy regarding sanctions for kidnapping and their associated impact on murders is considered. Deaths associated with kidnappings increase in prevalence when the kidnapping sanction increased, causing a decrease the marginal sanction for murder. Death rates reversed when enhanced sanctions for murder were later introduced.

This paper aims at assessing how offenders allocate their effort amongst several types of crime. Specifically, complementary and substitution effects are investigated amongst the number of recorded homicides, robberies, extortions and kidnapping, receiving stolen goods, falsity and drug-related crimes. Furthermore, the extent to which crime is detrimental for economic growth is also analysed. The case-study country is Italy, and the time span under analysis is from the first quarter of 1981 to the fourth quarter of 2004. A Vector Error Correction Mechanism (VECM) is employed after having assessed the integration and cointegration status of the variables under investigation. Empirical findings show that, in the long run, an increase in the overall welfare has a negative impact on the most serious crimes. In addition, the long-run elasticities reveal symmetric results in terms of positive and negative relationships amongst types of crime. In the short run, the cross-deterrence elasticities highlight a complementary effect between more serious crimes (i.e. robberies, extortions and kidnapping) and milder crimes (i.e. drug-related crimes and falsity) and a substitution effect amongst all other types of offences. Policy implications are drawn.

This paper employs an Autoregressive Distributed Lags approach to investigate how a set of economic variables and a deterrence variable affect criminal activity. Furthermore, it highlights the extent to which crime is detrimental to economic activity. The case study is Italy for the time span 1970 up to 2004. A Granger causality test is implemented to establish temporal interrelationships. The empirical evidence shows that the lack of deterrence positively affects each type of crime and especially thefts. All crime typologies have a negative effect on legal economic activity, reducing the employment rate. Furthermore, homicides, robbery, extortion and kidnapping have a crowding-out effect on economic growth.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, for the case of Italy, ceteris paribus, tourist areas tend to have a greater amount of crime than non-tourist ones in the short and long run. Following the literature of the economics of crime à la Becker (Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach, 1968) and Enrlich (Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation, 1973) and using a System GMM approach for the time span 1985–2003, the authors empirically test whether total crime in Italy is affected by the presence of tourists. Findings confirm the initial intuition of a positive relationship between tourism and crime in destinations. When using the level rather than the rate of total crime and controlling for the equivalent tourists (i.e. the number of tourists per day in a given destination) the effect of the tourist variable is confirmed. Overall results indicate however that the resident population has a greater effect on crime than the tourist population. Therefore, the main explanation for the impact of tourism on crime seems to be agglomeration effects.

What factors drive the length of a kidnapping experience? A theoretical model is developed to conduct comparative statics. A unique data set covering all kidnappings for ransom in Sardinia between 1960 and 2010 is analyzed. Factors related to the ability to pay and cost of abduction matter. The effect of policies aimed at deterring the crime have mixed effects on its duration.

We use national panel data at provincial level to investigate the relationship between suicide rates and socio-economic factors in Italy. The role of family, alcohol consumption, social conformism and population density are the main factors in explaining the suicide rate in Italy. Notably, the high heterogeneity between provinces are not explained by economic fluctuations and call the existence of clear relations between suicides rates and cultural/social correlates. In a further step, we check for the main determinats for the Northern provinces. The findings show that the density population and alcohol abuse play a key role in these provinces.

International audience; This paper analyses the efficiency of hotels across all of the 20 regions in Italy using a data envelopment analysis (DEA). The empirical results indicate that Sardinia can be considered as a region ''falling further behind", whereas some regions in the North and Centre of Italy can be regarded as ''moving ahead". Using the island of Sardinia as a case study, approximately 150 firms are analysed in detail over the time span 2002-2005. Via a window DEA, both technical and scale efficiencies are computed. An efficiency comparison amongst hotels categorised by size and municipality is run. Finally, policy implications are drawn from the empirical findings that advise how to improve hotels that attained low efficiency scores.

In the last decades, the interest in the relationship between crime and business cycle has widely increased. It is a diffused opinion that a causal relationship goes from economic variables to criminal activities, but this causal effect is observed only for some typology of crimes, such as property crimes. In this work we examine the possibility of the existence of some common factors (interpreted as cyclical components) driving the dynamics of Gross Domestic Product and a large set of criminal types by using the nonparametric version of the dynamic factor model. A first aim of this exercise is to detect some comovements between the business cycle and the cyclical component of some typologies of crime, which could evidence some relationships between these variables; a second purpose is to select which crime types are related to the business cycle and if they are leading, coincident or lagging. Italy is the case study for the time span 1991:1–2004:12; the crime typologies are constituted by the 22 official categories classified by the Italian National Statistical Institute. The study finds that most of the crime types show a counter-cyclical behavior with respect to the overall economic performance, and only a few of them have an evident relationship with the business cycle. Furthermore, some crime offenses, such as bankruptcy, embezzlement and fraudulent insolvency, seem to anticipate the business cycle, in line with recent global events.