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This paper analyses the evolution and policy drivers of the productivity of farmers’ human capital in EU agriculture from 1986 to 2010. The empirical analy-sis employs farm data sourced from the Farm Accountancy Data Network Standard Results as well as Eurostat’s information on farm holders’ educational-attainment lev-els. Productivities of human capital are measured by the shadow prices for three levels of educational attainment of farm family labour, computed using Data Envelopment Analysis with variable returns to scale, and related to a Malmquist index of total factor productivity and to selected policy variables. The results indicate that productivities of farmers’ human capital trend upwards and are positively associated with rural devel-opment payments.

Objectives of this paper is to verify whether the relationship between the level of per capita income and the environment quality, for the Italian regions, follows the prescription of an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), taking into account the contribution of agriculture and rural areas. The Arellano-Bond two-step dynamic panel data GMM estimator has been applied to a data set of the 20 Italian administrative regions referred to the 2000-‘06 years. The quality of environment is represented by the level of per capita CO2 emissions from the whole economy and the level of per capita CO2 emissions from agriculture. The regression results show that i) the EKC prescription holds for the Italian regions, ii) the more agricultural regions are found on the rising section of the curve; iii) a greater intensity of expenditure under the RDP regional agro-environmental and forestry measures is positively associated to a more degraded environment.

According to the National Innovation System (NIS) approach, the innovative capabilities of a firm are explained by its interactions with other national agents involved in the innovation process and by formal and informal rules that regulate the system. This paper intends to verify how product and process innovation in the European food and drink industry are affected by: i) the NIS structure in terms of universities vs public research labs, faculties/department mix and size; ii) the NIS output in terms of WoS indexed publications vs the supply of graduates; iii) the NIS fragmentation and coordination and iv) the NIS scientific impact and specialisation.The source of data on firm innovation is the EU-EFIGE/Bruegel-UniCredit dataset supplemented by information from the International Handbook of Universities, Eurostat and the bibliometric analysis of academic research quality. The results obtained suggest that large size of public research institutions are detrimental to interactions between university and industry and the indicators used for public research assessment are not appropriate proxies of local knowledge spillovers.

The objective of this paper is to examine R&D collaboration between firms, on the one hand, and universities or public research labs, on the other, with particular attention to the role such collaboration plays among the determinants of product and process innovation in the Italian food and drink industry. The firm data are sourced from four waves of the Capitalia survey. The approach is a multivariate probit analysis in which the dependent variables are intra muros R&D investment, R&D collaboration with universities, public labs and private firms, process and product innovation. The independent variables consist of firm, territory and university characteristics. The results of the analysis demonstrate that R&D university–firm collaboration determines process innovation and, to a lesser extent, product innovation. A firm’s product innovation is positively affected by its geographical proximity to a university but negatively affected by the amount of its codified knowledge production.

Objective of this paper is to analyse the presence of gender differences in the purchase motivations of Fair Trade (FT) food products sold in the Italian World Shops (WS). At this end, a questionnaire has been distributed to a sample of consumers in four Italian regions. A bivariate ordered probit analysis has been performed in order to identify the determinants of the two main ethical motivations in the purchase: worker guarantees and solidarity. The variables used as determinants are individual and municipal characteristics. Among individual characteristics, gender is significant; among the municipal characteristics, the rate of female job market participation is also significant. These results give evidence of a gender gap in the preferences for public goods.

Consumers in developed countries are increasingly interested in the consumption of food products incorporating ethical aspects, particularly fair trade products. These products are usually distributed in a network of World Shops and, more recently, in supermarkets and shopping centres. The fair trade product with the highest market share is coffee. This study aims to ascertain the implicit price paid by Italian consumers for the fair trade content of coffee and how this implicit price is influenced by the level of social capital of the territory where consumers live. The data utilised are scanner data, based on the purchase at supermarkets and shopping centres observed from 2005 to 2007, referred to a territorial unit that is the province. Since scanner data are used, the analysis can allow for the coffee attributes described by the labels: branded, organic, decaffeinated, fair trade, espresso, and so on. The approach followed is the application of an hedonic regression where the dependant variable is the coffee price while the regressors are coffee characteristics (fair trade content and coffee other attributes) and several indicators of provincial social capital, alternatively included.

In questo articolo si presentano i risultati preliminari di una ricerca sulle filiere alimentari alternative e in particolare sui Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale (GAS) nella città di Roma. I GAS sono un movimento di consumatori critici che guidano le loro scelte di consumo in base a principi di solidarietà e rispetto dell'ambiente. In questa ricerca sono considerati come nicchie di innovazione capaci di suggerire soluzioni efficaci ai problemi di insostenibilità dei sistemi agro-industriali dominanti. La ricerca, basata su analisi di dati, documenti e interviste in profondità, si propone di ricostruire la storia, illustrare le caratteristiche socio-demografiche degli aderenti ai GAS e soprattutto indagare sulla loro visione del consumo sostenibile utilizzando come strumento di analisi le cinque dimensioni che secondo Seyfang (2009) lo caratterizzano: comprare locale, ridurre l’impatto ambientale, costruire solidarietà e comunità, agire in modo collettivo, creare nuove infrastrutture. La ricerca è finanziata dai fondi PRIN 2008.

The objective of the paper is to determine the role that R&D networking, through the collaboration of firms with universities, plays among the determinants of product and process innovation in the Italian food and drink industry and how geographical proximity to a university affects both R&D university-industry collaboration and innovation. The data are sourced from the 7th (1995-1997), 8th (1998-2000), 9th (2001-2003) and 10th (2004- 2006) waves of Capitalia survey. The approach is a trivarate probit analysis in which the dependent variables are R&D collaboration with a university, process and product innovation; the independent variables are firm, territorial and university characteristics.

Objective of this paper is to analyse the motivations in the purchase of Fair Trade (FT) food products sold in the World Shops (WS) in order to characterize WS consumer profiles according to the ethical content of their motivations. A questionnaire has been distributed, at this end, to a sample of consumers in Emilia Romagna, Puglia and in Campania. A principal component analysis has been performed in order to identify the main motivations in the purchase. On the basis of these results, consumers have been classified, by applying a cluster analysis, in homogenous segments. The cluster analysis reveals that 76% of consumers in Emilia Romagna buy FT products for an ethical motivation, 56% of consumers in Puglia and 43% of consumers in Campania buy these products for an ethical motivation. These percentages reflect the rank of social capital, intended as the civicness component a la Putnam, of the regions analysed. These results show a clear relationship between the civicness component of social capital a la Putnam and the diffusion of consumer social responsibility, even in the niche market of WSs consumers.

Utilizzando i dati dell’ottava (1998-2000) e della nona (2001-2003) indagine di Capitalia, il lavoro analizza i fattori determinanti delle innovazioni di prodotto dell’industria alimentare italiana, soffermandosi sul ruolo dei rapporti tra università ed imprese. Dalle regressioni probit effettuate, risulta che la collaborazione in R&S con istituti pubblici di ricerca è diventata una variabile importante per le imprese alimentari meridionali, sebbene abbia perso significatività per le imprese del resto del paese.

Il lavoro mira a verificare, con riferimento al settore agro-alimentare, se e in quale misura la diversa forma di governance dell’impresa comporti differenze di efficienza tecnica, allocativa e di scala. In particolare l’attenzione è stata focalizzata sul confronto tra imprese cooperative ed imprese for profit, in quanto in letteratura viene sottolineato come a queste due forme di impresa corrisponda una diversa funzione obiettivo e ciò dovrebbe comportare effetti diversi in termini di organizzazione dei fattori della produzione e di risultati produttivi. Per verificare questa relazione si è fatto ricorso all’approccio non parametrico dell’analisi di forntiera. L’analisi è stata condotta su un panel di dati di bilancio riferiti al periodo 1998-2003 ed è stata effettuata distinguendo quattro comparti produttivi (oleicolo, ortofrutticolo, vinicolo e lattiero-caseario). I risultati dell’analisi di efficienza sono stati rapportati a caratteristiche rilevate in un’indagine di campo per alcune imprese del campione, al fine di definire le principali relazioni che esistono tra la performance tecnica ed economica dell’impresa e alcuni aspetti strutturali ed organizzativi tra i quali la forma di governance.

Il volume ha ricevuto recensioni su Impresa Sociale (n. 2/2010), Rivista di Economia Agraria (n. 1/2010), QA-Rivista dell'Associazione Rossi-Doria (n. 1/2010) e Studi Economici (n. 3/2010) e schede bibliografiche su Economia Pubblica (2010) e AgriRegioniEuropa (n. 17/2009)

Il lavoro analizza le motivazioni all’acquisto dei consumatori delle Botteghe del Mondo in Emilia Romagna, Puglia e Campania attraverso la somministrazione di questionari ai consumatori delle botteghe del mondo nelle tre regioni. D'analisi a componenti principali applicata alle motivazioni contenute nelle risposte, risulta che le motivazioni principali all’acquisto sono: etica o responsabilità sociale, curiosità, attenzione alla salute o alle informazioni sui prodotti. L’etica o responsabilità sociale motiva il 76% dei consumatori in Emilia Romagna, il 56% in Puglia ed il 43% in Campania. La percentuale di consumatori che comprano per una motivazione etica in Campania e Puglia è correlata positivamente all’età delle bottega.