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In the last fifteen years, income differences among European Member States have been strongly narrowing while the process has been matched with a widening of the inter-regional variance within single countries. Traditionally, regional economic disparities in Europe have been ascribed to peripherality and/or to a high level of dependence on declining sectors. Nowadays regional disparities can be no longer defined only in terms of statistical differences in the values of standard macroeconomic indicators, but also according to innovative capacities and knowledge endowment. This paper provides an original framework for the interpretation of the existing relationships between innovation process and research activity in Europe and the structural and geographical features shaping the European scientific and technological map. In order to do so, we focus on two knowledge-based relational phenomena: participation in the same research networks (funded by the EU Fifth Framework Programme) and EPO co-patent applications. Using two complementary econometric techniques we try to assess those factors that determine patenting activity, distinguishing structural features, geographical and relational spillovers. Through these variables we measure the intrinsic relational structure of knowledge flows which directly connects people, institutions and, indirectly, regions, across European countries in order to test whether hierarchical relationships based on a-spatial networks between geographically distant excellence centres prevail over diffusive patterns based on spatial contiguity.

In the last fifteen years, income differences among European Member States have been strongly narrowing while the process has been matched with a widening of the inter-regional variance within single countries. Traditionally, regional economic disparities in Europe have been ascribed to peripherality and/or to a high level of dependence on declining sectors. Nowadays regional disparities can be no longer defined only in terms of statistical differences in the values of standard macroeconomic indicators, but also according to innovative capacities and knowledge endowment. This paper provides an original framework for the interpretation of the existing relationships between innovation process and research activity in Europe and the structural and geographical features shaping the European scientific and technological map. In order to do so, we focus on two knowledge-based relational phenomena: participation in the same research networks (funded by the EU Fifth Framework Programme) and EPO co-patent applications. Using two complementary econometric techniques we try to assess those factors that determine patenting activity, distinguishing structural features, geographical and relational spillovers. Through these variables we measure the intrinsic relational structure of knowledge flows which directly connects people, institutions and, indirectly, regions, across European countries in order to test whether hierarchical relationships based on a-spatial networks between geographically distant excellence centres prevail over diffusive patterns based on spatial contiguity.

Analyses of long run consumption series are rare in literature. We study the evolution of water consumption in Milan in the twentieth century. The objective is twofold: on one side, the univariate analysis tries both to assess the impact of relevant socio-economic and environmental changes on water consumption in Milan and verify if consumers have deeply rooted consumption habits. On the other side, the multivariate analysis is used to identify the socio-economic factors that are relevant in explaining consumption evolution. Results indicate both that water users have well entrenched consumption habits and that population, climate and economic structure behave more similarly, in Euclidean terms, to water consumption than to other economic and social variables.

Sulla questione delle transizione scuola/lavoro e sul rendimento della formazione professionale si è sviluppato negli ultimi anni un intenso dibattito. Infatti, la transizione scuola/lavoro costituisce il punto nodale su cui si scaricano le tensioni della congiuntura economica, i cui effetti risultano essere particolarmente negativi per persone che, terminano il ciclo di studi, si affacciano sul mercato del lavoro. Si ritiene quindi che una formazione efficace sia in grado di ammortizzare tali effetti indesiderati. La valutazione dei risultati della formazione professionale può pertanto incidere sulle decisioni assunte dai policy maker nella definizione delle politiche formative e, più in generale, delle politiche attive del lavoro. Questo ruolo della formazione è ancor più evidente alla luce dei recenti mutamenti istituzionali introdotti a favore di nuovi agenti (enti locali, società private, enti non profit) cui sono demandati compiti di gestione del mercato del lavoro. Lo scopo di questo lavoro è quello di offrire un’interpretazione dei processi che governano sia la transizione scuola/lavoro sia la fase di ingresso nel mercato del lavoro. A tale scopo verrà condotta un’analisi empirica su un data set ricavato da un’indagine campionaria di tipo retrospettivo condotta dall’Ervet in Emilia Romagna e relativa agli esiti occupazionali dei corsi di formazione finanziati dalla Regione nel 1995 nell’ambito dell’Obbiettivo 3.