Marina Di Giacomo

The impact of ownership on the cost of bus service provision: an example from Italy

This article examines the potential impact of ownership on the cost of bus service provision for a sample of 65 private and 12 public companies providing local public transit (LPT) in Piedmont (Italy) from 1998 to 2002. A translog cost frontier is estimated using the model in Battese and Coelli (1995) where inefficiency scores are allowed to vary across firms and over time. A public ownership dummy is included in the inefficiency model and it is always positive and significant. Density and scale economies and cost inefficiencies are then computed. Private companies seem to experience higher density and scale economies than public ones. Cost inefficiencies appear higher in the public sample.

Public Support to Entrepreneurial Firms: An Assessment of the Role of Venture Capital in the European Experience

Public intervention in the equity market is justified mainly by the existence of market failures in the financing of some categories of firms. The aim of this article is to survey current public policy in the European venture capital markets. The focus on equity capital is justified by the importance it has had in recent EU programs (e.g., the Risk Capital Action Plan) and the positive impact U.S. public intervention in this market has had on job creation and growth. Examples of direct government involvement in the venture capital markets through public funds commitments are considered and compared.

Corporate Taxation and the Size of New Firms: Evidence From Europe

Using a novel country-industry level panel database with information on newly incorporated firms in 17 European countries between 1997 and 2004, we study how taxation of corporate income affects the size of entrants at the country-industry level. Our results, that are robust to changes in several assumptions, suggest that a reduction in the effective corporate income tax rate leads to a significant reduction of the capital size of entrants, and to a decrease in their capital-labor ratio.

Diversification Strategies and Scope Economies: Evidence from a Sample of Italian Regional Bus Transport Providers

A growing number of Local Public Transport (LPT) companies diversify their production lines by providing a large set of services. We investigate the cost structure of a sample of LPT companies operating in Italy and assess the presence and the magnitude of scope economies. We split the whole sample of firms according to their diversification strategy: private firms, mainly diversifying in competitive transport related services and public firms providing nontransport services in regulated markets. Scope economies appear sizeable for both groups but higher for firms pursuing a transport related strategy, suggesting caution in the multiutility development pursued by public LPT firms in Italy.

Trust and foreign ownership: Evidence from intra-European foreign direct investments

We use a novel firm‐level dataset to test whether trust affects the volume and the ownership structure FDI across Europe. Our methodology deals with the endogeneity of trust from the investor to the recipient country. We expect such a trust measure to affect investment decisions, and the associated knowledge capital, differently across types of foreign investors. In particular, this effect is expected to be stronger for industrial investors who possess transferable knowledge capital. The data confirm our predictions. Higher trust increases the number and volume of FDIs, but also the probability of co‐investing with a partner from the recipient country.

Do public hospitals respond to changes in DRG price regulation? The case of birth deliveries in the Italian NHS

We study how changes in Diagnosis-Related Group price regulation affect hospital behaviour in quasi-markets with exclusive provision by public hospitals. Exploiting a quasi-natural experiment, we use a difference-in-differences approach to test whether public hospitals respond to an exogenous change in Diagnosis-Related Group tariffs by increasing C-section rates and/or by upcoding. Controlling for a detailed set of mother characteristics, we find that price changes did not affect the probability of a C-section. We do however find evidence of upcoding: Conditional on the birth delivery method (either a C-section or a vaginal delivery), public hospitals experiencing the largest price change exhibit a higher probability of treating patients coded as complicated. This finding suggests that even public hospitals may be sensitive to market incentives.

Do Governments Effectively Stabilize Fuel Prices by Reducing Specific Taxes? Evidence from Italy

After the sharp increase of oil prices experienced in recent years, in order to stabilize fuel prices, many countries experimented automatic fiscal mechanisms consisting of a one-to-one reduction in specific taxes matching the rise in input prices. This study investigates the impact of these mechanisms on wholesale gasoline and motor diesel prices. Our estimates highlight that fiscal sterilization brings about a rise in final wholesale prices that more than compensate reduction in taxes. Hence, these “flexible” taxation mechanisms could not be a proper policy for stabilizing price levels in fuel markets.