Valentino Parisi

Female entrepreneurs: motivations and constraints. An Italian regional study

Purpose This paper aims to identify the specific contextual constraints that women might face in becoming entrepreneurs; to correlate these constraints with the motivations that have determined this choice; and to ascertain how strongly constraints and motivations are correlated with individual rewards in terms of personal satisfaction and economic payoffs. Design/methodology/approach The empirical base is a survey that the authors conducted among female entrepreneurs in a Southern province of Italy in 2012. Data are analyzed through a correspondence and cluster analysis. The socio-economic context of the province within which these female-led firms operate is taken into account by means of a correspondence canonical analysis. Findings In terms of results: first, two-thirds of female entrepreneurs in the province are positively motivated, and this is a determining factor in their choice to become entrepreneurs. This translates into they also being satisfied with the choice they made. Second, contrary to the expectations, being positively motivated and satisfied holds both for firms operating in more dynamic and demanding sectors and for small firms using little financial or human capital. Research limitations/implications The chosen research approach has allowed to identify the most important decisional variables that affect female entrepreneurial choice. However, as most of the variables are categorical, the research’s results remain descriptive. Practical implications Positive motivations and personal rewards are clearly relevant for women making an entrepreneurial choice. However, they are not enough to stimulate fully the potential for growth of their enterprises: education and a social environment conducive to female creative expression are also necessary. To this end, the authors suggest that an important function of change could be played in particular by universities by fostering a culture of creativity and entrepreneurship. Social implications By stressing the connections between positive motivations and wellbeing, the authors suggest that the promotion of women’s entrepreneurial choices through networks and education generates more than purely economic benefits. It also has positive effects on their quality of life and on social welfare as well. Originality/value This paper responds to a need – not yet fulfilled in the literature – to better understand the relations between women’s motivation, satisfaction and the type of business selected.

The entrepreneurial engagement of Italian university students: some insights from a population-based survey

ABSTRACT Start-ups founded by university students and graduates play a substantial role in bringing new knowledge to the market and in employment creation, a role that appears to be even more important than that played by the typical technology transfer activities carried out by universities. We use a population-based approach to explore entrepreneurship among 61,115 graduate alumni of 64 Italian universities. In order to assess the potential supply of highly educated entrepreneurs, we develop a novel empirical approach to analyse engagement in entrepreneurship, based on the idea that entrepreneurship is a process that begins with intention and ends in action. We find that the share of intentional entrepreneurs, among recent cohorts of graduates in Italy, is large in comparison to the small share of actual entrepreneurs detected five years after graduation. We discuss which barriers may deter intentional entrepreneurs from being engaged in entrepreneurship and how universities can trigger the entrepreneurial process and close the gap between entrepreneurial intentions and action.

Innovation and firm internationalisation: evidence from Italy

The paper explores the relation between innovation investments and internationalisation choices of Italian firms. To this end, we rely on an integrated data set that combines the Indagine sulle Imprese Manifatturiere carried out by the Unicredit Bank with publicly available company accounts for the period 2004-2006 to estimate a multinomial Probit model. This methodology allows studying how innovation affects different modes of internalisation. Our results suggest that the various channels of international involvement are positively associated with both having carried out innovative and ICT investments. As expected, this finding can be traced to the positive impact of these variables on firm productivity, which permits more internationalised firms to exploit market opportunities compared to domestic firms.

Do corporate taxes reduce investments? Evidence from Italian firm-level panel data

Abstract This paper uses an Italian firm-level panel data-set over the period 1994–2006 to investigate the nexus between corporate taxation and investment. Studying the effects of corporate taxation on investment at the micro level has two advantages. Firstly, investment is free of aggregation biases and secondly, the firm-level dimension allows asking whether the effects of corporate taxation differ across firms with different characteristics. In the empirical analysis, we employ a Generalized Method of Moments estimator, which permits us to handle not only the dynamic structure of the model and of the predetermined or endogenous explanatory variables, but also firm-specific factors, heteroskedasticity, and autocorrelation of individual observations. We find that corporate taxes distort investment decisions. The results are robust to the inclusion of many controls.

Tassazione e offerta di lavoro: gli effetti delle modifiche Irpef introdotte nel periodo 1998-2002

Income Taxation and Labour Supply in Italy: The Effects of the Reforms Enacted in the Period 1998-2002 - This paper discusses the labour supply effects of the income tax provisions enacted in Italy in the period 1998-2002. Indeed, these represent an interesting case-study to evaluate how responsive labour supply and participation decisions are to tax reforms in Italy. I use a behavioural microsimulation model that allows for simultaneous labor supply decisions by household members, endogenous choice between dependent employment and selfemployment, complete representation of the tax-benefit system before and after the reforms. Results show that both hours of work and the probability to participate in the labour market are more responsive for females than males, for whom actually average hours remain unchanged after the reforms. Work incentives tend to be grater for married women living in low-income households.