Fausto Pacicco

Extending the product life cycle is increasingly seen as a key strategy for manufacturing firms transitioning to a circular economy. This involves redesigning products through practices like design for remanufacturing and product-service systems, which also reshape the value proposition towards customers. Digital technologies have recently emerged as enablers of these circular economy practices, yet research in this area remains limited and largely qualitative. This paper addresses the gap of a more comprehensive view on the enabling role of digital technologies as for product life cycle extension by conducting an exploratory empirical study—using Correspondence Analysis—on 41 Italian manufacturing firms that have adopted circular economy practices supported by digital technologies. The findings reveal that while digital technologies generally support the adoption of circular economy, some are more effective than others in enabling specific practices. The study contributes to academic discourse by confirming the enabling role of digital technologies and highlighting their relative effectiveness in extending product life cycle. The study also offers practical insights for managers and policymakers aiming to foster the adoption of circular economy practices in the manufacturing sector.

Because local economic development is linked to the ability to attract business, policymakers have begun to endow territories with suitable factor conditions for the enticement of new enterprises, as in the case of EU Structural Funds. We investigate this phenomenon to provide valuable policy suggestions with a dynamic factor model and a panel regression analysis with spatial effects on a database with many cross-sections (1531 municipalities) and variables (55 indicators). Results show that structural variables like technological endowment, infrastructural provision, productive structure, local taxation, human capital and innovation represent the most important drivers to stimulate business location, even at the municipal level, offering relevant cues for policymakers.

Lease accounting has often been criticized for being too reliant on bright lines and subjective judgments, as lessees were not required to disclose assets and liabilities arising from operating leases directly on the balance sheet, thereby improving the appearance of the financial condition to investors. To remedy this, in January and February 2016 the IASB and the FASB issued the new accounting standard IFRS 16 and ASC 842, starting a new era of lease accounting and ending the guesswork previously required when calculating companies' lease obligations. This paper investigates the impact on investors' risk perception level of EU and US airline companies, following the enactment of these accounting standards. Results confirm the importance of disclosing all the relevant information about leases directly within the financial statements and not in footnotes, as this increases transparency and comparability between financial statements, protecting all investors, ranging from the rational ones to the more credulous.

Domestic chicken farming has been promoted and spread in several Italian municipalities and worldwide as an aid to the self-consumption of domestically produced food. This study investigated the levels of four toxic elements (As, Cd, Hg, and Pb) in eggs from an ethical laying hen farm, comparing the element concentrations with those possibly present in supermarket eggs. A total of 201 eggs, 141 from the farm and produced by different hen genotypes, and 60 from the supermarket, were collected. The levels of the toxic elements were evaluated in the yolk, albumen, and eggshells of all eggs. The results show that the supermarket eggs' yolk and albumen were more contaminated with lead, compared to the rural eggs. Contrarily, the mean content of arsenic was higher in the albumen and eggshells of the rural eggs, compared to the supermarket eggs. The cadmium content was below the LOQ (0.005 mg/kg) in all samples. The mercury content was below or around the LOQ in all rural eggs. Overall, the supermarket egg albumens were significantly more contaminated than the rural ones. No significant differences were found in quality parameters for both types of eggs. The toxic element values that were detected were in line with other studies in the literature. However, despite the concentrations found not representing a risk to the consumers' health, the results of this study raise a potential food safety issue, and it would be desirable to set specific MRLs for eggs for consumers' protection.

Since the 2008 Financial crisis, macroeconomic and financial markets' stabilisation policies relied mainly on monetary actions, reducing the ECB's margin of manoeuvre and calling for a major role for fiscal authorities. We investigate the impact of government decisions on financial markets for 11 Eurozone economies (from 1995 to 2021), in the very short run, using an event study, finding a positive (negative) reaction to fiscal expansion (consolidation) announcements and in the short/ medium-run, with a Bayesian TVP-FAVAR, identifying cross-country heterogeneities; stronger (weaker) public finances show a direct (indirect) relation between fiscal policies and stock prices and an indirect (direct) one with 10-year bond yield.

Although the level of extreme poverty has declined in recent decades, income inequality in many countries is at historic levels, thus representing a concern. Theoretically, tourism can play a crucial role in the fight against poverty and economic inequalities, but the limited existing literature has failed to reach a general consensus about this topic. By focusing on Italy, this paper investigates the extent of the role played by tourism in pursuing a reduction in income inequalities, while also observing effects on economic growth. In fact inequalities have also been increasing in Italy, but little is known about the role that tourism has played in this process. The main findings reveal that tourism is able to reverse the actual trend of increase in dispersion in terms of per capita income which characterized the Italian provinces from 2010 to 2019. This industry can therefore be effectively used as a tool to promote both the catching up of poorer provinces with richer ones, thus narrowing the income gap, and the reduction of overall income disparities among different provinces, leading to a more uniform distribution of wealth.