We map the mining sector in Europe, with a focus on Energy Transition Metals (ETMs), and present an in-depth analysis of the environmental impact and associated monetary costs, at the regional level, of extraction activities. We aim to offer a spatially disaggregated view of the current mining projects and associated environmental costs in terms of CO2 emissions and their monetary value in order to add to the debate of policy interventions, including new mining activities in Europe, to secure the needed materials to fuel the green transition. To do this, we collected global warming potential (GWP) data from Life Cycle Assessment Impact Analysis (LCIA) and linked these to their expected monetary value. By considering the full spectrum of sourced ETMs, we map the environmental, physical, and monetary impact of current mining activities in Europe, and understand what a further increase in exploiting European reserves to reduce dependence from abroad and facilitate the achievement of Europe’s green goals, could imply for European regions, while accounting for the uneven distribution of mining resources, and thus associated costs, across Europe.

Following up on a two decades-long debate on Smart Cities, this article provides quantitative evidence regarding the impact on urban economic outcomes of the adoption of Smart City strategies in planning and managing modern cities. In order to achieve this aim, a meta-analysis of quantitative and modeling studies is presented as a systematic synthesis tool, based on a keyword search on Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus data bases. Our meta-analytical modeling results demonstrate significant geographical heterogeneity in the assessed impacts, and suggest that a relevant role is played by whether urban smartness is interpreted and pursued in a holistic or digital-only orientation. Suggestions for further research are provided as well.

Vaccination campaigns are one of the factors that can help mitigate the adverse effects of viral pandemics. The aim of this paper is to understand the institutional factors that are associated with a higher success rate, measured by the percentage of vaccinated population against COVID-19 across countries. Along with supply side determinants, institutional factors, related, at the national level, to the organization of the healthcare sector, governance and organization of the State and social capital, and, at the subnational level related to the authority and autonomy of lower tiers of government, are important correlates of successful vaccination campaigns, suggesting potential areas of public policy interventions.

ABSTRACT Public investment in Big Science generates social benefits that can ultimately support economic growth. This paper implements a model for the social Cost – Benefit Analysis (CBA) of Big Science and relies on Monte Carlo methods to quantify the uncertainty of long-term projections. We evaluate social costs and benefits of the High Luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) at CERN up to 2038. Monte Carlo simulations show that there is a 94% chance to observe a positive net present value for society. The attractiveness of CERN for Early Stage Researchers and technological spillovers for collaborating firms are key for a positive CBA result. Cultural effects, especially those related to onsite visitors, also contribute to generating societal benefits.

The debate on urban smartness as an instrument for managing more efficient cities has been revolving around the notion that Smart Cities might be causing an increase in inequalities. This effect would be caused by the role played in smart urban transformations by Multi-National Corporations, which would be influencing local policymakers’ agendas. In this work we empirically verify whether smart urban characteristics are associated with an increase in urban inequalities along the digital divide dimension among urban dwellers. To this aim, we exploit a large database of 181 European cities, with data on smart urban characteristics, along with measures of the digital divide obtained with the use of survey data carried out at the European Union level. Results show a negative causal relation between the level of urban smartness and the digital divide within-EU cities. Our findings are robust to a number of robustness checks.

Smart city technologies are criticized because they might exacerbate income inequalities. Four factors are suggested to explain this phenomenon: the uneven diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs); that these ICTs cannot be afforded by low-income citizens; that smart cities could further human capital divides; and the involvement of private actors in the implementation of projects. These critiques are not based on empirical verification. We test whether smart urban characteristics are associated with increases in urban income inequalities, using data on urban smartness and urban income inequality for 106 European cities. Results show that smart cities are associated with lower levels of urban income inequality.

During the current pandemic, there is heterogeneity of COVID-19 related casualties across countries. One explanation for this spatially uneven pattern is related to the global nature of the viral spread, which transcends boundaries. While the underlying medical and epidemiological causes are still under investigation, one potentially relevant factor is related to countries' level of centrality of the decision-making process. The paper investigates if there is an association between subnational autonomy and the fatal consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, while also controlling for the localized dimension of restrictive measures. Empirical results suggest that, controlling for relevant economic and demographic factors, countries with higher degrees of subnational autonomy are experiencing higher deaths. While more research is needed to unveil the underlying causal relations, this result suggests that public response aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus in unitary, centralized countries, is associated with better results than interventions in more fragmented countries.

Public procurement from Big Science Centers (BSCs) yields a variety of spillover effects that can ultimately have growth enhancing consequences for their Member States (MS). We study the determinants of procurement for the biggest research infrastructure ever built: the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. A unique database of firms that have registered to become industrial partners of the LHC program allows us to estimate the determinants for potential suppliers of receiving an order from CERN. We compare the relative weight of firms’ technological features and CERN’s procurement rules aimed at securing a juste retour for its MS. Although in accordance to CERN’s procurement rules our results highlight the role of both technological factors and political constraints, we also show the existence of a premium toward Swiss and French firms. We document that the constraints related with the achievement of a juste retour affect—directly or indirectly—the procurement policy of many European BSCs and international bodies whose budget is financed by the public funds of their MS. Therefore, our results have policy implications that go beyond our empirical application.

Smart City policies have attracted significant funding over the last few years. However, only less evidence is available of their impact on urban economic performance. In this paper, we look at the urban growth and innovation impact of Smart City policies, exploiting a dataset collected for these analyses comprising data on Smart City characteristics of 309 European metro areas, Smart City policy intensity, along with the urban growth and innovation outputs. Economic growth is measured as real GDP increases, while innovation is captured by patent applications to the European Patent Office, both measures being calculated between 2008 and 2013. Patent counts include technologically narrower classes, namely high-tech, ICT and specific Smart City technology patent applications. Instrumental variables and propensity score matching estimates suggest that cities engaging in Smart City policies more than the EU average tend to grow faster and patent more intensively.

Procurement from Big Science Centers (BSC) yields a variety of spillover effects that can ultimately have growth enhancing consequences for their partner countries. We study the determinants of procurement for the biggest research infrastructure ever built: the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Using a unique cross-section database of firms that have registered to become industrial partners of the LHC program, we estimate the determinants for potential suppliers of receiving an order from CERN. We compare the relative weight of firms’ technological features and CERN’s procurement rules aimed at securing a juste retour for its Member States. Our results point to a strong impact of technological factors, while also highlighting the importance of political constraints related with CERN’s procurement rules as well as the presence of a home bias. Since the constraints related with the achievement of a juste retour affect–directly or indirectly–the procurement policy of many European BSCs, our results have policy implications that go beyond the CERN case study.

Smart City policies have attracted relevant attention and funding over the last few years. While the time seems now ripe to conclude that such policies have a positive impact on urban economic growth, the picture is much less clear when looking at the microfoundations of this effect. In this paper we look at the urban innovation impact of Smart City policies. In fact, typical Smart City projects imply the involvement not only of major multinational corporations, along with local public authorities, but also of local companies, typically with the aim to translate general technological solutions to the local needs. A new data set collected for these analyses comprises data on Smart City features for 309 European metropolitan areas, Smart City policy intensity, and urban innovation outputs. The latter are proxied by calculating total patent applications to the European Patent Office between 2008 and 2013. Patent counts also include technologically narrower classes, namely high-tech, ICT, and specific Smart City technologies patent applications. Propensity Score Matching estimates suggest that cities engaging in Smart City policies above the EU average also tend to patent more intensively. This effect is stronger for high-tech patents, while decreases for more narrowly defined technological classes. This last result suggests possible technological spillovers from technologies directly involved in Smart City policies.

The quality of institutions is at the core of the differences in the growth of income and productivity of nations. A growing body of evidence shows how this is also true at the firm level. After taking stock of earlier theoretical and empirical literature on the efficiency of state-owned versus private enterprises, while we consider ownership as the core internal governance mechanism of firms, we add quality of government as a determinant of the external institutional environment. To disentangle the effect of internal and external institutions on firms' productivity, we use different sets of ownership and institutional environment indicators. After having identified the top 350 private, state-invested (i.e. partially state-owned) and state-owned enterprises in the telecommunications industry in EU28 and in more than 60 other countries between 2007 and 2015, we empirically investigate models of firms' productivity augmented with ownership and quality of government. Our findings suggest that, after controlling for the regulatory and competitive conditions at the country level, on average, public ownership has a negative impact on firm-level TFP. This effect is however mitigated by high external institutional quality and even reversed in some countries with a particularly favourable institutional environment.

•Does government ownership matter in the market for corporate control?•The inefficient management hypothesis is confirmed also for deals involving SOEs.•Acquirers in deals where SOEs are involved differ from the private–private benchmark.•Acquirers have greater size, solvency ratio, proximity, experience if SOEs are involved.

Smart policies at the urban (smart city initiatives) and the regional (smart specialisation Strategies, S3) level, both fostered by the need to better spend the reduced budget available for EU policy-making, have recently gained much attention. While some attempts have been made to explore the growth potential of the two policies separately, no empirical analysis has considered their joint contribution to regional growth. This paper identifies two types of development (measured as 2008-2010 GDP growth) effects associated to smart policies: one, short-run, associated to urban smartness initiatives, and a second, long run, linked to S3. Instrumental variables estimates are used to support the conceptual framework suggested for the link between these two types of policies, which are both found to have a positive impact on regional economic performance.

Papers in Regional ScienceVolume 96, Issue 4 p. 895-896 Book review The political economy of privatization in rich democracies. Herbert Obinger, Carina Schmitt and Stefan Traub. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. 2016. 156 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-966968-4. Chiara F. Del Bo, Corresponding Author Chiara F. Del Bo [email protected] Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods, Università degli Studi di Milano, ItalySearch for more papers by this author Chiara F. Del Bo, Corresponding Author Chiara F. Del Bo [email protected] Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods, Università degli Studi di Milano, ItalySearch for more papers by this author First published: 03 November 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/pirs.12313Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume96, Issue4November 2017Pages 895-896 RelatedInformation

This paper deals with the effects of the transfer of additional funds on the real economy of recipient countries, in particular the European Member States. The intended and unintended effects of additional funds on national public finances and, ultimately, economic performance are discussed. Understanding the real effects of additional public funds and the possible complementarity or substitutability with national public finance is important for shaping the policies for the allocation of Structural Funds. Verification of additionality plays a role in ensuring that additional funds are used to effectively complement national expenditure programmes. In the case of the European Union, it is widely recognised that the current verification mechanism is affected by weaknesses, that prevent it from providing reliable and useful data to effectively assess additionality. For this reason, the paper suggests the European Commission to move away from the current verification approach and to adopt a new one that could more effectively assess to what extent the Structural Funds complement national investments.

The return to R&D investment and activities has been the object of a vast literature, both from a theoretical and empirical perspective. The aim of this overview is to present a selection of contributions to underscore the main shared findings and highlight open issues, while also providing a preliminary analysis of the returns to R&D investment in large research infrastructures (RIs) in Europe. First, a common methodological framework is distilled from the macro-literature, examining the return to R&D in aggregate terms. Then, the evaluation in the context of specific projects, mainly in large RIs, is examined, followed by the explicit consideration of externalities and spillover effects of research activities. A novel empirical analysis of European RIs is also presented, based on a novel data set, to highlight trends and suggest new avenues for the evaluation of the rate of return to investments in research infrastructures, using both a cost effectiveness ratio and a bibliometric citation count as metrics to evaluate the return to R&D investment in these facilities. Directions for future research are sketched in the concluding section.

The aim of this paper is to examine the effects of work-life balance on job stress and individual performance. To achieve this aim we conducted a survey on postgraduate and doctoral students at a University located Ankara, Turkey. The universe of this paper is 1000 postgraduate and doctoral students. We reached 300 of them and 232 of surveys were used for analyses. We conducted factor analyses, correlation and regression analyses with SPSS 20.0 packaged program. As a result of the analyses, we found that, there were strong relations between job stress performance and work-life balance factors.

Traditionally, the electricity market has been characterized by vertically integrated monopolies due to the special features of this commodity, such as non-storability in the longer term, the physical laws requiring instant equation of supply and demand and the need for a complex and integrated network, controlled by a system operator. Despite these features, however, a wave of reforms promoting competition has been initiated in most markets, including the US and Europe, accompanied by regulation. In this paper we offer an overview of the current electricity policy debate taking place in the UK, which may pose the basis for a rethinking of the dominant policy paradigm. We review the technological and economic features of electricity markets, focusing on the rationales underlying the reforms put in place in the European Union and highlighting the impacts and potentially problematic consequences of liberalization in terms of investment and infrastructure, related to overarching economic, social and policy goals, focusing on the implications of environmental and climate-change mitigation policies as well as poverty reduction issues. The paper analyses the possible consequences, in terms of reforms and regulation of the electricity industry, of these new goals, suggesting that they may be relevant for the electricity industry in the EU.