mario a. maggioni | Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart) (original) (raw)

Papers by mario a. maggioni

Research Papers in Economics, 2019

Although recent empirical literature acknowledges that organized violence tends to cluster geogra... more Although recent empirical literature acknowledges that organized violence tends to cluster geographically, the limited use of disaggregated data and of accurate spatial estimation techniques fail in explaining the spatial structure of conflict events. In this paper we analyse conflict incidence in West Africa through the provision of an illustrative case (the Mano River Region) by: (i) performing the analysis with the smallest possible sub-national disaggregated areas; (ii) taking into account the location of valuable resources (lootable diamonds and gold); and (iii) applying the most suitable spatial econometric specifications. Our results show the existence of relevant cross-border spillover effects of conflict events; and confirm that natural valuable resources are strong predictors of organized violence location. Moreover, we demonstrate that events concerning incompatibilities on government and/or territory are more strongly related to diamonds location, whereas events between no-state armed groups are indifferently connected to the location of both valuable resources.

Social Science Research Network, Dec 10, 2020

The FEEM report 2019 (Zoboli et al. 2019) proposed to embed the Circular Economy (CE) into a broa... more The FEEM report 2019 (Zoboli et al. 2019) proposed to embed the Circular Economy (CE) into a broader NEXUS framework, in which the relationships between the CE transition, the decarbonization transition, and the bioeconomy transition have to be considered in sustainability transition strategies. In this report, the focus is on the CEDecarbonisation nexus, in particular the energy-CE links, taking into consideration also those links to the bioeconomy that can be relevant for the energy-CE link. We will highlight how, in spite of the very broad policy vision emerging from the European Green Deal (EGD) and the continuously increasing industrial interest for the CE, there are still missing, or not completely deployed, links between CE and energy/decarbonization. In particular, there are missing links within the EU policy framework, in which legislation on CE and energy/climate are still delinked. The wide range of specific strategies triggered by the EGD, including the new EU Circular Economy Action Plan 2020 (EC 2020c), are going towards a deeper integration between CE and energy/decarbonization, and this can provide new opportunities. At the same time, the CE-related new business models are more and more holistic and flexibly encompass the CE-energy/decarbonizations links. In this framework, the energy industry is undertaking broad strategies for the CE that emphasize these links and move in the direction of integrated business models. The report first presents the CE-energy/decarbonizations links. Then it takes stock of the evolving policy framework for these links. The other sections address the CE-energy/decarbonizations links in the energy industry, also presenting the range of initiatives of some major players, and the CE measurement at the company level

This chapter analyses the status of young people and their labour market prospects. It stresses t... more This chapter analyses the status of young people and their labour market prospects. It stresses that despite we are currently living in an era characterised by the largest cohort of young people, they face formidable challenges in entering the labour market. Labour market conditions for youth were already negative at the beginning of the millennium but worsened considerably following the global financial crisis. This resulted in record high unemployment and NEET (not in education, employment or training) rates in advanced economies and in high levels of informality and vulnerability in developing countries. Particularly worrying is the condition of young women which do not participate to the labour market or are forced in domestic work and deprived of the chance of being educated. Despite these difficulties labour market prospects of young people throughout the world are brightened by several examples and good practices that show how these challenges can be overcome. The rst case study \uabSalt of Earth for Dignity Through Solidarity - Youth Empowerment and Self-nancing in Haiti\ubb by S. Prenger (page 99) shows the the Young Christian Worker\u2019s movement\u2019s purpose to enable young people, otherwise unemployed, to take part in the production of salt in a commune in Haiti. By working closely together for a common objective, those young workers understand the importance of working in solidarity as well as they develop \u201cteam spirit\u201d and entrepreneurship. The following case study \u201cEntrepreneurs and Youth Employment in Rwanda\u201d by M. Wanjiru (page 105) provides an important example of good practices in troubled countries in promoting vocation and technical education aimed at providing the right technical skills for young workers. The education part is crucially complemented by a financial part that gives young people a start-up capital to initiate income-generating activities and through solidarity improve the well-being of the society and the general level of education. Promoting entrepreneurship is also at the basis of the projects of the Laboratory for Social and Economic Innovation in Mexico, as discussed in \u201cWork for Peace in Young Mexico\u201d by J. M. Martinez Louvier (page 111). This Laboratory aims at promoting social owned enterprises where capital is not the main objective but the resolution of human needs. Through these enterprises young Mexicans are dignified by a job that pays an adequate salary and are less likely to be caught up in violence and criminal activities. Similarly the Green Life Evolution Project in Zambia as reported in the homonymous paper by Rev. Fr. J. Komakoma (page 115) conjugates entrepreneurship development with environmental sustainability. By teaching young men and women how to grow seedlings of various trees which are then sold, the project improves people\u2019s income while contributing to a healthier environment. Finally, it is worth mentioning the National Domestic Workers Mouvement (NDWM) discussed in \u201cHow to Empower Young Indian Domestic Workers\u201d by Sr. J. Devos (page 119). Thanks to their precious work over these years, domestic work in India now represents a dignied employment for thousands of young women. Cooperation through these movements increases women self-awareness and empowerment enabling girls and young women to receive through education information on their rights. This improves not only young women conditions but contributes to the improvement of the work and family environment

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Economics and Management Engineering, 2017

Searching for escapes from the ‘‘algorithmic cage’’ of homo economicus, experimental and behavior... more Searching for escapes from the ‘‘algorithmic cage’’ of homo economicus, experimental and behavioral economics appear as a step towards the ‘‘whole breadth of reason’’ highlighting the role of interpersonal relation in human decisions and actions. We explore how individual choices, attitudes and traits change over a congruous period of time, due to exposure to an intense relational experience within a caring community. We apply a longitudinal empirical framework of analysis, encompassing behavioral games, textual analysis and psychological validated tests to three ongoing research projects at CSCC-UCSC, involving ex-addicted persons in Italian rehab communities; Californian state prisoners attending the GRIP program; and schoolchildren under AVSI Distance Support in Goma, DRC.

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking

The investigation of emerging adults' expectations of development of the next generation of robot... more The investigation of emerging adults' expectations of development of the next generation of robots is a fundamental challenge to narrow the gap between expectations and real technological advances, which can potentially impact the effectiveness of future interactions between humans and robots. Furthermore, the literature highlights the important role played by negative attitudes toward robots in setting people's expectations. To better explore these expectations, we administered the Scale for Robotic Needs and performed a latent profile analysis to describe different expectation profiles about the development of future robots. The profiles identified through this methodology can be placed along a continuum of robots' humanization: from a group that desires mainly the technical features to a group that imagines a humanized robot in the future. Finally, the analysis of emerging adults' knowledge about robots and their negative attitudes toward robots allowed us to understand how these affect their expectations.

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking

In the past years, the field of collaborative robots has been developing fast, with applications ... more In the past years, the field of collaborative robots has been developing fast, with applications ranging from health care to search and rescue, construction, entertainment, sports, and many others. However, current social robotics is still far from the general abilities we expect in a robot collaborator. This limitation is more evident when robots are faced with real-life contexts and activities occurring over long periods. In this article, we argue that human-robot collaboration is more than just being able to work side by side on complementary tasks: collaboration is a complex relational process that entails mutual understanding and reciprocal adaptation. Drawing on this assumption, we propose to shift the focus from ''human-robot interaction'' to ''human-robot shared experience.'' We hold that for enabling the emergence of such shared experiential space between humans and robots, constructs such as coadaptation, intersubjectivity, individual differences, and identity should become the central focus of modeling. Finally, we suggest that this shift in perspective would imply changing current mainstream design approaches, which are mainly focused on functional aspects of the humanrobot interaction, to the development of architectural frameworks that integrate the enabling dimensions of social cognition.

This paper analyses the innovative systems of different territorial entities: two European countr... more This paper analyses the innovative systems of different territorial entities: two European countries (Italy and Germany) and two Italian regions (Lombardy and Piedmont). The analysis of the intersectoral innovation flows within the systems is based on an input-output database rearranged in vertically integrated sectors and studied through network analysis methodology and indicators.

Affittare un appartamento con Airbnb, spostarsi con Blablacar, Uber o, pi\uf9 ecologicamente, con... more Affittare un appartamento con Airbnb, spostarsi con Blablacar, Uber o, pi\uf9 ecologicamente, con il bike sharing, cenare prenotando con Gnammo, dopo aver lasciato il cane a un dog-sitter trovato con Petme: benvenuti nel mondo della sharing economy e delle sue miriadi di applicazioni. C\u2019\ue8 chi la vede come una soluzione alla crisi, per compensare redditi falcidiati dalla globalizzazione e per assicurare prezzi minori rispetto al mercato. Ma \ue8 anche il regno del lavoro non tutelato, della concorrenza sleale, dell\u2019elusione di standard, garanzie e imposte. Quali conseguenze avr\ue0 tutto questo sul nostro sistema economico e sulla nostra vita quotidiana

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR). Biblioteca Centrale / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle R... more Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR). Biblioteca Centrale / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

We present experimental evidence on a high-dosage tutoring (HDT) program implemented in three pri... more We present experimental evidence on a high-dosage tutoring (HDT) program implemented in three primary schools in a low-income neighborhood in the Netherlands. We document treatment effects of 0.28 national population standard deviations in math achievement scores (p<0.01) after one school year. These treatment effects are sizable and can account for roughly 40% of the math achievement gap between low-income and high-income students in the Netherlands. As most of the evidence on intensive tutoring programs draws on research from low-income settings in the US, our findings show that (i.) HDT programs can be successfully built from the ground up and exported to different institutional settings while maintaining meaningful effect sizes, and, (ii.) existing income-achievement gaps can be substantially reduced with practical and scalable interventions like HDT.

While an extensive literature based on analysis conducted in developed countries shows that prima... more While an extensive literature based on analysis conducted in developed countries shows that primary school children develop prosocial attitudes as they grow older, with school acting as the main driver of the socialisation process, there is little evidence of what may happen in very different socio-cultural and economic context. The paper aims at testing the relation between age and prosocial attitudes and behaviours by focusing on a sample of about 400 children attending 10 primary schools located in pheripheral areas of Goma, capital city of the North Kivu province in the northeast region of Democratic Republic of Congo. The evidence of behavioural experiments shows that schoolchildren attitude to truthfully report their choices tends to decrease with age (i.e. cheating increases); we also explore the relationship between other prosocial attitudes and age, finding mixed and weak evidence.

Die ZBW räumt Ihnen als Nutzerin/Nutzer das unentgeltliche, räumlich unbeschränkte und zeitlich a... more Die ZBW räumt Ihnen als Nutzerin/Nutzer das unentgeltliche, räumlich unbeschränkte und zeitlich auf die Dauer des Schutzrechts beschränkte einfache Recht ein, das ausgewählte Werk im Rahmen der unter

Research Policy, 1996

The paper compares the innovative structure and performance of Italy and Germany by using the con... more The paper compares the innovative structure and performance of Italy and Germany by using the concept of the technological system which is defined as the result of the interaction of four different components: the industrial, the innovative, the commercial (domestic and foreign markets) and the institutional subsystems. The analysis of the intersectoral innovation flows within the two national technological systems is based on an input-output database rearranged in vertically integrated sectors. Specific hypotheses have been formulated and valid proxies for the variables studied have been used. The final results have been obtained by using network analysis methodology and indicators. This called for a dicotomisation of the original matrices. These results take into account separately the existing differences between Italy and Germany in both absolute terms (dimension effect) and relative terms (proportion effect). The paper shows that Germany is characterised by a higher level of systemic connection both in absolute and (generally) in relative terms. The Italian technological system seems to be segmented in a dualistic structure where few high-tech sectors co-exist along with a pool of traditional ones, rather peripheral in the innovation flow network. The German system, on the contrary, appears to be homogeneous with a more evenly distributed structure of intersectoral innovation flows. The paper concludes by considering the effects of the introduction of other subsystems: namely foreign market and public intervention. While the former introduces further elements of differentiation between Italy and Germany, the latter seems to perform a similar role in both systems.

The paper presents the results of a behavioral experiment conducted between February 2020 and Mar... more The paper presents the results of a behavioral experiment conducted between February 2020 and March 2021 at Universit\`a Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan Campus in which students were matched to either a human or a humanoid robotic partner to play an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. The results of a Logit estimation procedure show that subjects are more likely to cooperate with human rather robotic partners; that are more likely to cooperate after receiving a dialogic verbal reaction following the realization of a sub-obtimal social outcome; that the effect of the verbal reaction is independent on the nature of the partner. Our findings provide new evidence on the effect of verbal communication in strategic frameworks. Results are robust to the exclusion of students of Economics related subjects, to the inclusion of a set of psychological and behavioral controls, to the way subjects perceive robots' behavior and to potential gender biases in human-human interactions.

The phenomenon of open-source software development has already stimulated a wide debate within di... more The phenomenon of open-source software development has already stimulated a wide debate within different academic communities (economists, information scientists, business strategists, operational researchers, etc.) and research approaches. Aim of this paper is to add a new and complementary perspective on the existing economic analysis of open-source software by comparing the structure and evolution of open-source software communities and of industrial districts, a peculiar organisational form of production based on a large number of interacting small and medium sized enterprises. The comparison between open-source software communities and industrial districts, in spite of some major differences (such as the role of geographical proximity) allows the recognition of the role played by agglomeration economies, an explicit analysis of the incentives structure - governing the private provision of complex public goods-, and an in depth study of the governance structure and evolution of ...

Research Papers in Economics, 2019

Although recent empirical literature acknowledges that organized violence tends to cluster geogra... more Although recent empirical literature acknowledges that organized violence tends to cluster geographically, the limited use of disaggregated data and of accurate spatial estimation techniques fail in explaining the spatial structure of conflict events. In this paper we analyse conflict incidence in West Africa through the provision of an illustrative case (the Mano River Region) by: (i) performing the analysis with the smallest possible sub-national disaggregated areas; (ii) taking into account the location of valuable resources (lootable diamonds and gold); and (iii) applying the most suitable spatial econometric specifications. Our results show the existence of relevant cross-border spillover effects of conflict events; and confirm that natural valuable resources are strong predictors of organized violence location. Moreover, we demonstrate that events concerning incompatibilities on government and/or territory are more strongly related to diamonds location, whereas events between no-state armed groups are indifferently connected to the location of both valuable resources.

Social Science Research Network, Dec 10, 2020

The FEEM report 2019 (Zoboli et al. 2019) proposed to embed the Circular Economy (CE) into a broa... more The FEEM report 2019 (Zoboli et al. 2019) proposed to embed the Circular Economy (CE) into a broader NEXUS framework, in which the relationships between the CE transition, the decarbonization transition, and the bioeconomy transition have to be considered in sustainability transition strategies. In this report, the focus is on the CEDecarbonisation nexus, in particular the energy-CE links, taking into consideration also those links to the bioeconomy that can be relevant for the energy-CE link. We will highlight how, in spite of the very broad policy vision emerging from the European Green Deal (EGD) and the continuously increasing industrial interest for the CE, there are still missing, or not completely deployed, links between CE and energy/decarbonization. In particular, there are missing links within the EU policy framework, in which legislation on CE and energy/climate are still delinked. The wide range of specific strategies triggered by the EGD, including the new EU Circular Economy Action Plan 2020 (EC 2020c), are going towards a deeper integration between CE and energy/decarbonization, and this can provide new opportunities. At the same time, the CE-related new business models are more and more holistic and flexibly encompass the CE-energy/decarbonizations links. In this framework, the energy industry is undertaking broad strategies for the CE that emphasize these links and move in the direction of integrated business models. The report first presents the CE-energy/decarbonizations links. Then it takes stock of the evolving policy framework for these links. The other sections address the CE-energy/decarbonizations links in the energy industry, also presenting the range of initiatives of some major players, and the CE measurement at the company level

This chapter analyses the status of young people and their labour market prospects. It stresses t... more This chapter analyses the status of young people and their labour market prospects. It stresses that despite we are currently living in an era characterised by the largest cohort of young people, they face formidable challenges in entering the labour market. Labour market conditions for youth were already negative at the beginning of the millennium but worsened considerably following the global financial crisis. This resulted in record high unemployment and NEET (not in education, employment or training) rates in advanced economies and in high levels of informality and vulnerability in developing countries. Particularly worrying is the condition of young women which do not participate to the labour market or are forced in domestic work and deprived of the chance of being educated. Despite these difficulties labour market prospects of young people throughout the world are brightened by several examples and good practices that show how these challenges can be overcome. The rst case study \uabSalt of Earth for Dignity Through Solidarity - Youth Empowerment and Self-nancing in Haiti\ubb by S. Prenger (page 99) shows the the Young Christian Worker\u2019s movement\u2019s purpose to enable young people, otherwise unemployed, to take part in the production of salt in a commune in Haiti. By working closely together for a common objective, those young workers understand the importance of working in solidarity as well as they develop \u201cteam spirit\u201d and entrepreneurship. The following case study \u201cEntrepreneurs and Youth Employment in Rwanda\u201d by M. Wanjiru (page 105) provides an important example of good practices in troubled countries in promoting vocation and technical education aimed at providing the right technical skills for young workers. The education part is crucially complemented by a financial part that gives young people a start-up capital to initiate income-generating activities and through solidarity improve the well-being of the society and the general level of education. Promoting entrepreneurship is also at the basis of the projects of the Laboratory for Social and Economic Innovation in Mexico, as discussed in \u201cWork for Peace in Young Mexico\u201d by J. M. Martinez Louvier (page 111). This Laboratory aims at promoting social owned enterprises where capital is not the main objective but the resolution of human needs. Through these enterprises young Mexicans are dignified by a job that pays an adequate salary and are less likely to be caught up in violence and criminal activities. Similarly the Green Life Evolution Project in Zambia as reported in the homonymous paper by Rev. Fr. J. Komakoma (page 115) conjugates entrepreneurship development with environmental sustainability. By teaching young men and women how to grow seedlings of various trees which are then sold, the project improves people\u2019s income while contributing to a healthier environment. Finally, it is worth mentioning the National Domestic Workers Mouvement (NDWM) discussed in \u201cHow to Empower Young Indian Domestic Workers\u201d by Sr. J. Devos (page 119). Thanks to their precious work over these years, domestic work in India now represents a dignied employment for thousands of young women. Cooperation through these movements increases women self-awareness and empowerment enabling girls and young women to receive through education information on their rights. This improves not only young women conditions but contributes to the improvement of the work and family environment

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Economics and Management Engineering, 2017

Searching for escapes from the ‘‘algorithmic cage’’ of homo economicus, experimental and behavior... more Searching for escapes from the ‘‘algorithmic cage’’ of homo economicus, experimental and behavioral economics appear as a step towards the ‘‘whole breadth of reason’’ highlighting the role of interpersonal relation in human decisions and actions. We explore how individual choices, attitudes and traits change over a congruous period of time, due to exposure to an intense relational experience within a caring community. We apply a longitudinal empirical framework of analysis, encompassing behavioral games, textual analysis and psychological validated tests to three ongoing research projects at CSCC-UCSC, involving ex-addicted persons in Italian rehab communities; Californian state prisoners attending the GRIP program; and schoolchildren under AVSI Distance Support in Goma, DRC.

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking

The investigation of emerging adults' expectations of development of the next generation of robot... more The investigation of emerging adults' expectations of development of the next generation of robots is a fundamental challenge to narrow the gap between expectations and real technological advances, which can potentially impact the effectiveness of future interactions between humans and robots. Furthermore, the literature highlights the important role played by negative attitudes toward robots in setting people's expectations. To better explore these expectations, we administered the Scale for Robotic Needs and performed a latent profile analysis to describe different expectation profiles about the development of future robots. The profiles identified through this methodology can be placed along a continuum of robots' humanization: from a group that desires mainly the technical features to a group that imagines a humanized robot in the future. Finally, the analysis of emerging adults' knowledge about robots and their negative attitudes toward robots allowed us to understand how these affect their expectations.

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking

In the past years, the field of collaborative robots has been developing fast, with applications ... more In the past years, the field of collaborative robots has been developing fast, with applications ranging from health care to search and rescue, construction, entertainment, sports, and many others. However, current social robotics is still far from the general abilities we expect in a robot collaborator. This limitation is more evident when robots are faced with real-life contexts and activities occurring over long periods. In this article, we argue that human-robot collaboration is more than just being able to work side by side on complementary tasks: collaboration is a complex relational process that entails mutual understanding and reciprocal adaptation. Drawing on this assumption, we propose to shift the focus from ''human-robot interaction'' to ''human-robot shared experience.'' We hold that for enabling the emergence of such shared experiential space between humans and robots, constructs such as coadaptation, intersubjectivity, individual differences, and identity should become the central focus of modeling. Finally, we suggest that this shift in perspective would imply changing current mainstream design approaches, which are mainly focused on functional aspects of the humanrobot interaction, to the development of architectural frameworks that integrate the enabling dimensions of social cognition.

This paper analyses the innovative systems of different territorial entities: two European countr... more This paper analyses the innovative systems of different territorial entities: two European countries (Italy and Germany) and two Italian regions (Lombardy and Piedmont). The analysis of the intersectoral innovation flows within the systems is based on an input-output database rearranged in vertically integrated sectors and studied through network analysis methodology and indicators.

Affittare un appartamento con Airbnb, spostarsi con Blablacar, Uber o, pi\uf9 ecologicamente, con... more Affittare un appartamento con Airbnb, spostarsi con Blablacar, Uber o, pi\uf9 ecologicamente, con il bike sharing, cenare prenotando con Gnammo, dopo aver lasciato il cane a un dog-sitter trovato con Petme: benvenuti nel mondo della sharing economy e delle sue miriadi di applicazioni. C\u2019\ue8 chi la vede come una soluzione alla crisi, per compensare redditi falcidiati dalla globalizzazione e per assicurare prezzi minori rispetto al mercato. Ma \ue8 anche il regno del lavoro non tutelato, della concorrenza sleale, dell\u2019elusione di standard, garanzie e imposte. Quali conseguenze avr\ue0 tutto questo sul nostro sistema economico e sulla nostra vita quotidiana

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR). Biblioteca Centrale / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle R... more Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR). Biblioteca Centrale / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

We present experimental evidence on a high-dosage tutoring (HDT) program implemented in three pri... more We present experimental evidence on a high-dosage tutoring (HDT) program implemented in three primary schools in a low-income neighborhood in the Netherlands. We document treatment effects of 0.28 national population standard deviations in math achievement scores (p<0.01) after one school year. These treatment effects are sizable and can account for roughly 40% of the math achievement gap between low-income and high-income students in the Netherlands. As most of the evidence on intensive tutoring programs draws on research from low-income settings in the US, our findings show that (i.) HDT programs can be successfully built from the ground up and exported to different institutional settings while maintaining meaningful effect sizes, and, (ii.) existing income-achievement gaps can be substantially reduced with practical and scalable interventions like HDT.

While an extensive literature based on analysis conducted in developed countries shows that prima... more While an extensive literature based on analysis conducted in developed countries shows that primary school children develop prosocial attitudes as they grow older, with school acting as the main driver of the socialisation process, there is little evidence of what may happen in very different socio-cultural and economic context. The paper aims at testing the relation between age and prosocial attitudes and behaviours by focusing on a sample of about 400 children attending 10 primary schools located in pheripheral areas of Goma, capital city of the North Kivu province in the northeast region of Democratic Republic of Congo. The evidence of behavioural experiments shows that schoolchildren attitude to truthfully report their choices tends to decrease with age (i.e. cheating increases); we also explore the relationship between other prosocial attitudes and age, finding mixed and weak evidence.

Die ZBW räumt Ihnen als Nutzerin/Nutzer das unentgeltliche, räumlich unbeschränkte und zeitlich a... more Die ZBW räumt Ihnen als Nutzerin/Nutzer das unentgeltliche, räumlich unbeschränkte und zeitlich auf die Dauer des Schutzrechts beschränkte einfache Recht ein, das ausgewählte Werk im Rahmen der unter

Research Policy, 1996

The paper compares the innovative structure and performance of Italy and Germany by using the con... more The paper compares the innovative structure and performance of Italy and Germany by using the concept of the technological system which is defined as the result of the interaction of four different components: the industrial, the innovative, the commercial (domestic and foreign markets) and the institutional subsystems. The analysis of the intersectoral innovation flows within the two national technological systems is based on an input-output database rearranged in vertically integrated sectors. Specific hypotheses have been formulated and valid proxies for the variables studied have been used. The final results have been obtained by using network analysis methodology and indicators. This called for a dicotomisation of the original matrices. These results take into account separately the existing differences between Italy and Germany in both absolute terms (dimension effect) and relative terms (proportion effect). The paper shows that Germany is characterised by a higher level of systemic connection both in absolute and (generally) in relative terms. The Italian technological system seems to be segmented in a dualistic structure where few high-tech sectors co-exist along with a pool of traditional ones, rather peripheral in the innovation flow network. The German system, on the contrary, appears to be homogeneous with a more evenly distributed structure of intersectoral innovation flows. The paper concludes by considering the effects of the introduction of other subsystems: namely foreign market and public intervention. While the former introduces further elements of differentiation between Italy and Germany, the latter seems to perform a similar role in both systems.

The paper presents the results of a behavioral experiment conducted between February 2020 and Mar... more The paper presents the results of a behavioral experiment conducted between February 2020 and March 2021 at Universit\`a Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan Campus in which students were matched to either a human or a humanoid robotic partner to play an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. The results of a Logit estimation procedure show that subjects are more likely to cooperate with human rather robotic partners; that are more likely to cooperate after receiving a dialogic verbal reaction following the realization of a sub-obtimal social outcome; that the effect of the verbal reaction is independent on the nature of the partner. Our findings provide new evidence on the effect of verbal communication in strategic frameworks. Results are robust to the exclusion of students of Economics related subjects, to the inclusion of a set of psychological and behavioral controls, to the way subjects perceive robots' behavior and to potential gender biases in human-human interactions.

The phenomenon of open-source software development has already stimulated a wide debate within di... more The phenomenon of open-source software development has already stimulated a wide debate within different academic communities (economists, information scientists, business strategists, operational researchers, etc.) and research approaches. Aim of this paper is to add a new and complementary perspective on the existing economic analysis of open-source software by comparing the structure and evolution of open-source software communities and of industrial districts, a peculiar organisational form of production based on a large number of interacting small and medium sized enterprises. The comparison between open-source software communities and industrial districts, in spite of some major differences (such as the role of geographical proximity) allows the recognition of the role played by agglomeration economies, an explicit analysis of the incentives structure - governing the private provision of complex public goods-, and an in depth study of the governance structure and evolution of ...