Mines and quarries production: A driver analysis of withdrawals in Italy
Abstract The growing demand for non-energy mineral resources has determined relevant withdrawals as well as import-export flows. This paper aims to disentangle the drivers of raw non-energy mineral resources extraction in Italy. Using a new dataset of raw resources extracted from mines and quarries in the 21 Italian regions (19 regions and 2 autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano) for the period 2013–2016, our empirical analysis confirms the relevance of mining and quarrying producer price index as well as the manufacturing and construction sectors as main drivers. In line with the Hotelling (1931)'s theory, a positive relationship between m&q mineral resources extraction intensity and …
Irrigation water intensity and climate variability: an agricultural crops analysis of Italian regions
This paper examines the relationship between the requirement of water resources for irrigation and climate variability and analyses the ranking of the best and worst performance of irrigation water intensity for each Italian region. To measure water resources demanded by agriculture, the irrigation water intensity (IWI) indicator has been computed as the ratio between volumes of irrigation water and total crop harvested. By applying panel data methodologies to a regional dataset spanning from 2000 to 2009, we may address heterogeneity and omitted variable issues. By merging meteo-climatic with agricultural variables, we may confirm that water precipitations, maximum temperature, irrigation …
Innovation for climate change adaptation and technical efficiency: an empirical analysis in the European agricultural sector
This paper analyses the effect of innovation on firms' technical efficiency. Using climate-related patent data to proxy for innovation activity in different technological fields, the paper employs a stochastic frontier approach to estimate the impact of innovative efforts on agricultural firms' technical efficiency taking account of both unobservable heterogeneity and double heteroscedasticity in the inefficiency and idiosyncratic terms. Our findings confirm that innovation has a positive impact on firms' productivity (technical efficiency). While agricultural firms located in Germany and Sweden are more efficient compared to those in southern countries, all the European countries considere…
Climate variability and agriculture in Italy: a stochastic frontier analysis at the regional level
In the next future, climate change effects will represent a challenge for Europe and the Mediterranean area. These will have to cope with a rapid increase in climate variability. Although many economic sectors may be affected, agriculture is the most susceptible as climate heavily affects crop production trends, yield variability and the availability of areas suitable for cultivation. Using the stochastic frontier approach, the aim of this work is to analyse the impacts of climate variability on Italian regional technical efficiency in the agricultural sector for a period spanning from 2000 to 2009. Considering that technical inefficiency could be influenced by two main annual meteorologica…