Alessandro Arrighetti
Università degli Studi di Parma (Italy), Economia, Faculty Member
The stagnation of investments and its causes have attracted great attention in the recent economic debate. In this paper, we show that during the Great Recession, the flattening of the capital formation rate at the firm level is not due... more
The stagnation of investments and its causes have attracted great attention in the recent economic debate. In this paper, we show that during the Great Recession, the flattening of the capital formation rate at the firm level is not due to lower average propensity to invest. Rather, it is the result of growing heterogeneity of choices among firms. While a subset of firms is oriented towards increasing investments, another group substantially divest. The result is a polarization of conducts that tend to cancel each other out, resulting in a flattening of aggregate investment. We argue that this asymmetry in firm’s decisions depends on two main factors. The first one is the diversity of corporate strategies, which firms have developed in the past. The second driver is managerial discretion, that plays an important role in the adoption of specific investment/divestment trajectories when faced with a recession. The results of our empirical analysis provide strong support for our hypothe...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Few firms grow in a rapid way, but their contribution to employment growth is often impressive. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze both external and internal factors which can affect the probability of being a high-growth firm... more
Few firms grow in a rapid way, but their contribution to employment growth is often impressive. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze both external and internal factors which can affect the probability of being a high-growth firm (HGF) in Italy. We found that HGFs are on average young firms and are present in different sectors, but the role of demand is important to understand their performance at sectoral level. Moreover, our findings show that financial constraints and profitability are not associated with the probability of being a fast-growing firm. HGFs, on average, are characterised by high productivity, but only when growth is measured in terms of sales. The most original results of this study concerns endogenous determinants of fast growth, which have not so far been adequately examined in the literature. First, we found that the concentration of ownership is important for HGFs that grow in sales. Second, the quality of human capital is a strong point for firms experi...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of a prolonged economic recession on the entrepreneurial intentions of young people (university students) distinguishing between propensity to start a new business (i.e.... more
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of a prolonged economic recession on the entrepreneurial intentions of young people (university students) distinguishing between propensity to start a new business (i.e. degree of interest in entrepreneurship) and perceived likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur (i.e. probability to start a business in the future). Furthermore this study verifies if the recession strengthens the orientation to exploit new market opportunities, or simply supports self-employment objectives. Design/methodology/approach Entrepreneurial intention was measured in terms of propensity to start a new business and perceived likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur. Psychosocial and economic variables were measured as well. Information was gathered through questionnaires distributed in both electronic and paper-and-pencil form to a sample of 3,684 Italian University students enrolled in 12 different faculties. Findings First, this study found that w...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In most industrialized countries, temporary and non-standard forms of employment have become a pervasive feature of the labor market. At the firm level, however, their diffusion is less uniform than expected. While some firms exhibit high... more
In most industrialized countries, temporary and non-standard forms of employment have become a pervasive feature of the labor market. At the firm level, however, their diffusion is less uniform than expected. While some firms exhibit high propensity to use non-standard labor, others make no use of it. The most conventional explanations (market uncertainty, production regimes, competitive pressure) fail to account for such heterogeneity. In this article, the authors develop an alternative explanation that links non-standard employment to the firm-specific availability of managerial resources: Whenever the latter are relatively scarce, firms make larger use of non-standard labor to reduce coordination and operating costs. Using a linked employer–employee panel of manufacturing firms from the Emilia-Romagna region (Italy), the authors provide empirical support for this explanation. The result is robust to different estimation strategies and controlling for alternative drivers of non-st...
Research Interests:
In the last decades, work flexibility emerged as a key requirement firms must meet to face volatile markets and highly differentiated product demand. This paper compares two alternative approaches to strengthen work flexibility: internal... more
In the last decades, work flexibility emerged as a key requirement firms must meet to face volatile markets and highly differentiated product demand. This paper compares two alternative approaches to strengthen work flexibility: internal flexibility, i.e. practices that focus on the employees’ ability to perform a variety of highly qualified tasks in a context of stable employment relationships; and external flexibility, i.e. practices that align employment and labour costs to demand fluctuations using a buffer of non-standard employees involved in routine tasks. We empirically verify whether both practices are able to boost sales growth using a linked employer-employee panel of manufacturing firms from the Emilia-Romagna region (Italy). While internal flexibility positively affects firm growth, external flexibility appears to hamper it. Such a negative effect, however, decreases when we limit the analysis to industries with high demand volatility and cost-based competition. The rel...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Intermediate institutions play an important role in solving market failures both in territorially limited and broad markets. This statement can be easily applied in an area like the province of Parma, where some of the most famous Italian... more
Intermediate institutions play an important role in solving market failures both in territorially limited and broad markets. This statement can be easily applied in an area like the province of Parma, where some of the most famous Italian typical agri-food products are produced by companies whose competitiveness is strongly dependent upon the intermediate institutions' ability to put collective goods of a material - such as service structures, road systems, physical markets, etc. - or immaterial technical training, behavioural rules, etc. - nature at the provincial economic network's disposal. The work is subdivided into two parts. The first one is of technical nature and will analyse how the market, meant as a structure of social relationships, with special attention to the agri-food market and to its specific features, works. Amongst these features, the phenomenon of information asymmetry and the role undertaken by institutional interventions to solve it will be taken into...
Questo lavoro offre una spiegazione della (apparente) stagnazione della produttivita nel manifatturiero italiano negli anni che precedono la Grande Recessione. Contrariamente ad un’opinione diffusa che vuole l’Italia affetta da un declino... more
Questo lavoro offre una spiegazione della (apparente) stagnazione della produttivita nel manifatturiero italiano negli anni che precedono la Grande Recessione. Contrariamente ad un’opinione diffusa che vuole l’Italia affetta da un declino della produttivita uniforme e difficile da arrestare, l’effettiva stagnazione della produttivita aggregata appare in realta la risultante di un effetto composizione tra le performance di tipologie di imprese molto diverse. Alcune imprese nell’ultimo ventennio hanno adottato strategie proattive volte a migliorare il livello qualitativo e l’efficienza delle produzioni, ottenendo risultanti di rilievo anche e soprattutto nei mercati esteri. Altre si sono invece orientate su strategie di compressione dei costi, riducendo sensibilmente gli investimenti in capitale fisico e capitale umano. In mezzo a questi due estremi, ci sono poi imprese che hanno adottato orientamenti strategici misti caratterizzati da interventi, parziali, incompleti o poco coerenti ...
The crisis regarding the Euro area has caused several business closures, especially in the periphery of the EMU. In this paper, we use an original Italian firm-level dataset to determine why firms exit the market during times of economic... more
The crisis regarding the Euro area has caused several business closures, especially in the periphery of the EMU. In this paper, we use an original Italian firm-level dataset to determine why firms exit the market during times of economic crisis, paying particular attention to the role of intangibles. We argue that intangibles strengthen a firm’s resilience, which improves the firm’s ability to cope with adverse events and unexpected shocks. We obtain two main results: first, we show that the presence of intangibles significantly reduces the probability of firm exit, especially during the initial phase of the crisis; second, we find that financial constraints become more relevant than intangibles in explaining firm exit during the later stages of the crisis. Thus, the process of firm selection during the crisis has undergone a rapid transformation, with distortions that may lead even skilled firms to exit. Implications of these findings for EU recovery policies are discussed.
Research Interests:
Intorno alla meta degli anni novanta alcuni cambiamenti che si stavano sviluppando da tempo nell’industria manifatturiera secondo dinamiche autonome e percorsi distinti, improvvisamente subiscono una accelerazione e tendono a convergere... more
Intorno alla meta degli anni novanta alcuni cambiamenti che si stavano sviluppando da tempo nell’industria manifatturiera secondo dinamiche autonome e percorsi distinti, improvvisamente subiscono una accelerazione e tendono a convergere verso un nuovo modello di produzione. Le caratteristiche essenziali del nuovo paradigma sono l’emergere di un complesso produttivo di natura globale, policentrico sul piano geografico e fortemente interdipendente. Si consolidano, inoltre, forme concorrenziali basate su vantaggi competitivi temporanei che accrescono la volatilita dei mercati e l’instabilita delle traiettorie tecnologiche. Contemporaneamente viene abbandonato un tratto decisivo del precedente modello manifatturiero: si rinuncia alla standardizzazione dei prodotti a favore della ricerca di soluzioni di massima personalizzazion dei prodotti con la conseguenza di ridimensionare l’importanza delle economie di scala in ambito produttivo. In questo contesto la proliferazione dei prodotti e l...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In contrast to the so-called cleansing effect, during the Great Recession we observe highly heterogeneous firm performances. In particular, a not negligible subset of firms grew considerably despite of the general tendency towards... more
In contrast to the so-called cleansing effect, during the Great Recession we observe highly heterogeneous firm performances. In particular, a not negligible subset of firms grew considerably despite of the general tendency towards downsizing. In this paper, we explain the behaviour of these swimming upstream firms (SUFs). We obtain three main results. First, SUFs exhibit certain firm-specific characteristics: they are younger and relatively more productive than non-SUFs. Second, SUFs adopt highly proactive strategic profiles, which assign significant importance to activities related to innovation, intangibles, and internationalization. Third, SUFs tend to react to changes in market opportunities, although they suffer from sticky processes of resource reallocation between exiting and surviving firms. Moreover, their growth seems to take place primarily within a regime of cumulative destruction rather than creative destruction. Some of the implications of these results for managers and policy makers are discussed.