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The paper aims to compare the efficiency of alternative municipal solid waste (MSW) management business models: a single provider against multiple providers.

In this paper the drivers of MSW management costs are analysed to test the impact of the scale and scope of MSW management services on the average cost. While the business-as-usual scenario foresees a single provider, the alternative scenario foresees multiple providers.

Based on the empirical data on municipal waste management costs, on average, the size and the average cost of the service are inversely related. This trend is supported using sub-sets defined by the quantity of waste managed. Multiple factors aid in explaining this result, and among others, due to scale and scope, factors such as transition costs increase with the number of players running different services.

The provision of public services of economic interest should favour the participation of more companies wherever possible to the extent that social surplus is produced. However, pursuing this principle to the detriment of efficient service delivery is not ideal. This paper demonstrated that a single-provider waste management business model is efficient under specific conditions, as in this article.

This paper presents an original research methodology for comparatively analysing waste management service efficiency in urban areas and provides adequate evidence using alternative measures of costs according to the phase of the waste management chain, the scale and ultimately the scope of MSW management services.

本學術論文擬比較另類的都市固體廢物管理模式的效率, 比較的對像是:單一服務提供者和多個提供服務者。

研究人員分析都市固體廢物管理成本和價格的動因, 以測試有關的管理服務之規模和範圍對平均成本的影響。若在一切照常的情況下, 我們會預見單一服務提供者, 唯在不尋常的情況下, 我們則會預見多個提供服務者。

根據都市廢物管理價格和成本上的實證數據, 平均而言, 服務的規模與其平均成本是成反比的。我們使用了以所處理之廢物量來界定的子集來支持這趨勢。多重因素會幫助解釋和說明這研究結果, 其中包括:因規模和範圍的關係, 諸如過度成本等的因素, 會按著提供各種不同服務的主要參與者的數目而增加。

在能達創造社會剩餘的前題下, 會帶來經濟效益之公共服務的提供, 應有利於在可行範圍內有更多公司的參與; 但如果實行這原則而因此有損於服務提供的效率的話, 則這是不理想的。本文展示了在特定的情況下, 單一服務提供者的廢物管理商業模式是高效率的, 本文已說明這些特定情況。

本文為以比較分析法去探討城市地區廢物管理服務的效率、提出了一個新穎的研究方法, 並根據廢物管理鏈的階段、都市固體廢物管理服務的規模、以及最終其範圍, 考慮了成本和價格的另類測量方法, 繼而提供充分的證據, 以支持這些測量方法。

The purpose of this paper is to analyze a set of smart meters implementation projects and provide insights and recommendations to facilitate smart metering deployment strategies.

Several significant projects are analyzed on different fronts: scale, technology, economics and regulation, using a common methodology to unfold patterns that constitute key components of successful smart meters diffusion.

Key elements and controllable enabling patterns from Europe-wide SM implementation projects are identified together with drivers and barriers for patterns replication.

The authors provide a framework considering different stakeholders that will help distribution system operators to accelerate and extend smart meters’ penetration.

Based on the Meter-ON project (supported by the 7th Framework Program of the European Commission), we provide valuable information aimed at facilitating the large-scale deployment of smart meters.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role and scope of revenue management and its impact on performance of Italian tourism industry. The paper takes into consideration exogenous factors that may enable or prevent business success. Prior research shed light from different lens.

Research design relies on an empirical analysis, information is gathered using a web survey. Variables are grouped into dependent (performance related items), independent and dummy, consistent with findings of existing literature. A questionnaire was e-mailed to a range of companies according to their NACE Rev.2 codes. The conceptual model is developed considering prior analysis of the literature.

This study provides new insights for practical business management operating in the tourism industry. Indeed, it clarifies the role of the revenue manager and shows its usefulness within SMEs.

This study was conducted in only one sector and one country (Italy) and considered only SMEs.

Although interesting suggestions can be drawn by literature, to the best knowledge of the authors the empirical analysis is one of the few attempts to explore the topic in Italy in an extensive way.

In The Great Derangement, the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh examines the present inability to understand and represent the scale and violence of the environmental crisis. The book is a passionate awakening call for collective action to drive change, with Ghosh clearly identifying the limits of the present framework of values, which inhibits politicians, industrialists and economists from moving towards a truly sustainable civilization. In the Anthropocene, non-human and post-human factors are raising questions about the concept of a silent Nature that can be domesticated for human advantage and the perspective of continuous progress – both of which have dominated the modern age. Nevertheless, the detailed scientific analysis of the violation of the planet’s limited capacities continues to be refuted, triggering irrational, short-term utilitarian behaviours which are preventing the fundamental changes required for the transition to sustainable development. Artists, philosophers and writers can play an invaluable role in reframing our ways of thinking, filling the gap between scientific knowledge and emotional perception. Pioneering artistic experiments are appearing all over the world, from both well-established and emerging artists, and through collective processes, and this cultural movement is setting the scene for a new wave of eco-entrepreneurs driven by the altruistic mission of saving the planet. As has happened in many previous crises, it is again in the hands of artists to redefine how we perceive ourselves and so to support the emergence of new ideas, new learning, and finally to shape society and the economy around a renewed sense of the future for humankind on Earth.

Circumstances that are have a significant impact on it. In particular, environmental sustainability related to the increase of worldwide population, and market demand for agricultural products (with consumers more and more aware about cultivation and breeding techniques and interested in healthy and high-quality products) represent two of the key challenges that the agricultural sector is going to face in next years. In such a landscape, technological innovations that can support organizations and entrepreneurs to face these problems become increasingly important, and Industry 4.0 is the most striking example. Indeed, the Industry 4.0 paradigm aims to integrate digital technologies into business processes to raise productivity levels and to develop new business models. Accordingly, digital technologies play a similar role in the precision agriculture domain, and the purpose of this paper is to understand if the technologies at the basis of these two paradigms are the same or not.

The present work investigates how the two domains of Industry 4.0 and precision agriculture are connected to one another by analyzing the most used technologies in both the fields in order to highlight common patterns and technological overlaps. To reach such goal, an approach combining manual and automated analysis was developed.

The research work generated three main results: a dictionary of precision agriculture technologies including 324 terms; a graph, describing the connections between the technologies composing the dictionary; and a representation of the main technological clusters identified.

These show how the two domains under analysis are directly connected and describe the most important technologies to leverage when approaching digital transformation processes in the agricultural sector.

This work aims to analyse the relationship between public health efficiency and well-being considering a panel of 102 Italian provinces from 2000 to 2016 and evaluates if there are omitted variable biases and endogeneity biases and also evaluates if there are heterogeneous effects among provinces with different income levels.

We use a multi-input and output bootstrap data envelopment analysis to assess public health efficiency. Then, we measure well-being indices using the min-max linear scaling transformation technique. A two-stage least squares model is used to identify the causal effect of improving public health efficiency on well-being to account for time-invariant heterogeneity, omitted variable bias and endogeneity bias.

After controlling for important economic factors, the results show a significant effect of an accountable and efficient public health system on well-being. Those effects are concentrated in the North, the most economically, geographically and environmentally advantageous areas.

The use of the sample mean, probably the oldest and most used method for aggregating the indicators, could be affected by variable compensation, with consequent misleading results in the process of constructing the well-being index. Another limitation is the use of lagged values of the main predictor as an instrument in the instrumental variables setting because it could lead to information loss. Finally, the availability of data over a long period of time.

The findings could help policymakers adopt measures to strengthen the public health system, encourage private providers and inspire countries worldwide.

These results draw the attention of local authorities, who play an important role in designing and implementing policies to stimulate local public health efficiency, which puts individuals in the conditions of achieving overall well-being in their communities.

For the first time in Italy, a panel of well-being indices was constructed by developing new methodologies based on microeconomic theory. Furthermore, for the first time, the assessment of the relationship between public health efficiency and well-being is carried out using a panel of 102 Italian provinces.