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The term “charity hazard” refers to the issue of the crowding out of insurance by co-existing relief programs in the context of different institutional governmental disaster schemes. In this context, the aim of this paper is to verify if the charity hazard phenomenon exists in the Italian agricultural insurance scheme.

Annual data regarding crop insurance, subsidies and farm structure were extracted from ISMEA, ISTAT and FADN databases. A SYS-GMM dynamic panel model was estimated, considering the 2010–2017 time period and the Italian Regions as units of the analysis.

The empirical results highlight a negative relation between crop subsidies and the farmers' policies and total premium paid. The disincentive and crowd-out effects of public aid and subsidies on the choice of whether or not to take out an agricultural insurance policy ends up being one of the key factors for the low level of penetration of the agricultural insurance in Italy.

Since the diffusion of agricultural insurance can contribute to the general objective of sustainability and resilience, the implementation of alternative solutions to subsidies could be needed (e.g. the introduction of mandatory insurance against adversities or financial support for a geographically specific insurance tool).

Investigating empirically the determinants of the agricultural insurance policy diffusion among the Italian Regions, this study ensures an original contribution to the scientific progress in the field, demonstrating the existence of charity hazard caused by the public subsidies provision.

We address in this paper the problem of comparing and choosing among different policy instruments to implement the incentive objective of an efficient deterrence of environmental degradation and the remedy objective of an efficient clean-up of damages and a proper compensation of victims. Two main instruments are considered, namely the assignment of legal liability for environmental damage, such as in the American CERCLA and in the European White Paper, including extended liability provisions, and the design of an incentive regulation framework. Our results derive from a formal and structured analytical approach to modeling the economic interactions between different decision makers such as governments, firms, regulators and financiers.

Class action (CA) has long been used in practice (mainly in the USA) and studied by academics especially in the shareholder protection area. This paper aims to apply the same practice within the current financial meltdown context.

The paper faces the issue by comparing ex ante regulation with an ex post regulatory system, basically dependent on the action of the consumer who can sue firms that behave unfairly. The arguments are provided by the law and economics (LE) approach.

According to LE, pure economic loss is a private loss that is not socially relevant but simply implies a redistribution of wealth. Consequently, wrongful behavior that induces reallocation of costs and benefits with no consequences on social welfare is not considered socially harmful, so is not necessarily subject to compensation. Since pure economic loss is very often financial, the above reasoning also applies to financial markets. However, the same LE arguments suggest that in financial markets, the policy of internalizing pure economic loss by means of CAs can be more far‐sighted than simply compensating the victims: the liability system has the particular feature of producing deterrence and driving the market towards an efficient outcome.

The paper maintains that CA intended as a complementary ex post regulatory device can play a significant role in addressing a failure that ex ante regulation has not in financial markets. This is coherent with the LE tradition that interprets tort law remedies as a solution for internalizing externalities and providing the correct incentive to the markets.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze corporate scope decisions in acquisitions with a focus on the relationship between target country unfamiliarity and acquirer-to-target relatedness and on the moderating effects played by product diversification and international experience.

Using a dataset of 689 acquisitions completed in the period 2007-2013 by acquirers located in 60 countries, this paper utilizes an ordered logistic regression analysis.

With greater target country unfamiliarity, acquirers are encouraged to pursue greater acquirer-to-target relatedness. This finding suggests that acquirers tend to seek a balance between product and international diversification to reduce the sources of uncertainty in their acquisition moves. While past international experience strengthens this relationship, diversification experience has a negative moderating effect and hence encourages acquirers to reduce relatedness at increasing market unfamiliarity.

The originality of this paper is twofold. First, the authors extend the traditional internationalization-diversification framework to an unfamiliarity-relatedness relationship in the context of acquisitions. Second, the authors propose a construct of target country unfamiliarity in acquisitions that goes beyond the traditional domestic vs cross-border dichotomy by including previous experience in the target country.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the organizational slack and acquisition experience on acquisition behavior across varying environmental conditions. Drawing from behavioral theory and the threat-rigidity hypothesis, the paper explores firm acquisition behavior, in terms of type of acquisitions, before and during the recent economic downturn.

Using data on 385 acquisitions in Italy in the period 2007-2010, the paper tests hypotheses on how organizational slack and acquisition experience influence the likelihood of cross-border and diversifying acquisitions relative to domestic, non-diversifying acquisitions prior to and during the economic downturn.

Results suggest that the availability of financial resources and acquisition experience both have an important influence on acquisition behavior. Firms with greater slack and acquisition experience were more likely to make diversifying and/or cross-border acquisitions, compared to domestic non-diversifying acquisitions, particularly during an economic downturn, than firms with lower levels of slack and acquisition experience.

The paper extends behavioral theory and threat-rigidity hypothesis, highlighting their applicability to acquisition behavior across varying economic conditions. Slack resources and acquisition experience appear to be particularly salient during challenging economic times.