Cristian Barra

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Verified

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• PhD in Economics
• Professor (Associate) at University of Salerno

The financial system is crucial in explaining and determining the formation of new enterprises, hence driving economic growth. This study seeks to answer two critical research questions: Is financial development (defined as the number of credit union and cooperative and commercial bank branches per 100,000 inhabitants and 1000 km²) helpful in the f...

The academic relevance of environmental pollution and its relationship with the economic growth is an acclaimed research field. However, the implications of linking these variables with economic, climate and energy policies represent the new frontier of the debate. Among the popular theories regarding the nexus between environmental pollution and e...

This paper analyses the difference between cooperative and non-cooperative banks in Italy in terms of managerial efficiency and technological inefficiency. We disentangle the metafrontier and group-specific frontiers using data from 1994 to 2015, decomposing the efficiency scores of the two bank groups into cost-efficiency scores and cost technolog...

This paper explores the complex relationship between institutional quality and renewable energy adoption within the context of global efforts to mitigate environmental challenges and reduce dependence on non- renewable energy sources. Despite the essential role of institutions in facilitating the transition to renewable energy, systematic research...

This study examines the theoretical and empirical effects of market competition on bank performance through the lens of institutional diversity (i.e., considering different types of credit institutions interacting in the credit market). In terms of the theoretical framework, interactions between banks are modelled as mixed Cournot competition with...

Purpose: The function of banking development in reducing income inequality is critical because financial institutions can grant loans, stimulating prospective productive investments. Based on this promise, the aim of this study is to fill the vacuum by particularly evaluating the influence of banking development, as proxied by bank cost efficiency...

This study explores the relationship between institutional quality and bioeconomy performance in Italian regions, utilizing both fixed-effects and 2SLS regression models. The findings consistently show a positive association between institutional quality (and its key pillars) and the performance of bioeconomy sectors. These insights offer valuable...

This study seeks to answer three critical research questions: Does financial development aid in the establishment of new businesses? Is diversity in banking crucial for financial development and entrepreneurship? Does the link between financial development and entrepreneurship suffer from inefficiency of judicial system? We employ a worldwide heter...

Purpose This paper provides novel evidence on the role of gender in the performance of university students, which is particularly relevant to the debate on the performance of female students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects. Design/methodology/approach Our approach relies on the metafrontier approach proposed by...

We build a model of firms’ choice between regular and irregular labor factors which links the cost efficiency of banks to the size of the underground economy. We consider two kinds of credit institutions supplying loans to the firms, cooperative and non-cooperative banks. The theoretical results show that cost-efficiency encourages firms to hire mo...

Over time, a substantial amount of theoretical and empirical economic literature has been devoted to examining the relationship between financial access (a relevant component of financial development) and the distribution of income, with mixed findings. We propose a quantile regression approach to study the importance of financial access on income...

This study employs an innovative metafrontier methodology, inspired by Huang et al. (2014), to investigate the combined impact of economic policy uncertainty, political orientation, and institutional quality on the environmental performance of 136 emergent and non-emerging countries from 1990 to 2018. Using such a parametric approach, the research...

Economic policy uncertainty significantly influences governmental decisions regarding environmental sustainability, particularly in CO2 emissions reduction efforts. This study examines the impact of economic policy uncertainty on environmental inefficiency across 136 emergent and non‐emerging countries from 1990 to 2018, using an unbalanced and het...

Are cooperative and commercial banks equally effective in reducing the shadow economy? Although theory and evidence indicate that the expansion of the financial system reduces the size of the shadow economy, little is known on the role played by cooperative and commercial banks in shaping the size of the shadow economy. We address this issue using...

In this paper, we assess the interaction between corruption, bank cost efficiency, and economic development. Existing literature on the subject normally focuses separately on the link between corruption, financial development, and growth, and finds ambiguous results, not distinguishing between different types of credit institutions. We use Italian...

The bioeconomy, emerging as a beacon of sustainable development and global competitiveness, relies on renewable biological resources. This study investigates the interplay between institutional quality and bio- economy performance in 28 European countries. By employing a Fixed Effect Regression and different sensitivity analyses, we unveil a robust...

Italy is characterised by a significant dualistic economy, which also includes an extensive underground sector. The aim of this study is to analyse the relationship between the quality of legislation and irregular employment in Italy. Our contribution consists of two components: the theoretical modelling of the impact of regulatory quality on the i...

According to Eurostat, “early school leaversµ are defined as the percentage of the population aged 18-24 with at most a lower secondary education, and not participating in further (formal or non-formal) education or training; among young adults (aged 18-24) in the EU, there are also geographical differences in obesity rates and in physical activity...

Purpose – The paper aims at addressing the following research questions: does institutional quality improve countries’ environmental efficiency? And which pillars of institutional quality improve countries’ environmental efficiency? Design/methodology/approach – By specifying a directional distance function in the context of stochastic frontier met...

Effective government rules and regulations, as well as the ability of the regulator to curb corruption and pro- mote voice and accountability, can influence the ability of bank management to allocate resources and ensure high performance. Based on this assumption, we aim to find out whether institutional quality is able to improve bank performance...

We appraise the effects of institutional quality on public spending for a set of 27 European countries and 18 Euro‐area economies over the 1996–2017 period. While institutions play a weak role in affecting spending once the fixed‐effects model is employed, the application of the quantile regression indicates that improved institutional quality miti...

This paper investigates depressive symptoms among employees using Italian microdata from the second wave of the European Health Interview Survey. The results show that in Italy, employees with permanent and full-time work suffer less from depressive symptoms than employees without permanent and full-time jobs. Furthermore, females suffer from overa...

This study analyzes the performance of Colombian universities in their research and knowledge transfer (KT) objectives in the period 2016–2018. The methodology was based on Data Envelopment Analysis models with Variable Return Scale and a Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) using different combinations of variables, considering the sensitivity of pe...

Purpose – Using data for a set of 32 Sub-Saharan countries over the years 2000, 2005 and 2010, the paper investigates the effects of domestic governmental stability upon emigration and assesses whether education and gender shape the relationship. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts instrumental variable (IV) Poisson regressions and two-s...

Using regional data for Italy over the 2004–2019 period, this paper investigates the relationship between government effectiveness and inequality. For our empiri‐ cal purposes, ordinary least squares, instrumental variable (IV) and generalized methods of moments regressions have been employed. Our evidence indicates that improved government effecti...

Purpose – Using bank-level data over the 1994–2015 period, the authors aim to investigate the role of bank- specific factors on credit risk in Italy by considering two different groups of banks, namely, cooperative and non-cooperative (commercial and popular), in different local markets. Design/methodology/approach – Relying on highly territorially...

This paper investigates the efficiency of Italian hospitals and how their performances have changed over the years 2007–2016, characterized by the great economic recession and budget constraints. We apply the Benefit of Doubt (BoD) approach to determine a composite index that considers the multi-dimensionality of the hospital outcome to be used as...

Using data for Italy from 1994 to 2015, we appraise the nexus between Basel II and III accords and both the cost and the profit inefficiency of profit-oriented and mutual cooperative banks. Our analysis further deals with the effects of the regulation in different market structures. To assess the efficiency of the two types of banks under scrutiny,...

An important issue in economic geography is the link between higher education institutions and economic performance at local level. This paper exploits some aspects of the university funding system in Italy to estimate the effects of hosting higher education institutions on local productivity and furthermore tests whether local institutions have a...

Using a sample of firms over the 2002–2010 period relative to the US, Europe, and Japan, this paper investigates the effects of control of corruption on firms’ efficiency. Our econometric analysis is developed into two main steps. In the first step, we rely on the application of the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) to estimate firm-level efficien...

This paper investigates the contribution of different dimensions of institutional qual- ity on the efficiency of the Italian regional innovation system (RIS) through the application of a knowledge production function estimated within a Stochastic Fron- tier Analysis environment. Though most of the dimensions of institutional quality considered in t...

Regulators should ensure the smooth functioning of the system and promote regional development. Making the health of financial institutions is therefore a prerequisite for a sustainable economic development. This paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between the financial stability and growth within the area of one country. This i...

Using firm-level information on Italian manufacturing companies provided by Capi- talia and the Institutional Quality Index (IQI) dataset over the 2004–2006 (10th edi- tion) period, we employ a multi-probit model to assess the effects of government quality upon four dimensions of innovation, namely, marketing, organisational, product and process in...

The aim of this paper is to investigate the determinants of school performance measured by the average value of students’ test scores at the school level. PISA data (2000–2012) are used to explore this relationship. A multivariate regression and a quantile and multilevel regression are employed in order to perform the analysis considering both the...

Using regional Italian data over the 2004–2011 period, we embed, within the framework of a double-bootstrap Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), both knowledge and institutional spillovers to appraise how the latter affect Regional Innovation System (RIS) efficiency and further investigate how the quality of institutions in- teracts with RIS efficiency...

In this study, we analyze the relation between market structure and financial stability both theoretically and empirically by considering two types of agents: profit-oriented banks and mutual cooperative banks in the context of Italy. The main findings show that under the condition that mutual cooperative banks are not dominated by borrowers, there...

In Italy there are gender and geographical differences on early school leaving, obesity and physical activity among young adults (18-24 years old). We examine whether weight status (overweight/obesity) is associated with a higher probability that a young adult is an early school leaver using Italian data based on the Second Wave of the European Hea...

This study tests the association between weight status and depression in Italy using the Second Wave of the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS2) microdata, which also provide information on weight/height and eight depressive symptoms. Using a probit regression, the empirical results show a strong positive association between weight status, prox...

In this study, we use a conventional Probit model to investigate the effects of banks’ cost efficiency on innovation in Italy. In particular, we assess whether the efficiency–innovation relation depends on the type of banking institutions, as we partition them according to whether they are cooperatives or non-cooperatives. When we examine the two t...

Using data for Italian banks over the 2001–2012 period, we assess the existence of a nonlinear relationship between finance and growth, through the application of alternative measures of financial development. We show that both branch density and aggregate credits over GDP positively contribute to economic performance. While the relationship betwee...

Universities have become key elements in building regional innovation systems. However, even though academic research is important when firms choose universities as collabora- tion partners, a still open question in the literature is whether only top-tier universities are relevant for firm innovativeness. This paper investigates the effect of the v...

Using a sample of 19 OECD countries over the 1985–2011 period, we propose the application of fixed effects regression to appraise the impact of green energies on employment and to assess how the quality of institutions shapes the relationship. The evidence reported in this paper indicates that higher supply of green energies enhances employment, th...

This paper investigates the role of microeconomic and macroeconomic factors on Italian bank risk taking, paying particular attention on the differences between cooperative and non-cooperative banks. The non-performing loan ratio is used as dimension of bank risk taking. The data refer to a large sample of financial institutions covering the 2001-20...

This paper investigates the efficiency of Italian hospitals and how their performances have changed over the years 2007-2016, characterized by the great economic recession and budget constraints. We apply the Benefit of Doubt (BoD) approach to determine a composite index that considers the multi-dimensionality of the hospital outcome to be used as...

Whether the increase in a region's economic activity could be attributable to the presence of a university is an important issue in economic geography. This paper uses the age of universities (some dating back to the 11th and 12th century) along with grants from private foundations and student's fees as instruments for human capital production, to...

This paper contributes to the empirical literature on the linkages be- tween decentralized government spending, public finances, and economic growth at the local level. The impact of local government spending on output growth is estimated using a panel of Italian Labor Market Ar- eas - a group of municipalities adjacent to each other, geographicall...

This paper investigates the role that permanent and full-time job have on the mental health variables of employees using microdata from the 2nd Wave of the European Health Interview Survey controlling for gender, socio-economic status, tighter (marital status, social network) and looser (degree of urbanization of the area in which the individual li...

Using a survey on Italian graduates, we investigate whether universities’ degree production affects the economic development of the regions where academic institutions are located. To deal with suspected endogeneity between human capital development and economic growth, we employ an instrumental variable approach, using a global lump sum transferre...

Using data for a set of 823 R&D-intense manufacturing firms within the Triad and the Quality of Government (QoG) dataset over the 2002-2010 period, this paper investigates the effects of institutional quality upon firms' inefficiency, through the application of a Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA). Empirical evidence, which is robust to alternative...

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the relationship between bank market power and stability of financial institutions in Italy between 2001 and 2012. The authors first test the existence of a U-shaped relationship between market power and financial stability. Second, they regress the market share indicator on bank risk- taking to underline whethe...

This paper tested the association between weight status (proxied by BMI) and mental health in Italy, using EHIS2 microdata, which provide the usual information(demographic, socio-economic, etc.), and also information on weight/height, and eight mental health variables (low interest, depression, sleep disorders, tiredness, eating disorders, sense of...

This paper explores the firm-level relationship between product, process, organizational and marketing innovation activities and firm productivity. We propose a structural model that relates R&D decisions, innovation activities, and productivity by using a version of the model developed by Crépon et al. (1998) and empirically analyze the drivers of...

This paper tests the Wagner’s assumption of the one-sided directional flow moving from economic growth to public spending considering an international database over the 1996– 2012 period. By using indicators on the level of country control of corruption, government effectiveness, political stability, rule of law, regulatory quality and voice and ac...

Using data for a set of 19 OECD economies over the 1985–2013 period, we analyzed the effects of green energies on employment through the application of a fixed effects model. After controlling for a set of labor market institutions, innovation, financial development, and three dimensions of globalization, we found evidence of a positive and signifi...

There are various types of environmental indexes or indicators in the literature. In this paper, we propose a new index that is able to point out the important relationship between environmental protection and investments in innovation processes. We identify the index with the acronym EICI (environmental innovation comparative index). This new empi...

Economists recognize that the local availability of higher human capital represents significant knowledge spillovers, especially for innovation process. This research question is tested on a sample of Italian manufacturing companies, originally edited by Mediocredito Centrale and currently carried out by the Capitalia Banking Group's Research Depar...

We test whether there is a link between the performance of universities, measured through a concept of efficiency, and the economic development of the regions in which they operate. Indicators of teaching, research and third mission are considered as outputs. To handle endogeneity problems between the efficiency of universities and economic develop...

This paper studies whether high-quality research in first-tier universities has greater local knowledge spillovers than that in lower-tier universities. First-tier universities are identified as those among the top 150, according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities. Several indicators of academic excellence are included among the contextu...

Relying upon highly territorially disaggregated data taken at labour market areas, the paper explores the relationship between bank performances and finan- cial stability of the banking system taking into account the role of market concentration. The z-score is used as financial stability indicator, while the performance of financial intermediaries...

This paper investigates the regional innovation system (RIS) efficiency, and its determinants, in Italy through a stochastic frontier analysis and using the concept of a knowledge production function. The contribution of university, private and public sector resources devoted to research and development (R&D), in generating innovation, has been exa...

Financial stability is a prerequisite for sustainable economic development. Assuming that financial stability is a public good, with a negative effect on social welfare and on economic development when risks are not properly controlled, will make regulators ensuring the smooth functioning of the system, promoting regional development and making the...

In recent years more and more numerous are the rankings published in newspapers or technical reports available, covering many aspects of higher education, but in many cases with very conflicting results between them, due to the fact that universities’ performances depend on the set of variables considered and on the methods of analysis employed. Th...

This paper analyzes how national income (per capita real GDP) influences the environmental pollution (per capita CO2 emissions) using a very heterogenous sample composed by 120 countries during the 2000–2009 period. We first apply a panel unit root test suggested by Im et al. (J Econometr 115(1):53–74, 2003) to examine the stationarity properties o...

The main purpose of the paper is to estimate the efficiency of a big public university in Italy using individual student-level data, modeling exogenous variables in human capital formation through a heteroscedastic stochastic frontier approach. Specifically, a production function for tertiary education has been estimated with emphasis on inefficien...

We explore the relationship between bank performances and financial stability of the banking system taking into account the Italian context during the period 2001-2014 and relying upon highly territorially disaggregated data taken at municipality level, in order to better capture the differences across geographical areas. The z-score is used as fin...

This paper aims to study the drivers of innovation and of university-industry collaboration in the European manufacturing sector, specifically focusing on the extent to which academic excellence may enhance the capacity of firms to develop new products and processes. It shows that academic research has an important direct impact on the firm's prope...

In the National Innovation System (NIS), knowledge is produced and accumu- lated through interactive innovation processes that are embedded in a national con- text, which in turn may help determine innovation. This paper investigates how product and process innovations in the European food and drink industry are affected by: (i) NIS structure; (ii)...

In this paper, we propose a new index that is able to point out the important relationship between environmental protection and investments in innovation processes. We identify the index with the acronym EICI (Environmental Innovation Comparative Index). This new empirical tool can help to explain how the level of innovation can determine different...

In this paper, we test whether there is a link between the performance of universities and the economic growth where they operate. We specify a growth model where the ratio at which universities are able to convert inputs into outputs has been measured taking into account the traditional role of universities (i.e. teaching and research) as well as...

This paper analyses how national income (per capita real GDP) influences the environmental pollution (per capita CO2 emissions) using a very heterogenous sample composed by 120 countries during the 2000-2009 period. We firstly apply a panel unit root test suggested by Im et al. (2003) in order to examine the stationarity properties of CO2 emissions...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of religious involvement on subjective well-being (SWB), specifically taking into account the implication of selection effects explaining religious influence using the British Household Panel Survey data set. Design/methodology/approach In order to measure the level of religious involv...

In assessing the performance of universities, the most recent literature underlined that the efficiency scores may suffer from the presence of incidental parameters or time-invariant, often unobservable, effects that lead to biased efficiency estimates. To deal with this problem, we apply a procedure developed by Wang and Ho (2010), for estimating...

In National Innovation Systems (NIS), knowledge is generally understood to be produced and accumulated through an interactive innovation process that is embedded in a national context which in turn may help determine propensity for innovation. This paper aims to verify how product and process innovation in the European food and drink industry are a...

By employing a Granger causality methodology in a panel data framework, this article explores the relationship among efficiency, capitalization and credit risk within the local Italian banking system. Focusing the attention on cooperative banks, we specifically test whether managers take more risks in highly concentrated markets (i.e. monopoly) tha...

Using a directional DEA model we analyse the impact of the 2008 financial crisis in a sample of Italian local banks. We rely on a novel data-set, where the banks' economic environment is measured at a territorially very disaggregated level. The efficiency of cooperative banks deteriorates in the crisis relatively to the other banks, unless we inclu...

In this article, we test whether economic growth depends on human capital development mainly operating through an upgrading of human capital stock in the area where the universities are located. We specify a growth model where a qua- litative measure of human capital development, university efficiency, is considered in conjunction with a customary...

This paper applies data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess technical efficiency in a big public university. Particular attention has been paid on two main activities, teaching and research, and on two large groups, Science and Technology (ST) sector and Humanity and Social Science (HSS) sector. The findings, based on data from 2005 to 2009, sugge...

In assessing universities’ performances, the most recent literature underlined that the efficiency scores may suffer from the presence of incidental parameters or time-invariant, often unobservable, effects that lead to biased efficiency estimates. To deal with this problem, we apply a procedure developed by Wang and Ho (2010), for estimating the e...

In recent years more and more numerous are the rankings published in the newspapers or technical reports available, covering many aspects of higher education, but in many cases with very conflicting results between them, due to the fact that universities‟ performances depend on the set of variables considered and on the methods of analysis employed...

This paper investigates the regional innovation system (RIS) efficiency, and its determinants, in Italy through a Stochastic Frontier Analysis and using the concept of a knowledge production function. The contribution of universities’, private and public sectors’ resources devoted to research and development (R&D), in generating innovation, has bee...

In this article, we test Wagner’s assumption of the one-sided directional flow moving from economic growth to public spending in Italy for the 1951–2009 period. We pay particular attention to the impact of certain regime shifts related to changes in Italian budget regulations and procedures and the relevance of fiscal institutions to the fiscal per...

This paper applies a data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to assess technical efficiency of both private and public universities in Italy. A directional distance function approach has been applied in order to handle both desirable (i.e. number of graduates) and undesirable (i.e. number of dropouts) outputs. The findings based on a panel from acad...

In this paper, we test whether economic growth depends on human capital development using data disaggregated at territorial level and propose the use of efficiency estimates, measured using a non-parametric technique, as an alternative quality measure of higher education institutions (HEIs). The nature of knowledge spillovers is also taken into acc...

Using the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) data set, we investigate the effect of religion on subjective well-being (SWB), specifically taking into account the implication of selection effects explaining religious influence. In order to measure the level of religious involvement, we construct different indices on the base of individual religio...

This paper explores the use of a data envelopment analysis approach to decompose student's under-attainment in a part attributable to the Faculties they are enrolled in and a part attributable to the students themselves. The mean measure of each Faculty's teaching efficiency is calculated using both individual and aggregate data. The results show t...

The rationale for fiscal rules and institutions has been explained by the existence of deficit and spending biases that arise due to political fragmentation within government or between governments that alternate in office. In common pool models fiscal outcomes are determined by the decision-making rule that is used to aggregate conflicting interes...

(SNIP 2013 = 0.563; Gev13 Imputed AIS = 0.562) We test the nexus between local financial development and economic growth upon Italian data highly disaggregated at the territorial level, paying particular attention to the role of local banking market structure. We specify a growth model where a qualitative measure of financial development, bank prof...

The rationale for fiscal rules and institutions has been explained by the existence of deficit and spending biases that arise due to political fragmentation within gov- ernment or between governments that alternate in office. In common pool models fiscal outcomes are determined by the decision-making rule that is used to aggregate conflicting inter...

This paper applies a data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to assess technical efficiency of both private and public universities in Italy. Moving from the traditional context where inputs and outputs are assumed to be non-negative, a directional distance function approach has been applied in order to handle both desirable (i.e. number of graduate...

By using a heteroscedastic stochastic frontier model, this paper focuses on how students' exogenous characteristics (such as personal demographic information, pre-enrollment educational background and household economic status) affect faculties’ inefficiency. Using individual data on freshmen enrolled at a public owned university in Italy over the...

This paper applies data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess teaching efficiency at University of Salerno, focusing on the use of individual versus aggregate level data. Using individuals as Decision Making Units (DMUs), the student's under-attainment has been decomposed in a part attributable to the faculties they are enrolled in and a part attrib...