About
18
Publications
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61
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
Laura Prota is Assistant Professor of Economics at the Department of International Relations, The American University of Rome. Laura does research in Economic Geography, Social Network Analysis and Food Studies. Her current project is about cultural heritages and economic development.
Additional affiliations
September 2017 - September 2019
August 2016 - August 2017
May 2012 - May 2015
Position
- Post-doctoral fellowship
Description
- Innovation networks, collaboration in high tech districts
Publications
Publications (18)
This study uses social network analysis to investigate the topology and evolution of collaboration networks in a policy anchored, high-tech district in Italy. The district involves driver firms from strategic industries such as defence, military, transports, energy and aerospace along with public and private institutions, Furthermore, the governanc...
Cambodia holds a particular place in the recent history of industrialization in Asia being it proposed by the international community as a model of social upgrading and labour right protection. The ILO/IDC “Better Work” program aims at replicating the Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) model in countries as different as Bangladesh, Haiti, Indonesia, J...
Neoclassical theory has not succeeded in explaining the relationship between increasing landlessness and class differentiation in rural southern Vietnam. In this paper, we take a relational approach, using statistical techniques from social network theory, to examine the governance structure of markets in a commune of Tra Vinh province in the Mekon...
The study proposes a network-based methodology linking Polanyi’s ideal types of
coordination and deductive blockmodeling to identify different forms of coordination
within an economy. Using the proposed methodology, the economy of rice in postsocialist
Vietnam is interpreted as a double movement responding to market
liberalization. Qualitative and...
This study analyses food systems' resilience and change using social network analysis. Resiliency is conceptualized as the capacity of the food system to absorb innovations and adapt to new conditions without changing its structural configuration. Innovation is defined as a patterned behavior deviating from the dominant food regime, as for alternat...
Are Large-Scale Land Acquisitions in Africa Pro-development? A Network Analysis of FDI in Land and Agro-industry
This chapter investigates whether large scale land acquisitions (LSLA) in Africa are associated with agro-industry investments and if this association impact growth. We first review the geographic pattern of land investments across the continent and the transmission channels between LSLA and growth. Secondly, we use network analysis to test whether...
Understanding the root causes of the spatial and social diversity of food systems patterns is the main purpose of the methodology proposed. Differently from the existing literature, which has generally focused on parts of the food systems (i.e., innovation, diffusion and adoption, cluster analysis, etc.), the purpose and ambition of the proposed ap...
By adopting a whole network perspective, the present study aims at describing systemic changes in the pattern of collaborative behaviours linking the organizations partaking in an Italian technological district. This methodology can be fruitfully employed to identify groups of organizations with similar behavioural patterns and to observe, in evolu...
In recent decades economic theory has highlighted the benefits produced by networks of organizations in fostering innovation. A number of public policies were put in place to favor these innovation networks throughout Europe. The top-down institution of a number of specialized technological districts in Italy has been one of the main outcomes of th...
Most analyses of the garment value chain begin at the factory production line. We approach the value chain instead from the perspective of the village community from which workers are recruited. In our Cambodian case study, we show that the factory’s hierarchical relationships are replicated within the village. Using network analysis we find that r...
The aim of this paper is to combine evolutionary economics and social network analysis to empirically evaluate the impact of network based policies. The evaluation of these policies is undertaken in the framework of behavioral additionality. In the case study we concentrate on a techological district located in
southern Italy to investigate whether...
Questions
Questions (3)
Can you, please, help me understanding more about its causes and long terms effects?
I am often being told that SNA cannot be used for policy evaluation, however I am not so convinced about this. I wonder how this unique set of relational measures can help monitoring policies.
I am interested in understanding how low density can affect clustering results in blockmodeling. Thank you.
Projects
Projects (6)
Food System Summit Independent Dialogue
Il nostro dialogo si focalizza particolarmente su come favorire la
partecipazione attraverso la progettazione di soluzioni condivise ed
inclusive.
Per saperne di più visita summitdialogues.org/dialogue/13965/
Keynote Speakers
Harriet Friedmann, Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of Toronto
Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy, City, University of London
Colin Sage, Senior Lecturer in Food Geography, University College Cork
Deadline for extended abstracts: 30 May 2019
For information about the Conference and details about the extended abstracts, go to the Conference website https://graduate.aur.edu.
We invite contributions that are both theoretically and empirically informed that address:
• efforts across different contexts to change food consumption practices in sustainable directions
• policies, research and investments conducive to fostering the desirable transformations of the food system and dietary practices
• critical assessments of the potential of social and technological innovations (e.g. novel foods) to shape production and consumption practices towards greater sustainability
