Maria Francesca Cracolici

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at University of Palermo

In a clickstream analysis setting, Mixture Hidden Markov Models (MHMMs) can be used to examine categorical sequences assuming they evolve according to a mixture of latent Markov processes, each related to a different subpopulation. These models involve identifying both the number of subpopulations and hidden states. This study proposes a model sele...

In line with internationally defined goals of sustainable development, European agricultural policies today have a far-sighted vision for rural areas. Using a case study approach, this paper explores how receptive rural farms in Sicily are to a long-term vision of development. The study focuses on three key factors of a long-term vision, that is, d...

The article assesses the competitiveness of tourist destinations, while accounting for spatial features of tourism and information on both the origin and the destination of tourists. Using a dynamic spatial panel data model with common factors within the origin‐destination framework, it explores unilateral inbound tourism flows in 110 Italian regio...

Rural areas still suffer from a lack of sustainable development, and the diversification of farms may be a step in the right direction. The paper provides a detailed picture of the diversification of Sicilian farms into tourism services. Specifically, we propose a simple indicator of localization intensity of agritourism farms and explore their spa...

The development of the Internet has so strongly affected the way a tourist destination can be promoted that portals now play an important role in defining the marketing strategies of tourist destinations. Hence, investigating website surfing behavior has become crucial to understanding the needs of potential tourists. Using Web Mining techniques, o...

The purpose of this study is to analyze the spatial pattern and the post-entry performance of tourism businesses in the Italian insular regions of Sardinia and Sicily. Using geo-referenced micro-data for the period 2011–2014, we explore the spatial distribution of accommodation firms in the two insular regions and then compare the coastal and inlan...

The study explores the geographical pattern of the accommodation industry in the Italian insular region of Sicily, focusing on the determinants of the risk of market exit. We adopt a standard framework of business survival analysis where agglomeration economies play an important role. We then extend the analysis by considering the role of geography...

The paper proposes a new version of spatial shift‐share decomposition to improve on the various approaches to conventional shift‐share analysis found in the literature. The novelty of our proposal is that it enables researchers to assess spatial competitiveness effects controlling for the influence of industrial specialization at both regional and...

Using Italian Households Budget Survey data over the period 1997-2013, a Cragg model in a life-cycle context is specified to compare the consumption behaviour in the pre- and post-crisis time and develop different micro and macro measures of resilience against crisis shocks. Cohort profiles for participation in and for consumption of tourism servic...

Applying the theoretical framework of productive analysis, the paper proposes an evaluation of regional sustainable well-being (SWB) in terms of efficiency. By means of an Activity Analysis Model (AA) (Färe et al., 1996), desirable and undesirable outcomes of development have been simultaneously used to evaluate the sustainable well-being of Italia...

Based on the theoretical foundation of well-being measurement, the study explores differences in living standards by analysing the distribution of tourism expenditure. A mixture of regression models is used to explore the heterogeneity in tourism consumption by identifying groups of families with similar tourism consumption behaviour as a function...

The paper aims to explore how the Great Recession of the twenty-first century has impacted on the consumption behaviour of Italian households. Following a hierarchical approach, the study investigates differences in consumption behaviour at both household and regional levels. Using micro data on Italian Household Expenditure for the years 2002, 200...

Using spatial econometric tools, the paper examines the spatial structure of new business formation of Italian regions during the period 2004-2007. In particular, the study empirically investigates whether new business formation in a given geographical area may be explained in terms of replicative and/or innovative entrepreneurial behaviour in each...

In recent discussions on local sustainable development, notions like “local for local” and “home bias” have often played a role. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether preferences for specific place-based attributes might constrain or support tourism participation and tourism destination choice of distinct socioeconomic groups of visit...

The aim of the study is to analyse the relationship between recession, population structure and consumption behaviour over the life cycle. To this aim, we consider three clusters of non-durable expenditures such as food at home, work-related and core expenditures. The analysis has been performed on micro data on the Household Budgets for the period...

The study proposes a measure of the well-being of Italian regions in terms of efficiency, considering simultaneously economic, social and environmental aspects. The paper suggests an integrated approach using Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Activity Analysis (AA) to evaluate the equal and sustainable well-being (ESW) of Italian Regions for...

The paper explores how demographic changes in human populations may impact on tourism decisionmaking of households over their life cycle. By means of hurdle models, the study focuses respectively on the decision to travel domestically or abroad and investigates if statistically significant differences exist as to the impact of age and cohort on the...

Analysing the main determinants of tourism participation at national and international level, the paper investigates whether there are differences in tourism consumption behaviour among families. In particular, it explores whether tourism is becoming part of the lifestyle of Italians or whether it is still a luxury good only for the privileged. A H...

The paper investigates the main socio-demographic and economic determinants of subjective economic well-being in different typologies of households. Previous studies have used dummy variables to explore the effect of family structure. In this paper, however four different models—one for each family typology—have been estimated to test if each selec...

We draw on the recommendations of the Stiglitz Report to select a set of economic and social variables that can be used to make cross-country comparisons of wider well-being. Using data for the EU-15 countries for 1999 and 2005, we show how three-way analysis can be used to extract synthetic information from a large data set to determine the main l...

Using Italian data on Income and living conditions for the year 2005, the paper investigates the main determinants of households’ subjective economic well-being by means of a Partial Proportional Ordered Logit Model. According to a joint subjective and objective perspective of analysis, we use as dependent variable the perceived ability of househol...

Using Italian data on Income and Living Conditions for the year 2005, the paper explores empirically whether the determinants of subjective economic well-being (SEW) differ (or not) in four representative typologies of households. By means of a Partial Proportional Ordered Logit Model the subjective economic well-being – proxied by the capacity of...

This paper presents a new analytical framework for assessing spatial disparities among countries. It takes for granted that the analysis of a country's performance cannot be limited solely to either economic or social factors. The aim of the paper is to combine relevant economic and 'non-economic' (mainly social) aspects of a country's performance...

Using spatial econometric models, this paper focuses attention on the spatial structure of provincial unemployment disparities of Italian provinces for the year 2003. On the basis of findings from the economic literature and of the available socio-economic data, various model specifications including supply- and demand- side variables are tested. F...

The present paper aims to assess the relative attractiveness of competing tourist destinations on the basis of individual visitors' perceptions regarding a holiday destination. Using the feeling of tourist well-being achieved by individual tourists we evaluate indirectly the competitive ability of the tourist area to offer a compound tourist site a...

In the last years, the increasing level of criminality that has characterized the modern economies has drawn the attention of sociologists and economists in order to identify the causes leading to commit criminal offences. The aim of the paper is to investigate the causes of crime activity in 103 Italian provinces (NUTS3 regions) for the years 1999...

This paper presents a new analytical framework for assessing spatial disparities among countries. It takes for granted that the analysis of a country’s performance cannot be limited solely to either economic or social factors. The aim of the paper is to combine relevant economic and non-economic (mainly social) aspects of a country’s performance in...

The notion and measurement of destination competitiveness have received increasing attention in the economics literature on tourism. The reason for this emerges from both the growing economic importance of the tourist sector and the increasing competition in the tourist market resulting from the transition from mass tourism to a new age of tourism...

For a long time social sciences scholars from different fields have devoted their attention to identifying the causes leading to commit criminal offences and recently lots of studies have included the analysis of spatial effects. Respect to the Italian crime phenomenon some stylized facts exist: high spatial and time variability and presence of 'or...

ABSTRACT Unemployment rates appear to vary widely at a subregional (e.g., local or provincial) level. Using spatial econometric models for spatial autocorrelation, this paper focuses attention on the spatial structure of regional unemployment disparities of Italian provinces. On the basis of findings from the economic literature and of the availabl...

This paper presents a new analytical framework for assessing spatial disparities among regions. On the premise that the analysis of a region’s performance cannot be limited solely to either economic or social aspects, the paper attempts to combine the material (i.e. economic) and immaterial (i.e. social) aspects of welfare and well-being in an inte...

This paper aims to provide a statistical analysis of the relative economic performance of Italian tourist areas. It uses two modelling approaches to estimate the competitiveness of these regions, viz. data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the Malmquist method. Our results show that the competitiveness position of several Italian regions has not impro...

Recently the notion and the measurement of destination competitiveness have received increasing attention in the economics literature on tourism. The reason for this interest emerges from both the increasing economic importance of the tourist sector and the increasing competition on the tourist market as a consequence of the transition from mass to...

This paper argues that tourism will become a major activity in a modern welfare state, which will have serious consequences for environmental sustainability. This issue calls for an assessment of the pros and cons of the ecological efficiency of tourism. We propose an overall efficiency indicator that comprises both a sustainable tourism index and...

This paper aims to present a new analysis framework for assessing disparities among regions (or countries). It combines both economic and social variables, where the economic attributes refer in particular to marked differences in consumption variables. This analysis is also appealing for spatial convergence analyses over time. In our paper, both e...

Tourism has become a wide-spread phenomenon in our age and a focal point of economic policy of many regions competing for the favours of tourists. Consequently, competitiveness of tourist destinations has received increasing interest in economic research with a view to the identification of the user attractiveness of a tourist area. The present pap...