Papers by Luciano Venturini
Il principio costituzionale della eguaglianza \ue8 compreso dal punto di vista giuridico sulla ba... more Il principio costituzionale della eguaglianza \ue8 compreso dal punto di vista giuridico sulla base di analisi di contesto che tengano conto dei punti di vista economico, teologico, filosofico e sociologico, per una corretta individuazione dei significati che tale principio assume quando viene riferito alle figure dei diritti e doveri fondamentali delle persone e quindi anche dei lavoratori
Handbook of Innovation in the Food and Drink Industry, 2008
The paper examines the nature and the determinants of product innovation in the food industries. ... more The paper examines the nature and the determinants of product innovation in the food industries. It shoes the importance of changing vertical relationships between manufacturers and retailers for the incentives to research and developmen
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the nature and the main dimensions of the transition in E... more The purpose of this paper is to analyze the nature and the main dimensions of the transition in European food systems. We examine the main stylized facts in the evolution of food final demand as well as the structural changes and firms' strategies at different stages of food systems. We find the existence of a process of convergence towards an EU food system. Such a process is the result of two main determinants. First, there is a convergence towards a common European consumer who increasingly demands a variety of healthier food products and reveals growing concerns for food safety issues. A second crucial factor is the role played by food retailers in determining the convergence of European competitive environments. We show that retailers' consolidation and strategies affect and determine structural changes at all stages of food system. Finally, the paper examines the new policy implications of these changes and suggests some areas and topics which are likely to become incr...
This paper discusses a number of stylized facts and empirical patterns regarding agri-food trade ... more This paper discusses a number of stylized facts and empirical patterns regarding agri-food trade flows as well as foreign direct investments in food processing and retailing. This evidence supports the hypothesis of an increasingly global food system. We identify the main factors at work such as push/supply side, pull/demand-side, and enabling/external factors. We show how the shift from national to global retailing is a recent phenomenon whose relevance for the globalization of upstream sectors of the food system are not yet appropriately addressed. Broadly, we argue that while the process of food globalization has long been regarded as a process largely dominated by the internationalization of food manufacturing, the emergence of global retailers is a further powerful engine of globalization which will exert a powerful impact with far reaching implications for the competitive environment and the rules of the game in food systems.
The purpose of these comments is to show how the theme of this roundtable could favour new insigh... more The purpose of these comments is to show how the theme of this roundtable could favour new insights and suggest interesting research issues about food systems evolution. The Roundtable is to discuss whether food manufacturing and distribution systems in advanced countries are converging. I will argue that it is useful to distinguish between two different notions of convergence, namely a "broad" and a "narrow" notion of convergence. My contribution is organized as follows. In the first section, I start with the notion of broad convergence by making some brief comments about the usefulness of the approaches based on this notion of convergence. Then, I will focus on the notion of narrow convergence. I show how such a notion might provide new insights and enlarge our directions of research. In section 3, I explore the issue of convergence in research and development expenditures of food industries in OECD countries. I will give two single examples to illustrate the usefulness of an approach based on the idea of narrow convergence. The concluding section provides further comments and indicates some avenues for future research that seem particularly worthwhile. The Notions of Convergence In what sense should economists interested in understanding food systems approach the issue of convergence? How could we develop conceptual and theoretical frameworks to analyze such an issue? The first way to explore this theme is also the most common. It consists of looking for the existence of similar patterns in different countries. This approach, generally implicitly, is based on a broad notion of convergence. It relies and focuses on the existence of similar trends in different countries without any reference to the issue of the rate of convergence in the variables of interest. This kind of convergence is a well-known empirical phenomenon. In all advanced countries, for example, one can observe an increasing demand for convenience foods, a positive trend in the willingness to pay for new and vertically differentiated products, an increasing preference for variety, and concern for food safety, nutrition, and health. As a result, one can generally observe a decrease in consumption of some products high in saturated fats while the consumer demand tends to increase for low-fat, lowcalorie products (Senauer et al. 1991, Galizzi and Venturini 1996). We know that several forces influence these changes in food consumption patterns. And we know that, by and large, the same basic factors are at work in all countries. Of course, similar changes in final demand conditions result in similar consequences for firms' strategies. On one hand, these changes contribute to increase the consumers' willingness to accept and pay for innovation. On the other hand, the increasing demand for convenience, quality, variety, nutritional, and health characteristics sends signals and creates incentives which induce manufacturers to launch new products.
Il volume raccoglie una serie di contributi di autori che hanno condiviso la consapevolezza dell&... more Il volume raccoglie una serie di contributi di autori che hanno condiviso la consapevolezza dell'importanza di un approccio allo studio dell'economia aperto alle dimensioni etiche e la necessit\ue0 di un impegno coerente dell'economista nella societ\ue0. I saggi forniscono le ragioni profonde di un approccio all'economia e alle decisioni private e pubbliche, coerente con i principi della Dottrina sociale della Chiesa. Il primo tema esaminato riguarda l'economia come una scienza applicata che deve e pu\uf2 servire alla politica economica e all'operativit\ue0, senza tuttavia trascurare i relativi aspetti teorici. Il secondo ambito di analisi si riferisce al ruolo sociale dell'economista, all'impegno e alle responsabilit\ue0 nel processo di sviluppo degli attuali sistemi economici, caratterizzati da globalizzazione, innovazione e migrazione. Infine, l'ultimo aspetto trattato riguarda l'approccio etico dell'economista verso tematiche sociali, politiche e istituzionali
Recent contributions to the issue of countervailing power have formally demonstrated that imperfe... more Recent contributions to the issue of countervailing power have formally demonstrated that imperfectly competitive market structures in retailing have different welfare implications from those hypothesized by Galbraith (1952) according to which increasing concentration in retailing may offer social benefits. Recent works in this area show that greater concentration at the retail level may afford retailers a simultaneous increase in both their buying and selling power. Whilst the former improves their relative bargaining position, the latter allows for increased price-cost margins. This recent literature suggests that retailing concentration may have a negative impact on consumer welfare since the effect of increased price-cost margins is sufficiently greater than the downward pressure on intermediate prices generated by increases in retailers' 'buying power'. As a result, greater concentration at the retail level may lead to higher final prices and lower social welfare. I...
Vertical competition, namely competition between retailers' store brands (or private labels) ... more Vertical competition, namely competition between retailers' store brands (or private labels) and manufacturers' brands has become a crucial factor of change of the competitive environment in several industries, particularly in the grocery and food industries. Despite the growing literature on the determinants of the phenomenon, one topic area regarding the impact of vertical competition on the upstream incentives to adopt non-price strategies such as product innovation as well as horizontal and vertical product differentiation has so far received little attention. An idea often put forward is that the increasing bargaining power of retailers and higher vertical competitive pressures can have negative effects on such incentives by lowering manufacturers' profits. On the other hand, there is a significant empirical evidence supporting the view that non-price strategies of product innovation and differentiation continue to play a key role and remain a crucial source of comp...
Il lavoro esamina la struttura delle istituzioni multilaterali e ne mette a fuoco la incompletezz... more Il lavoro esamina la struttura delle istituzioni multilaterali e ne mette a fuoco la incompletezza sulla base della classificazione di North
Il lavoro esamina il lavoro della globalizzazione, le conseguenze dei processi di Out Sourcing an... more Il lavoro esamina il lavoro della globalizzazione, le conseguenze dei processi di Out Sourcing and off shoring e di costo sociali connessi alle trasformazioni delle strutture produttive
Il lavoro esamina la relazione tra teoria economica e analisi della disuguaglianza mostrando i li... more Il lavoro esamina la relazione tra teoria economica e analisi della disuguaglianza mostrando i limiti del tradizionale approccio neoclassico-warrasiano e le implicazioni dei recenti lavori sul ruolo delle preferenze social
Contributions to Economics, 1999
The importance of cooperative vertical relationships among firms is greatly increased in recent y... more The importance of cooperative vertical relationships among firms is greatly increased in recent years. Inter-organizational collaborative activities are constituted by several forms of cooperation such as alliances, joint ventures, buyer-seller relationships, subcontracting agreements, licensing, franchising and R and D collaboration. Concerns about vertical linkages have proliferated into various forms of vertical cooperation and networks of partnerships (Miles and Snow, 1986; Thorelli, 1986; Jarillo, 1988).
Economic Studies on Food, Agriculture, and the Environment, 2002
ABSTRACT There is growing interest in vertical integration and supply chain management in the foo... more ABSTRACT There is growing interest in vertical integration and supply chain management in the food system. Several dimensions of supply chain performance have been analyzed such as logistic efficiency, quantitative input control, risk reduction. This paper focuses on supply chain design strategies for ensuring food quality. We present a series of brief descriptions of food supply chains in the U.S. and Europe. These help illustrate both the common features and the diversity of emerging supply chains in the food system. We review key theories that can serve as the conceptual foundation for supply chain analysis and design, including transaction cost economics, agency theory, property rights theory, and the resource-based theory of the firm. We assess the usefulness of these theories in explaining similarities and differences in the illustrative supply chains with respect to chain leadership, choice of mechanisms for quality assurance, the distribution of margins among chain participants, and adaptability in the face of change. In our concluding remarks, we look ahead to challenges and opportunities for future work on supply chain design in the food system.
Contributions to Economics, 1996
... performances are poorly related to R&D intensity, is empirically tested. A direct measure... more ... performances are poorly related to R&D intensity, is empirically tested. A direct measure of innovation produced by the US Small Business Administration is used. The empirical results indicate that in most US food industries ...
Contributions to Economics, 1996
Contributions to Economics, 1999
As the number and cost of environmental regulations have increased over the last thirty years, th... more As the number and cost of environmental regulations have increased over the last thirty years, the regulated community, taxpayers, and policy makers have begun to demand that the benefits of regulations justify their costs. The use of benefit-cost analysis as an integral part of developing new regulations is increasing and the demands and expectations being placed on the method have expanded. Although benefit-cost analysis is expected to play an even greater role in environmental decision making in the years ahead, questions remain concerning whether benefitcost analysis can meet these expectations. This paper explores the role of benefit-cost analysis in US public investment and environmental decision making and examines how benefit-cost methods are responding to new analytic demands. It reviews the US experience with benefit-cost analysis at the Federal and State levels of government and discusses several applications to environmental regulations, illustrating how such analysis can contribute to decision-making as well as pointing out some of the method's pitfalls. The paper also discusses how several important (and sometimes controversial) methodological issues-including intergenerational equity, the distribution of benefits and costs, uncertainty and risk, and the measurement of the value of non-market goods and services-might be addressed practically as benefit-cost analysis is further extended into environmental policy and regulation. Finally, the paper concludes with recommendations for the future use of benefit-cost analysis in environmental decision making.
European Review of Agricultural Economics, 1997
... supply side of the market are relevant in explaining intra-industry patterns of trade in the ... more ... supply side of the market are relevant in explaining intra-industry patterns of trade in the Europeanmeat market. ... both in the standard model (6) and the restricted model (7), the variables referring to the retail structure (ARCO ... Intra-industry trade in the European dairy industry 421 ...
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Papers by Luciano Venturini