Dr. Claudia Ferretti (p), Dr Chiara Agnoletti, Dr Francesco Viviani (p), Dr Sabrina Iommi

In recent years, the tourism sector and the residential construction sector have shown increasingly significant interconnections, particularly with respect to the energy efficiency of housing. The study investigates the role that a territory’s tourism attractiveness may play as an incentive to improve the energy efficiency of the building stock. In particular, it aims to assess whether the tourism supply influences decisions to carry out energy retrofits, with specific attention to the residential sector and to dwellings used for short-term rentals or second homes.
The estimates suggests that areas with a strong tourism vocation tend, on average, to have a more energy-efficient building stock.

Dr. Matteo Beghelli (p)

The purpose of this work is, firstly, to provide a determination of the magnitude of the tourism sharing economy phenomenon and its various components for an Italian tourism destination. The second goal is to evaluate the relationship between the tourist sharing economy (or sharing hospitality) and the hospitality managed professionally in terms of direct / indirect competition. Furthermore, the analysis of the turnover associated with different types of accommodations that can be booked on portals will lead to the evaluation of the percentage of "core sharing" in the business of the portals and to an esteem of new tourist flows generated by these tools. The updating of these issues was framed in the situation experienced by the tourism sector following the outbreak of the CoVid-19 and the second year of pandemic. The work therefore also questions the - contrasting - effects of the CoVid-19 on sharing hospitality. An in-depth analysis was carried out on Airbnb which, although not the only active portal in the area analyzed, is generally considered to be the one capable of developing the greatest traffic for the tourist facilities present therein. The analysis shows that, typically, only 20% of the turnover recorded by Airbnb in the metropolitan area of Bologna can be associated with the "pure" sharing economy, while the remaining 80% has different degrees of professional management which, in many cases, undermine the peer-to-peer relationship of the transaction established between the parties involved. Of this 80% of turnover, while 44% is associated with facilities that can be considered in direct competition with hotels, 36% is made up of tourist accommodations which, to varying degrees, play an indirect competition with hotels, thus activating new tourist flows to the destination's area. While this abstract is being presented, the analysis is being updated and expanded using the most recent data. The work also investigates the various consequences of the spread of tourist sharing in urban and extra-urban areas, highlighting the risk of displacement of habitual inhabitants from the most touristic parts of the cities and the permanent destination of the latter at the service of mass tourism, resulting in adverse social reactions.
In the moment this abstract is presented, a complete revisiting of the work is undergoing to integrate new data-set.

Dr. Khalid W. A. Shomali (p)

This paper investigates whether tourist inflows affect the gender wage gap (GWG)in Italy. While tourism is often promoted as a driver of local economic development, its consequences within labor markets remain underestimated. We examine whether increases in tourism demand alter gender wage differentials, particularly in provinces with strong exposure to the hospitality sector. Using a province-level panel dataset covering the period 2009–2016, we exploit variation in tourist inflows across Italian provinces and over time. Data on GWG is sourced from the Italian Labor Force Survey. To address endogeneity concerns arising from reverse causality and omitted local shocks, we implement an instrumental variable strategy based on a shift-share (Bartik-type) instrument constructed from historical tourism settlement patterns and exogenous changes in tourist flows by origin area.

Prof. Roberto Antonietti, Ms Hongrui Jiao (p)

The twin transition represents the concurrent advancement of digitalization and environmental sustainability, compelling firms to align with these dual forces to maintain competitiveness and regulatory compliance. This paper investigates this synergistic evolution by examining how Digital Technology (DT) drives Circular Economy Innovations (CEIs). Using a novel dataset of 1,549 manufacturing firms in the Emilia-Romagna and Veneto regions, we combine theoretical and empirical analyses to comprehensively describe the relationship between DT and CEIs. A key contribution of this study is that, by utilizing micro-survey data rather than relying solely on patents, we are able to capture the informal innovation performance of SMEs, thereby offering a more grounded and accurate reflection of their behaviors.
Specifically, this study examines the impact of DT on CEIs using Logit, OLS, and Negative Binomial models, complemented by an instrumental variable (IV) approach to address endogeneity concerns. Our empirical strategy mainly includes three steps:First, we assess how DT affects three distinct CEIs, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Second, we decompose DT into eight technological categories (e.g., AI, IoT, and Big Data) to identify which digital technologies most effectively drive heterogeneous CEI. Third, we conduct subgroup analyses to explore whether these effects vary across firms with different levels of R&D intensity and GHG emissions.
Our findings indicate that DT significantly catalyzes CEIs, with the most pronounced impact observed in Reduce-type innovations, followed by Recycle and Reuse. Specifically, Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data emerge as the most robust drivers, followed by Robotics. However, frontier technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) have yet to demonstrate a statistically significant effect in the current sample. These results reveal a clear technological and functional heterogeneity: while DT effectively optimizes resource efficiency (Reduce), its role in complex product life-extension (Reuse) remains limited.
Overall,this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the strategic role of digital technologies in advancing circular economic innovation, generating important implications for both firm-level innovation strategies and broader industrial policy design.