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on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | Di Cataldo, Marco; Renzullo, Elena; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first analysis of how local institutional quality affects the distribution of EU funds across private beneficiaries, public entities, and local governments. Using high-quality Italian administrative data on city council dismissals due to collusion with organised crime, we examine whether corruption affects municipal control over EU resources. We apply a staggered difference-in-differences model and event studies and find that corrupt local governments receive significantly fewer EU funds for their own operations. However, this is not a consequence of efficient corruption detection, but rather a strategic choice. Corrupt administrations avoid larger EU projects to sidestep stricter anti-mafia regulations. This distortion weakens Cohesion Policy’s impact, deprives communities of critical investment, and hampers local economic growth. While Italy’s anti-mafia laws appear effective in blocking criminal access to EU funds, our findings expose the adaptability of organised crime, which simply switches its operations below existing regulatory thresholds. The takeaway is clear: good institutions matter. Where corruption thrives, EU funds do not disappear entirely, but they flow differently, fundamentally to smaller, more opaque projects. Stronger oversight is essential to ensure that Cohesion Policy delivers on its promise. |
| Keywords: | quality of institution; EU cohesion policy; city council dismissals; organised crime |
| JEL: | H70 H11 H77 |
| Date: | 2026–05–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:137959 |
| By: | Gábor Kátay; Pálma Mosberger; Francesco Tucci |
| Abstract: | The paper evaluates the impact of the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Pro-gramme (FP7) grants on profit-oriented firms’ post-treatment performance. Using a robust quasi-experimental design and a dataset covering applicants from 46 countries, we find that FP7 grants increase firms’ sales and labour productivity by about 18%. However, there is no significant impact on employment levels, pointing to potential growth barriers that prevent firms from scaling production despite improved productivity. The effectiveness of these grants varies significantly based on factors such as financial constraints, project risk profiles, market structure, and the innovation environment. Smaller, less productive firms with tighter financial constraints in technology-intensive sectors operating in concentrated markets and favourable innovation environments, particularly those undertaking longer and riskier projects, tend to benefit more. |
| JEL: | C31 G28 H57 O31 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:euf:dispap:238 |
| By: | Trine Bille (Copenhagen Business School); Hendrik Sonnabend (University of Hagen) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses gender differences in leadership in the German movie industry using a uniquely long-run dataset covering nearly 88, 000 films and more than 27, 000 directors from the late nineteenth century to 2023. Treating film directors as key leadership positions in a project-based creative labour market, we distinguish between career persistence and access to economically sustainable projects. Methodologically, we combine non-parametric survival functions and semi-parametric Cox proportional hazard models with film-level linear probability models including year fixed effects and detailed controls for experience, education, and production characteristics. This framework allows us to distinguish gender differences in exit behaviour from those in project allocation. We document a substantial historical underrepresentation of women, although participation has increased markedly since the 1960s. Survival estimates show no evidence that female directors exit the profession more rapidly than men once cohort and age-at-entry effects are accounted for. However, women are significantly less likely to direct commercial films—projects most closely associated with income generation. These gaps are large in unconditional models but largely explained by differences in accumulated experience. Conditional on commercial experience, women are no less likely than men to continue directing such projects. We further provide evidence suggesting that formal film education and public funding contribute to narrowing gender gaps, highlighting the role of institutions in shaping leadership opportunities. |
| Keywords: | leadership, Gender, Film Directors, Careers, Public Funding, Film Schools |
| JEL: | J16 L82 Z10 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cue:wpaper:awp-05-2026 |
| By: | Hafez Ghanem; Liel Maghen |
| Abstract: | This Paper was originally published on mitvim.org.il. This paper argues that the reconstruction of Gaza will depend not only on the amount of funding mobilized, but on how financing is structured, governed, and anchored within a broader politi`cal context. In a setting shaped by movement restrictions and weak institutions, financial design is not neutral but shapes priorities, distributes power, and determines what can be implemented on the ground. The paper examines the key challenges that have limited the translation of financial commitments into actual projects, alongside emerging approaches that seek to address these barriers, and argues for a financial architecture that strengthens local capacity, ensures transparency, and supports long term recovery rather than reinforcing dependency and fragmentation. It contends that such an approach can only be effective if it is accompanied by a clear political horizon, including the lifting of the blockade, which will support the well-being of the local population and create the conditions to reduce risk and attract private investment. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ocp:pbecon:pbhaff_26 |
| By: | Zhicheng Du; Yingkai Li; Boli Xu |
| Abstract: | A principal and $n\ge 2$ agents can launch a project if the principal proposes it and at least $k$ agents accept. Their individual payoffs from the project depend on an ex ante unknown state. The principal can conduct a test to learn about the state and then communicate her findings to the agents via cheap talk. This paper focuses on comparing two communication regimes: public and private messaging. We show that public messaging is weakly dominant: any outcome implementable under private messaging can also be implemented under public messaging. Moreover, in a canonical environment with linear payoffs, we characterize the principal's optimal test in each regime and show that public messaging can be strictly dominant if and only if there exist two agents who are the principal's conflicting allies. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2605.03621 |
| By: | Cameron Barrett; Kunal Patel; Michael D. Plante |
| Abstract: | Texas is now the top state for utility-scale solar power generation capacity. However, developers of new solar projects face a changing operating environment, one lacking strong federal policy support but also featuring cost-boosting tariffs on imported solar module components. |
| Keywords: | solar; Texas |
| Date: | 2026–02–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:d00001:102573 |
| By: | Giordano MION (ESSEC Business School); Aminata SISSOKO (European Commission) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we have conducted an econometric analysis of the impacts of the Accelerator scheme of the European Innovation Council (EIC), with a particular focus on the EU Blended Finance providing for the first time grant and direct equity - quasi-equity investment, by means of a difference-in-difference framework combined with propensity score matching and using firms who obtained a Seal of Excellence as control group. Our analysis highlights a number of significant impacts of the EIC Accelerator on firm performance measures like sales, capital stock, wage bill, average wage, employment and value of deals. The analysis also highlights the payment of the EIC direct equity investment as a key root of heterogeneous impacts on firm production factors and output and the lack of a differential impact for projects related to health. |
| Keywords: | company growth, direct investment, EU investment, EIC fund, innovation, research and development, start-up |
| JEL: | O31 O33 L26 M13 G24 O38 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eug:wpaper:ki-01-26-025-en-n |