The growth of firms and countries, 24-25 October 2013

Started in October 2011 under financial support of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR PRIN Program 2009), the project “The growth of firms and countries: distributional properties and economic determinants” has gathered researchers based at Scuola Sant'Anna-Pisa, at the Piemonte Orientale University, and at the University of Pisa to jointly develop new approaches to theoretical and empirical analysis of micro-and-macro patterns of growth, with special attention devoted to the distributional properties of growth of firms and countries.

The traditional notion of equilibrium in economics is seen as an optimal outcome deriving from more or less decentralized planning activities. The project contends this approach with the notion of statistical equilibrium, generated by the interaction among many agents. In this approach the observed distributional heterogeneities at the level of firms, sectors or entire economies, are not merely considered as the result of a noisy environment, but as an emerging phenomenon, whose properties can be fruitfully investigated to infer the mechanisms of the underlying economic dynamics which, in turn, provide precise constraints to the possible modeling efforts.

The project is explicitly multidisciplinary, combining together tools and expertise by economists, statisticians and physicists to overcome standard approaches focused on average behavior of economic agents and economic variables.

A full description is available in the project's homepage.

The final workshop will be a two-day event hosted by Universitas Mercatorum Unioncamere at Villa Massenzia in Rome, a wonderful location close to the ancient Roman Appia Antica.

The aim of the meeting is to present the final results of the project, and also gather researchers interested in topics like:

• Continuous time random walks
• Contingency table analysis and goodness of fit
• Empirical distributions and tail behavior
• Empirics of firm growth: properties and determinants
• Empirics of regional, sectoral and aggregate growth
• Empirics of growth volatility
• Models of firm-aggregate dynamics
• Models of statistical equilibrium in economics

We plan to leave 6-8 slots for presentations of submitted papers. Selection of contributions is open and competitive.

Keynote speakers include: Prof. Joe Mc Cauley (University of Houston, USA) and Prof. Marco Vivarelli (Catholic University Piacenza, Italy, IZA, and SPRU-Sussex University)

The organization will cover lunches and coffee-breaks at Villa Massenzia, and a social dinner on Thursday 24th. Exceptional support for travel and accommodation expenses may be discussed, especially for PhD students submitting their early stage work.

Organizing committee: Giulio Bottazzi (project's coordinator, Scuola Sant'Anna), Davide Fiaschi (University of Pisa), Enrico Scalas (Piemonte Orientale University), Federico Tamagni (Unimercatorum and Scuola Sant'Anna).

Download the call for paper.

• Paper submission: a full paper or an extended abstract (2-3 pages) including main results must be submitted by SUNDAY 6 OCTOBER 2013 via email to villamassenziaworkshop-AT-sssup.it
• Notification of acceptance: by email on 7 OCTOBER
• Confirmation of Participation: by email on 10 OCTOBER
• Event: From Thursday 24th morning to Friday 25th around 2 PM.

Thursday 24

• 9.30-10: Welcome and Introduction
• 10-12.30: paper presentation Session A
• 12.30-14: Lunch
• 14-15: Keynote 1 Prof. Marco Vivarelli
• 15-15.15: coffee break
• 15.15-17.15: paper presentation Session B
• 20.45: social dinner

Friday 25:

• 9-11: paper presentation Session C
• 11-11.15: coffee break
• 11.15-12.15: Keynote 2 Prof. Joseph McCauley
• 12.15-13: Presentation of PRIN Project's results by the Units' coordinators

Download the detailed programme.

The workshop will start October 24 at 9.30 am and end October 25 at about 2 pm, so please consider this time window in planning your trip to Rome. Please signal any time constraint you might have by email to: villamassenziaworkshop-AT-sssup.it

The workshop venue is Villa Massenzia (address: via Appia Pignatelli 62, Rome). As it is a bit out of Rome city center, so a shuttle bus will be made available by the organization from the metro station called Arco di Travertino (Metro Line A), which is 8 metro stops (10-15 minutes) from the Central train station (Stazione Termini, line A and line B).

Please consider to book your hotels close to Metro Linee A stops, so that you can easily reach the shuttle bus departure station.

The bus will leave at 8.45 am and 9.15 am on Thursday 24 and at 8.30 am on Friday 25. One of the organizers will coordinate departures at Arco di Travertino Metro stop. We strongly recommend to take advantage of this opportunity, and pleas signal if you do not think to come by the shuttle bus. A shuttle bus returning from Villa Massenzia to Arco di Travertino will also be available on Thursday 24 evening and on Friday 25 after the farewell lunch.

The organization covers coffee breaks and lunches on 24 and 25 October at Villa Massenzia, and a social dinner on 24 October in a restaurant in the city center (yet to be defined). Please confirm your participation to social dinner by email to: villamassenziaworkshop-AT-sssup.it