In recent times, the green transition, by promoting carbon neutrality, has become highly imperative to meet environmental challenges. The present literature review study seeks to explore the intersecting role of greener innovations in facilitating financial inclusion for a sustainable future. Within the global agenda is the goal of carbon neutrality, with the aim of reducing environmental impact and mitigating climate change. Aim: The present study aims to investigate the role that technological innovations play in the financial inclusion of achieving climate neutrality. Method: Through a systematic literature review, we investigate how new innovations generate new investment opportunities and promote sustainable development. However, fair, accessible, and inclusive financing is crucial. Findings: the analyzed documents in this study shows that technological innovations can play an important role in financial inclusion for carbon neutrality and provide some important policy implications. Indeed, a favorable regulatory environment could generate positive effects already in the short term, with important environmental, economic, and social repercussions.

Over the last decades, circular economy and its implications for sustainability have gained momentum in several socio-economic domains (e.g., academia, industry, politics, society), even though the relationship between them remains poorly understood. This situation has blurred the conceptual definition of both terms, limiting their research and practice effectiveness. To counteract this situation, scholars and policymakers are approaching Circular Economy as able to inspire the development of sustainable development strategies and to increase the sustainability of the current economic system, balancing the need for economic development and the importance of protecting environmental resources and people wellbeing. Drawing on the previous considerations, this study aims to contribute to address this gap, better understanding how a circular economy approach can contribute to challenge the number of sustainability issues that currently affect supply chains. In doing so, the analysis has been focused on the investigation of a specific supply chain, the pasta supply chain. To this end, after a brief theoretical recognition, an interpretative model has been proposed for better recognizing and describing the enhancing actions that—at each supply chain’s stages—can improve process efficiency, output effectiveness and, therefore, the overall sector sustainability. However, it is worth noting that the inherently theoretical nature of the study somewhat limits it; therefore, future empirical research is needed to further test the proposed model, applying it to other real applicative sets.

This paper explores a significant shift in economic research on decarbonization based on recent findings by Masnadi et al. (2021). Traditional studies have focused on reducing carbon intensity (CI) through macroeconomic variables such as income per capita, tourism, and exports. However, these approaches have yet to lead to effective policies. Recent research highlights the importance of shocks in oil demand, business profitability, and market structures for CI reduction. Aligning with Masnadi et al. (2021), this paper examines the implications of these factors for policy and the role of public intervention versus market forces in accelerating the energy transition, improving energy efficiency, and reducing CI. Given the variability of petroleum resources and the diversification of the carbon footprint of the global oil supply, this paper aims to highlight the gaps and challenges in existing policies for reducing carbon intensity and offer a significant shift in economic research perspectives. The research reveals striking insights into energy vulnerability and resilience policy dynamics. These findings carry relevant implications for understanding the role of oil demand shocks and the carbon footprint of marginal oils. Future research will be crucial for exploring new scholarly avenues and offering solutions to pressing energy policy and geopolitical challenges for achieving net-zero.

Following the reverse engineering (RE) approach to analyse an economic complex system is to infer how its underlying mechanism works. The main factors that condition the difficulty of RE are the number of variable components in the system and, most importantly, the interdependence of components on one another and nonlinear dynamics. All those aspects characterize the economic complex systems within which economic agents make their choices. Economic complex systems are adopted in RE science, and they could be used to understand, predict and model the dynamics of the complex systems that enable to define and to control the economic environment. With the RE approach, economic data could be used to peek into the internal workings of the economic complex system, providing information about its underling nonlinear dynamics. The idea of this paper arises from the aim to deepen the comprehension of this approach and to highlight the potential implementation of tools and methodologies based on it to treat economic complex systems. An overview of the literature about the RE is presented, by focusing on the definition and on the state of the art of the research, and then we consider two potential tools that could translate the methodological issues of RE by evidencing advantages and disadvantages for economic analysis: the recurrence analysis and the agent-based model (ABM).

This study presents an agent based model with two sectors differing for their location in the economy and workers sequentially searching for a job. In this framework we test the effects on workers’ disposable income of teleworking introduction, with different intensity by sectors, to verify if working organizational features may exacerbate the negative effects post-pandemic asymmetric shocks. Results show that workers employed in central locations of the economy gain a wage advantage compared to those finding job in peripheral positions. The differential in disposable income for the first group increases if in the central sector teleworking is introduced at higher intensity compared to the peripheral one. Sectors already penalized by closures and social distancing measures can face further inequalities in terms of disposable income for organizational and technological bounds.