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Circular economy, institutions and enterprises in post-pandemic transition: two exam-ples in aerospace sector in Italy. – This paper aims to identify and illustrate some factors that have determined in recent years an acceleration of the transition process from the linear economy to the circular one in the European context. Among these factors: the change in attitude towards this issue by the business world, the greater impetus to carry out the transition provided by the institutions, and the advent of the Covid 19 pandemic, which, in addition to a health, economic and social crisis, has been seized, in Europe, as an opportunity for a post-pandemic recovery based on new models of organization of the economy and society. In particular, the latter aspect clearly emerges from the content of the European NextGenerationEU Program, implemented, in the Italian context, by the National Re-covery and Resilience Plan, Italy Tomorrow. The first part of the paper is dedicated to these issues, while the second part exemplifies these arguments with reference to the aerospace industry, in particular by illustrating the cases of two Italian SMEs in the sector that have strongly undertaken the transition process towards the circular economy. The paper concludes with some final considerations, which underline how institutions play a fundamental role in bridging the time gap between the short- and medium-term costs that must be incurred by companies in the transition process to the circular economy, and the long-term economic benefits that the realization of this path entails for the companies themselves.

The problem of the failure and/or unsatisfactory development of Southern Italy recurs insistently and from various point of view in the political and scientific debate. The contributions range from the analysis of the determinants of political ineffectiveness in promoting a better development path, to the proposition of formulas capable of correcting this situation and thereby establish paths of interregional convergence or catching-up. In this framework, is useful to studying Sardinia as a "laboratory" to examine the main institutional trends and variables at the base of the north-south dualism that characterizes the Italian economy, as well as to deepen and explore new approaches and solutions to the problem of interregional imbalances. The paper, moving from this assumption analyze the causes underlying the disappointing socio-economic development promoted in Sardinia. Moreover suggests possible reforming paths of political institutions and new economic measures of intervention with particular reference to the need for a re-enactment of the federalist principles and the idea of the guaranteed minimum income.