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The paper discusses the relationship between Commons, Social Capital, and sustainability in terms of resources used, tools available, and goals to be achieved. The conceptual framework differs from the traditional one, which considers Commons and Social Capital as different resources. The paper considers Commons and Social Capital as homogeneous assets defined by the rights related to the access, use, and reproduction of collective resources, material or immaterial, which are essential to reduce the difference between private and social costs in the economic processes. This approach derives from a definition of sustainability as a private and social responsibility in reproducing all the resources used in the life processes, minimizing the waste caused by their exhaustion and loss of fertility. The paper refers to the model of Commons by the school of Elinor Ostrom to explain the nature and role of Social Capital and to observe it in different units of analysis, with particular attention to the forms of cooperative enterprise. The last part of the work outlines field research on the Parmigiano Reggiano supply chain as a natural laboratory to test the theoretical hypotheses.

Earthquakes often occur in Italy: for built-up areas, they represent exogenous stress tests, acting as catalysts for long-term socio-economic processes and testing local resilience and resistance. This work considers damages to residential buildings after the 2012 earthquake in Emilia, at census tract level. First, cluster analysis points out which are the most vulnerable census tracts in the affected area, according to their socio-economic characteristics; second, quantitative data about reconstruction (released as open data) are adopted to compute a sensitivity index. It emerges that clusters with poorer socio-economic and building conditions have been damaged more than others.JEL classification: O18, Q54