A latent variable based model for the impact evaluation of the enlargment of the European Union

In this paper we provide some results of a research, the first developed on the whole national territory, on the perceptions of the Italian top management, in respect of the changes taking place in the macro-economic scenario of the new EU. Our aim is to verify the impact of the enlargement currently perceived by the large and medium Italian firms. The impact is a complex variable, not directly observable and measurable. Usual statistical tools cannot objectively measure it and here we propose an ad hoc structural equation model able to deal with these complex relationships.