Other expenses

33. Other expenses

“Other expenses” include the following:

(in thousands of Euros)
2007		2006
Selling expenses	307,408	270,367
Purchases of merchandise for resale	221,819	194,480
Utilities and power	185,763	157,153
Maintenance	158,055	94,032
Consulting fees	140,480	116,422
Advertising expenses	127,480	144,780
Commissioned work by third parties	93,680	53,317
Contract work expenses	83,500	39,858
Rent and hires	78,464	61,568
Cleaning expenses	54,487	42,905
Traveling expenses	48,582	42,654
Outside work on construction contracts	43,712	11,085
Software and information services expenses	40,252	37,036
Other accruals	35,952	32,137
Insurance	28,919	28,912
Revenues stamps, duties and local taxes	25,369	21,148
Receivables impairment	15,373	13,620
Operating lease payments	9,610	7,494
Other	349,752	314,976
2,048,657		1,683,944

The balance in 2006 included Euros 13,200 thousand (0.8 percent of the total) of the costs incurred for the Pirelli Tyre S.p.A. IPO, which qualifies as a nonrecurring event, included under “consulting fees”, “advertising expenses” and “other”.

Research expenses went from Euros 171 million in 2006 (3.5 percent of sales) to Euros 173 million in 2007 (3.3 percent of sales) and are entirely expensed to income. There are no development expenditures which meet the conditions for capitalization under IFRS.