Given the increasing share of the EU budget devoted to Regional Policy, several studies have tried to identify the policy’s contribution to regional economic growth. However, so far no consensus has been reached on the effectiveness of Cohesion policy, due to both limitations in data...

There is still little consensus on the effectiveness of business support policies. The empirical evaluation is complicated by the difficulty in achieving reliable identification. We analyse the impact of Law 488/92, the main Italian regional policy. We propose a new approach, named multiple...

The paper analyses the causal effect of capital subsidies on firms' efficiency and productivity by exploiting the conditions for a local random experiment created by Law 488/92 (henceforth L488), which has been an important policy instrument for reducing territorial disparities in Italy. The...

Investment subsidies to private firms have been one of the most popular place-based policies in developed countries; however, the empirical evidence to date is still mixed and there is no general consensus on the effectiveness of such policy. Most evaluation studies have focused on the policy...

Italian Abstract: L'autore analizza l'eredità di Luigi Spaventa in qualità di Ministro del Bilancio italiano.L'autore attinge a reminiscenze personali presso il Ministero del Tesoro e si concentra in particolare sul dualismo nello sviluppo economico dell'Italia e sull'approccio di Spaventa al...

The author analyses the legacy of Luigi Spaventa as Italian Minister for the Budget. The author draws on personal reminiscences at the Ministry of Treasury, and focuses in particular on dualism in Italy's economic development and Spaventa's approach to the problem of the underdevelopment of the...