This paper analyses the local determinants of producer service growth in Italy, focusing on agglomeration economies, and taking into account the particular features of this sector with respect to manufacturing. Using an OECD classification, we estimate a dynamic specification allowing for...

This work contributes to the small but growing body of literature on international trade in services at firm level. Our dataset, based on a new Bank of Italy survey, provides information on exports and imports of services (excluding transportation and travel) in 2008-09 for almost 3,000 Italian...

The 1991 Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth contains detailed retrospective information on major bequests and gifts received by each member of the household. This information is used to estimate the share of intergenerational transfers in total welath and to relate this share to...

We study the effects of anti-competitive service regulation by examining whether OECD countries with less anti-competitive regulation see a better economic performance of manufacturing industries using less-regulated services more intensively. Our results indicate that lower service regulation...

We compare the magnitude of local productivity advantages associated with two different spatial concentration patterns in Italy � urban areas and industrial districts. The former have high population density and host a wide range of economic activities, while the latter are marked by a high...

This paper explores the interactions between external trade and regional disparities in the Italian economy since unification. It argues that the advantage of the North was initially based on natural advantage (in particular the endowment of water, intensive in silk production). From 1880...

In 150 years, the trends in regional disparities in economic development within Italy have differed depending on whether they are gauged by longitude or by latitude. The disparities between western and eastern regions first widened and then closed; the North-South gap, by contrast, remains the...

We propose a theory-based approach to testing the presence of the 'home market effect' in a multi-country world. Our framework extends Krugman's (1980, Am. Econ. Rev. 70(5), 950-959) model, in which the appeal of a country as a production site depends on both the relative size of its domestic...

We develop a multi-country Dixit-Stiglitz trade model and analyze how industry location and welfare respond to changes in: (i) transport frictions (e.g., infrastructure, transportation technology); and (ii) non-transport frictions (e.g., tariffs, standards and regulations). We show that changes...

This paper is concerned with spatial agglomeration across industrial sectors in Italy. Following the seminal article by Ellison and Glaeser, agglomeration indexes that simultaneously control for the effect of chance and size structure of industries are presented. In particular, I compute...