After a quick profile of Italian foreign direct investments since 1900 and a short review of the main explanations of the lagged multinational growth by Italian manufacturing companies, a quick glimpse of business histories is given to the only two still today living "old protagonists" (Pirelli,...

The economic performance of a country depends, among other things, on the strategies and structures of its firms. In the framework that is designed by institutions and policies and determined by technology and macroeconomic cycles, entrepreneurs decide how to allocate available resources in...

This paper investigates the effects of the increasing activity of foreign banks in Italy, distinguishing between credit granted to households and firms. Foreign banks display a differentiated degree of business expansion across the provinces, we exploit this variability to measure how foreign...

Using a very large panel dataset of Italian manufacturing firms, we test an empirical model of foreign markets participation with sunk costs. The period of analysis (1982-1999) is exceptionally informative: the large fluctuations in the lira exchange rate determined substantial flows of firms in...

This paper contributes to the literature on the effectiveness of R&D incentives by evaluating a unique investment subsidy program implemented in northern Italy. Firms were invited to submit proposals for new projects and only those that scored above a certain threshold received the subsidy. We...

This paper evaluates the impact of an R&D subsidy program implemented in a region of northern Italy on innovation by beneficiary firms. In order to verify whether the subsidies enabled firms to increase patenting activity, we exploit the mechanism used to allot the funds. Since only projects...