It is well known that firms productivity is influenced by information spillovers generated either by other firms located nearby or by direct contacts with final demand or by foreign demand in the case of traded products. In this paper we investigate a new channel of efficiency - enhancing...

The recent resurgence of growth studies has indicated technological activities and knowledge spillovers as one of the most important factors in determining the performance of the economic systems. However, only few empirical studies have tried to analyse the flows of technology across regional...

In the last decade there has been an upsurge of studies on international comparisons of Total Factor Productivity (TFP). The empirical evidence suggests that countries and regions differ not only in traditional factor endowments (labour and physical capital) but mainly in productivity and...

This paper provides total factor productivity estimates for a sam- ple of 115 European Regions over the period 1976-2000. In particular, a set of Cobb-Douglas production functions is estimated using panel techniques and allowing for heterogeneity across regions. Moreover, on the basis of...

There is a large consensus among social researchers on the positive role played by human capital on economic performances. The standard way to measure the human capital endowment is to consider the educational attainments by the resident population, usually the share of people with a university...

This paper explores the spatial distribution of innovative and productive activity across 109 regions of the European Union, thanks to an original databank on regional patents statistics. The main results worth highlighting are as follows. The technological activity in the EU appears to be...

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of various proximity dimensions on the innovative capacity of 276 regions in Europe within a knowledge production function model, where R&D and human capital are included as the main internal inputs. We combine the standard geographical...

Firms competitive strategies and performances in industrialised countries is increasingly based on assets, labelled as “intangible capital”, such as the inventions of new processes and products, the improvements of the employees skill, the creation of a reputation for company’s products....

The recent history of Europe is characterized by a dual picture showing the Old and New countries in sharp contrast with respect to their industrial specialisation and economic performance. We aim at analyzing the intertwined performance of regions and industries in New and Old European...

This paper provides a structural estimation of the recent model proposed by Pissarides and Vallanti, a simplified equilibrium model which draws heavily on models with frictions and quasi-rents. The structural model is a system of three equations. The estimation method is a three-stage least...