Most contemporary cities are diverse, multicultural places often facing the challenge of managing their social and economic wealth in spite of conflicts and disparities. Virtually every city in the world has one or more disadvantaged neighbourhoods within its boundaries, where crime rates are...

The paper aims at analysing the impact of territorial capital endowment on the economic growth process measured by exports and employment growth for the 103 italian provinces over the period 1999-2011. A broader concept of territorial capital has been used (Camagni, 2008) which takes into...

Putnam (1995)'s seminal work was one of the first to describe the decline of social capital in the US after the 1960s, a period that saw a large increase in the flow of immigrants into the US. Using the Volunteer Supplement of the September Sample of the Current Population Survey (CPS) between...

It is well known that M. Granovetter wrote about the declining role of strong social ties and the rising role of weak ties. Yet the situation in Russia is different. The institutional order and a high level of transactions costs compels young Russians to use strong social ties to cut transaction...

This work demonstrates, through panel data analysis covering a time frame of seventeen years (1995-2011) that, in Italian regions (NUTS 2), administrative continuity is an enhancer of regional governments' efficiency when it is coupled by the bridging social capital. This research aims to...

The role of ICT infrastructure in enhancing innovation processes through fostering knowledge and information exchange is a controversial topic in regional science. Opposing views exist, in particular, with regard to two topics: a) the persistence of a specific role of geographical proximity in...

This paper investigates the interplay between cultural traditions and policy effectiveness. It explores the differential impact of a large development program (Cassa per il Mezzogiorno), implemented for four decades, starting in the 1950s, to stimulate convergence between Italy's South and the...

Universities are institutions whose activities have important economic and social impacts on their nearest surroundings. Most studies of the economic impact of universities analyze exclusively the impacts on the demand side, the effects on output, income and employment deriving from the...

Active labour market policies (ALMPs), which are primarily addressed to integrate (or reintegrate) into the labour market those who are on the edge of unemployment, are generally analysed in the context of a macroeconomic approach or within a micro-econometric model. A critique of the usual...

This paper introduces cultural gravity as a new concept for analyzing socio-economic disparities among immigrants. It tests the existence of cultural gravity effects on the geographic concentration and human capital productivity of immigrants. Using cultural distance as a proxy for the local...