Between 2003 and 2007 the container traffic handled by the national port system increased slowly, despite the strong growth of the maritime traffic in the Mediterranean Sea. That was due both to the national economic stagnation and to the inability of the ports to widen abroad their operational...

In this paper we compare the magnitude of local productivity advantages associated to two different spatial concentration patterns in Italy, i.e. urban areas (UA) and industrial districts (ID). UA typically display a huge concentration of population and host a wide range of economic activities,...

Labor productivity convergence is a key factor in the catching up process of less developed regions. For the regional economies as a whole labor productivity differentials can be traced back to three distinct determinants: - composition effects due to the peculiar structure of the regional...

Utilizing a novel econometric approach, routed around the identification and estimation of spatial panel VAR model, the paper provides new estimates of the dynamic effects of private and public R&D expenditure on innovative activity within European regions. The positive long run response of...

The study of possible asymmetric effects of monetary policy at a spatially disaggregated scale has recently received renewed attention in the literature due to the introduction of EMU. To quantify the differences in monetary policy transmission different econometric approaches have been...