This research examines the economic origins of Islam and uncovers two empirical regularities. First, Muslim countries, virtual countries and ethnic groups, exhibit highly unequal regional agricultural endowments. Second, Muslim adherence is systematically larger along the pre-Islamic trade...

This paper carries out an empirical assessment of the relationship between social capital and labour productivity in small and medium enterprises in Italy. By means of structural equations models, the analysis investigates the effect of different aspects of the multifaceted concept of social...

This paper carries out an empirical assessment of the relationship between social capital and the quality of economic development in Italy. The analysis draws on a dataset collected by the author including about two hundred variables representing different aspects of economic development and...

Using information collected from American Economic Review publications of the last 100 years, we try to provide answers to various questions: Which are the top AER publishing institutions and countries? Which are the top AER papers based on citation success? How frequently is someone able to...

This paper proposes a fixed-effect panel methodology that enables us to simultaneously take into account both TFP convergence and the traditional neoclassical-type of convergence. We analyse a sample of Italian regions between 1963 and 1993 and find strong evidence that both mechanisms were at...

It is a largely accepted idea that complexity and recent global phenomena have generated a multi-layered diversification process in Western societies. Migration phenomena are largely responsible for this process both in receiving European societies as well as in original sending countries....

We present a theory of spatial development. A continuum of locations in a geographic area choose each period how much to innovate (if at all) in manufacturing and services. Locations can trade subject to transport costs and technology diffuses spatially across locations. The result is an...

This paper presents a meta-analysis of the “cluster literature” contained in scientific journals from 1969 to 2007. Thanks to an original database we study the evolution of a stream of literature which focuses on a research object which is both a theoretical puzzle and an empirical...

This paper provides new empirical evidence on regional–national disparities in environmental efficiency, based on case studies of Italy and the Lazio region, which includes the city of Rome. Shift-share analyses provide evidence on the drivers of environmental efficiency and on sector...

The intrinsic complexity of the sustainability concept challenges research towards more sophisticated ways to model and assess the dimensions underlying it. However, currently adopted modelling techniques and indicators frameworks are not able to give an integrated assessment through the...