The paper investigates the diversified patterns of outsourcing in the Lombardy region and relates them to the probability of introducing product and process innovation. Based on a large firm-level survey, we show that outsourcing processes are strongly regionally embedded and that offshoring is...

Pervasive outsourcing is transforming business models and productive relations in advanced manufacturing areas. In particular, the international dimension of outsourcing, off-shoring, has been attracting great attention, as it leads to the emergence of global value chains and internationally...

This paper analyses the relative effects of national and international, intra-sectoral and intersectoral spillovers on innovative activity in six large, industrialized countries (France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK and US) over the period 1981-1995. We use patent applications at the European...

We employ a distribution dynamics approach to examine the empirical dynamics of technological specialisation in industrial countries. Using patent data, distributions of a specialisation index and Markov stochastic kernels are estimated non-parametrically for each country. Three are the main...

This paper examines the empirical dynamics of countries' technological specialization in six technology fields using distribution dynamics, a methodology involving non-parametric estimation of probability distributions and Markov stochastic kernels for each field. Innovation in all the fields is...

We study the effect of financing constraints on the decision to do R&D and on the level of R&D investment using survey data and complete financial accounting data on a large number of Italian manufacturing SMEs from 2001 to 2003. We use a direct indicator of credit constraints and employ an...

The main goal of this paper is to assess the impact of product innovation on the economic performance of firms operating in medium and high-tech industries in general and of SMEs in particular. Using information from a large and unique dataset on Italian firms we estimate, by means of propensity...

We investigate the trade-off between FDI and international outsourcing of interme-diate inputs by a producer of a final good. To this extent, we characterize an industry equilibrium where fixed sunk costs exist for the setting up of foreign subsidiaries and the latter are heterogeneous in...

A theoretical model of international location choice is analyzed in a context of regional economic integration in which, consistently with the most recent evidence, countries conclude multilateral free trade agreements. Controlling for individual country and industry characteristics, it is found...

We exploit a panel dataset of Hungarian firms merged with product-level trade data for the period 1992-2003 to investigate the relation between firms' trading activities (importing, exporting or both) and productivity. We find important self-selection effects of the most productive firms induced...