This work provides an empirical assessment of the ’sophistication’ of the Italian international specialization pattern and of its evolution during the period 1980−2000. In particular we discuss the Italian ’anomaly’, i.e. the evidence that Italy displays a specialization pattern more...

Using data on cross border transactions together with an informative measure of financing constraints this paper provides new evidence that limited access to external capital narrows the scale of foreign sales, the exporters’ product scope and the number of trade partners. It shows that...