It has been argued that the accumulation of technological competence is a path-dependent and context-specific process, being partly firm-specific and partly location-specific. MNCs spread the competence base of the firm, and acquire new technological assets or sources of competitive advantage....

Within the European arena, the heterogeneity of socio-economic conditions among Italian regions is a clear example of intra-border imbalances. Though, the different degree of development characterising the various areas of Italy is far from being an exception in the Union, where diversity across...

In the most recent years, the pattern of economic development of the Italian Mezzogiorno has given signs of a remarkable change in progress. Up to the beginning of the 1990s, the whole area was by and large characterised by a single macroeconomic model of income and employment, whose dynamics...

Among the (most important) reasons underlying the lack of convergence of some regions towards the national and the European Union average there has been the strong gap in technological endowment and innovation capacity. In this perspective, the requirements of the “knowledge-based economy”...

In recent years the EU has intensified economic and institutional integration with its neighbouring countries, though with different intensity. Some countries have become EU members, some are candidate for membership and some others are part of the European Neighbouring Policy. In this scenario...

The deepening of the integration process with the acceleration of the Single European Market (SEM), the forthcoming adoption of a single currency together with the political plans of eastwards enlargement of the European Union (EU%29 rise problems of disparities and inequalities between and...

Among the reasons underlying the slow economic convergence of some regions towards the national and the European Union average, the strong gap in technological endowment and innovation capacity has been indicated as one of the most important factors. The requirements of the current ‘knowledge...