In this paper I assess the existence, and the magnitude, of technological externalities in the form of creativity spillovers that affect individual firms' innovative intensity. Relying on a large sample of Italian manufacturing firms, I first estimate a knowledge production function; from this,...

This paper draws on the multi-dimensional characterization of absorptive capacity (AC) to empirically investigate the antecedents and the effects of its "potential" dimension (PAC): i.e., the firm's capacity of acquiring and assimilating external knowledge, as distinguished from its "realized"...

We integrate input output and NAMEA tables for Spain and Italy in 1995, 2000 and 2005, in order to address the hot policy issue of sustainable consumption and production. A comparison of a production and consumption perspective may have relevant policy implications. We deal with the domestic...

This paper explores methods of applying resilience theory to a case study of natural resource management and the cultural landscape of upland and alpine pasture in northern Italy. We identify that the close interaction between alpine pastures and its managers offers a strong fit with the concept...

A recent strand of the economic literature has emphasised the role of services, and in particular knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), as a primary source of knowledge creation and diffusion. Since this transferring process often occurs through strong face-to-face interactions, the role...

Using a large sample of Italian manufacturing firms, in this paper we estimate a structural model of research, innovation, productivity and export performance augmented to take account for the role played by local externalities. This model, which is an "enlarged" version of Crepon, Duguet and...

Several recent studies investigate the relation between geographic concentration of production and vertical integration, based on the hypothesis that spatial agglomeration of firms in the same industry facilitates input procurement thereby reducing the degree of vertical integration. The present...

This paper investigates the drivers of the environmental innovations (EI) introduced by firms in local production systems (LPS). The role of firm network relationships, agglomeration economies and internationalization strategies is analysed for a sample of 555 firms in the Emilia-Romagna region,...

The present paper aims to analyse the innovation policies implemented in Italy and Spain. It adopts a multi-level perspective to investigate the effects induced by regional and national public supports and a multi-dimensional approach to disentangle the different types of additionality impacts...

This paper uses a large sample of Italian manufacturing firms over the period 2004-2006, to investigate whether different types of agglomeration externalities affect firms’ internationalisation modes. In addition to specialisation economies, Jacobs externalities are analysed following the...