Tertiary education attainment of italian labour force, particularly in the manufacturing industry, shows empirically a large gap with respect to the other OECD countries, although human capital growth has been increasingly addressed as one of the main channel towards productivity, competitive...

The industrial structure of many European countries is dominated by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Although SMEs consider the new product development process fundamental for the success in the global market, the level of formalisation of the innovation process is very low (Slywotzky et...

The aim of this working paper is to analyse the best practices of a sample of manufacturing firms that have carried out lasting best performance in terms of solvency, growth and profitability. Firstly, the paper analyses the factors that have favoured or hindered best performance, that is: size;...

This paper empirically investigates gross job flows and the growth patterns of continuing limited liability companies in Italy over the period 1996-2004, using original data on work forces and other characteristics of the firm. The descriptive analysis reveals that the magnitude of gross job...

Il lavoro riconsidera l'andamento della produttivita' industriale in Italia nel decennio precedente la crisi, impiegando un vasto database di microdati di impresa. Particolare attenzione eÃƒÄ dedicata all‚Äôevoluzione della produttivitaÃƒÄ dei principali comparti della manifattura...

One of the things taught by Sebastiano Brusco is that the firm taken as a unit of analysis may turn out to be too large or too small. Too large when we address the problem of the minimum efficient size, which must refer, not to the firm as a whole, but to each single stage of the production...

Italian Abstract: Downloadable document is inQuesto lavoro presenta in un quadro unitario i risultati delle ricerche di recente svolte in Banca d’Italia sul tema dell’internazionalizzazione del nostro sistema produttivo. L’internazionalizzazione è vista non solo come un investimento...

Using data from Ufficio italiano dei cambi for the period 1997-2001, the study analyses the distribution of foreign direct investment (FDI) outflows by sector and local area of origin. It tries to identify which local industrial structures determine a larger propensity to invest abroad, focusing...

The debate in Italy on the recent disappointing performance of GDP growth has focused on the increasing competitive pressure exerted by firms located in the developing countries and specialized in key product sectors of Italian manufacturing. This paper contributes by explicitly quantifying the...