Would you expect twins to reach different heights? The comparison is perhaps not so accurate, but in the early 1950s Abruzzo and Sicily were economically very similar. Both were 'full members' of the underdeveloped Mezzogiorno, with little industry, few natural resources, poor transport...

This paper studies the distribution dynamics of development across European regions over the period 1975-2000. Regional development is measured in terms of both per capita GDP (Y/P) and its components: labour productivity and employment ratio (that in turn can be decomposed in terms of activity...

The existence and persistence of large spatial disparities in un-employment within national economies is a central issue in regional economics. Previous empirical analyses have largely disregarded the role of fundamentals. On the contrary in this paper we explore the link between labour...

This paper argues that indices of (business) service and material offshoring built on sectoral input-output data may actually measure something different than what we think they should. Applying shift-share analysis we decompose the variation over time of a commonly used class of such indices...

This paper studies how the structure of the International Trade Network (ITN) changes in geographical space and along time. We employ geographical distance between countries in the world to filter the links in the ITN, building a sequence of sub-networks, each one featuring trade links occurring...

In this paper we highlight a new complementary channel to the business and social network effect à la Rauch (2001) through which immigrants generate increased export flows from the regions in which they settle to their countries of origin: they can become entrepreneurs. Using very small-scale...

In this paper we highlight a new complementary channel to the business and social network effect à la Rauch (2001) through which immigrants generate increased export flows from the regions in which they settle to their countries of origin: they can become entrepreneurs. Using very small-scale...

In this paper we investigate the causal effect of immigration on trade flows, using Italian panel data covering very small geographical units (NUTS-3). Exploiting the very favorable setup offered by Italy's features - the very high number of countries of origin of immigrants ('super-diversity'),...

This paper uses the tools of network analysis to assess the different characteristics of world trade in different manufacturing industries.The structure of the trade networks is compared to understand to what extent the world market characteristics differ between sectors. We find that in some...