<font face="CMBX12"> </font><p>  This paper gives evidence to a stylized fact often disregarded in international trade empir-ics: countries' diversification. In the last fifteen years, the growth of world trade coexistedwith the tendency of countries to reduce the specialization of their export compositionalong the...</p>

In this article we investigate the empirical relationship between overall specialization and per capita income. The metric we use to measure overall specialization is the median of the sectoral distribution of the Balassa Index of Revealed Comparative Advantages applied to four-digit (SITC...

This paper investigates the causal effect of immigration on trade flows using Italian panel data at the province level. We exploit the exceptional characteristics of the Italian data (the fine geographical disaggregation, the very high number of countries of origin of immigrants, the high...

This paper contributes to trade diversification literature by comparing changes in relative (i.e. assessed in comparison with world patterns) heterogeneity of import and export structures in the process of economic development. In particular, by focusing on the diversification of imports, we add...

Life expectancy is a subject of natural interest, also because it is an obvious index of welfare. In 1975 Preston revealed a clear connection between the level of per capita income and life expectancy and this is the subject of this paper. Several authors show that the exact nature of this...

This paper contributes to trade diversification literature by comparing changes in relative (i.e. assessed in comparison with world patterns) heterogeneity of import and export structures in the process of economic development. In particular, by focusing on the diversification of imports, we add...

With this paper we celebrate thirty years (1983-2013) of the present series of research papers "Quaderni di ricerca", after 400 issues of the publication. We analyze the available quantitative information from a descriptive point of view, evidencing the main research fields, and stressing, among...

We discuss the international specialization of Italy as a determinant of its rate of economic growth, documenting an incomplete economic evolution: Italy is still a follower economy in some aspects while it is being followed in some others. We show that the productivity level associated to the...