This paper explores the two alternative hypotheses of "self-selection" and "learning by exporting" across different Italian manufacturing firms. Using matched sampling techniques that control for selection bias, we estimate whether new export-oriented firms are more efficient than domestic...

We examine whether offshoring firms outperform purely domestic firms – in terms of efficiency, innovativeness and skill composition – in the peculiar context of Italy, the G7 country with the largest shadow-economy share. We posit that manufacturing firms – to counter emerging economies'...

We develop a unified stochastic frontier model which controls for the local spatial correlation and the global factor dependence as well as parameter heterogeneity, simultaneously. We then propose the regional productivity network analysis to examine the diffusion impacts of the capital...