This paper investigates the evolution of the gap between Italian regions and Italy as a whole during the period 1980-2007. We tested for the presence of the stochastic and β-convergence hypotheses using different time series approaches. The former was studied, first, for all the sample period...

This paper tests the presence of spatial interdendencies of Italian regional public spending and its determinants in the period 1996-2010 through spatial panel models. In particular, the analysis controls for the impact of the reform of the constitutional article no. 117, in the perspective of...

This study investigates the 'club convergence' hypothesis applying the stochastic notion of convergence to groups of European regions. In order to avoid the group selection bias problem, the innovative regression tree technique was applied to select endogenously the most important variables in...