</title>This paper looks at a little-explored role that universities can play: that of representing a channel for brain gain, enabling regions to attract bright students who may decide to stay after they have graduated. In this way, universities can be a source of selective migration processes and...

<title>Abstract</title> A large body of literature has argued that social capital (i.e. ‘good culture’) reduces transaction costs and boosts investment by households and firms. It probably also reduces systemic risk, so that the choice of becoming an entrepreneur becomes less risky and more profitable. In...

The accuracy of <italic>ex ante</italic> project appraisal has been subject to scrutiny by scholars in recent years. It has often been claimed that the inaccuracy of project evaluation leads to a waste of public spending. In this article I acknowledge that the appraisal of a project consists in long-run...

F<sc>ratesi</sc> U. and P<sc>ercoco</sc> M. Selective migration, regional growth and convergence: evidence from Italy, <italic>Regional Studies</italic>. This paper studies the link between regional disparities and migration flows, focusing on the skill content of migration. Disparities may lead to migration, which should reduce...

In the knowledge era, the importance of highly-qualified human capital has been widely recognized as a key factor for local economic development, especially for those areas specialized in science and technology (S&T). Assuming a regional perspective, the capacity to attract this kind of people...

Social capital has remained relatively underexplored in innovation literature due to the lack of consensus on the most suitable operationalisation for the analysis of innovative dynamics. This paper aims to fill this gap by looking at social capital as propensity towards civicness and prosocial...

Road pricing is increasingly used as an economic tool to decrease the burden of transport externalities. Following the examples of several cities worldwide, on 2nd January, 2008, the city of Milan introduced a charge for accessing the city centre with the aim of curbing air pollution and...

This paper aims at providing empirical evidence of the impact of Structural Funds on the economies of Italian Objective 1 Regions (the "Mezzogiorno"). In particular, we consider the effect in terms of economic growth of the 1994-1999 Community Support Framework by using a simple supply-side...