Urban governance has been considered a key feature in the political and economic development in Europe in the medieval and early modern times. This paper aims to explore the different institutional settings that characterized the community organization in the Kingdom of Naples, with a particular...

According to the literature, historical episodes of local self-governing institutions can explain why differences in socio-economic performances among different territories can persist over centuries. Such assumption has been tested comparing free city-states (Communes) and feudal towns in...

For over 60 years conspicuous sums of money have been diverted to southern Italian regions. Nonetheless the positive effect of the so called extraordinary intervention has been limited. The south continues to be characterized by stagnant economies with high unemployment rates and rather low...

The convergence hypothesis has stimulated a heated debate within the growth literature. The present paper compares the two most commonly adopted empirical approaches, the regression approach and the distribution dynamics approach, and argues that the former fails to uncover important features of...

This research examines the relation between the levels of national identity of Ukrainians in different regions of the country and the current state of their economic activity. The study explores whether the changes in economic activity of Ukrainian population are related to the changes in the...

This study aims at analyzing the determinants of FDI (foreign direct investment) inflows for a group of European regions. The originality of this approach lies in the use of disaggregated regional data. First, we develop a qualitative description of our database and discuss the importance of the...

The article analyzes the beta-convergence of the EU-10 countries and the EU-15 for 2004 and 2015 at four levels - the state, NUTS 1, NUTS 2 and NUTS 3. The strongest beta-convergence is at the level of the EU-10 countries; however, the lower the level of the regional unit, the weaker the...

This paper aims to shed light on the evolution of regional disparities with respect to economic activity, productivity and employment across the European Union. While the "multiple Speeds of Europe" are a buzzword often quoted to underpin different political strategies and visions, they are...

Il lavoro descrive l’evoluzione delle province italiane nel corso di questi ultimi anni, analizzando la posizione espressa dalle aree prevalentemente distrettuali, in modo da offrire nuove evidenze sul legame tra distretto e sviluppo industriale del paese. Per l’individuazione dei distretti...

The paper exploits a unique Chinese municipal dataset to assess the impact of Special Economic Zones on the local economy. Comparing the changes between the municipalities that created a SEZ in earlier rounds and those in later waves, I find that the SEZ program increases foreign direct...