The recent resurgence of growth studies has clearly established that technological progress and knowledge accumulation are among the most important factors in determining the performance of regional and national economic systems. Nonetheless, few empirical studies have tried to analyse the flows...

Our aim is to address the problem of measuring how much of the convergence observed across European regions is due to convergence in technology versus convergence in capital-labour ratios. To this aim, we first develop a growth model where technology accumulation in lagging regions depends on...

In this paper we attempt to provide empirical evidence on the phenomenon of cluster agglomeration of innovation activities throughout time and space in European regions. More specifically we try to assess whether there are some forces which support the development of technologically specialised...

Regional differentials in per capita income and labour productivity in Italy is one of the most notable cases of regional inequality and have attracted attention from economists from all over the world since the 1950s. In this paper we first aim at yielding a comprehensive description of the...

This paper analyses the evolution of the Sardinian economic system over the nineties, through a comparison of its performance with respect to other Italian regions. The paper examines the main aggregate variables (GDP, investment), the changes in the sectoral productive structure, the firms...

The recent theoretical and empirical works on economic growth based on Solow’s model have generally neglected the role played by the sectoral mix and structural change on aggregate growth. However, as many development economists have remarked, sectors are characterized by enormous differences...

This paper aims at assessing whether dualistic mechanisms represent a significant component of the aggregate labour productivity convergence observed across the European regions in the 1980s. The potential of an explanation of convergence based – in part, at least – on the existence of...

Since the Lisbon agenda in 2000, Europe stated the goal to become the most advanced knowledge economy in the world relying specifically on the increase and strengthen of its human capital and technological endowments. However, given the presence of localized externalities in the knowledge...

Purpose – We analyse the effect of unemployment and labour institutions such as employment protection legislation, coverage of unemployment benefits, minimum wages, union power and tax wedge on migration flows. We allow for interactions of these institutions with migration entry laws, as both...

We describe the competitive environment of microcredit markets globally and we study the effects of competition on loan rates of microfinance institutions (MFIs). We use a new database from rating agencies, covering 379 for-profit and nonprofit MFIs in 67 countries over 2002-2008. First, we find...