Introduction to the Special Issue on Italian Manufacturing Medium-sized Firms. Medium-sized firms: Some New Evidence and Discussion Items

During the last years, several studies on Italian medium-sized firms (MSF) have been published in this Journal, some of them collected in a special issue (n. 2/2005). As this subject is attracting growing interest from economists, opinion and policy makers, three new articles are presented in this issue, providing further evidence from different points of view: role of private equity investors, internationalization strategies, focus on a specific sector (pharmaceutical industry). This paper presents the results emerging from these three articles in the framework of the general research agenda on MSF. Some critical issues are discussed, as the methodology for identifying the size boundaries of MSF, the need for more disaggregated analysis, the need for caveat in attributing "optimality" to MSF vis-à-vis small and large firms. Public policy implications are analysed in brief concluding remarks.