Macroeconomic Regional Growth Models: Theoretical, Methodological and Empirical Contributions

<em>Macroeconomic Regional Growth Models: Theoretical, Methodological and Empirical Contributions</em> - (Paper first received, February 2009; in final form, June 2009) Macroeconomic regional growth models have experienced many advances have been achieved for what concerns both the theoretical and the methodological approaches, the former moving from constant to increasing returns models, the latter from a-spatial to spatial techniques. Many italian original contributions can be found in the vast literature in this field, which witness the active role played by italian scholars and by regional scientists, in particular. Original contributions in Italy cover both theoretical issues, like the definition of regional competitiveness, or advances in the new economic geography, as well as methodological issues. This wide spectrum of italian original contributions also covers empirical analyses with innovative statistical methods. The paper ends in a prospective way, by highlighting future research directions that should be followed by italian scholars. <br/><br/>Keywords: macroeconomic regional growth models, theories and methodologies <br/><br/>JEL Classification: R10, R11, R15