Spatial econometrics has recently been appraised in a theme issue of the Journal of Regional Science. Partridge et al. (2012) provide an overview of the three contributing papers, the most critical being Gibbons and Overman (2012). Although some of the critiques raised are valid, they are issues...

Differences in productivity across regions have been mainly attributed to agglomeration economies, technology and human capital, while almost no evidence has been provided on the role of internationalization. In this paper we build unique measures of outward and inward foreign direct investment...