We address the effect of local financial conditions on the demand for non-life insurance. We consider the spread between the interest rates faced by the insured on the local credit market and the return rates earned by the insurer on national or international financial markets, sketching how it...

This paper finds evidence of spatial clubs in a sample of 254 European regions in the period 1991-2008. A dynamic extension of the Moran scatter plot, consisting in a non parametric estimate of the joint dynamics of GDP per worker and its spatial lag, suggests the emergence of three spatial...

This paper attempts to analyze the impact of knowledge and knowledge spillovers on regional total factor productivity (TFP) in Europe. Regional patent stocks are used as a proxy for knowledge, and TFP is measured in terms of a superlative index. We follow Fischer et. al (2008) by using a...