International economic integration is often blamed for the deteriorating fortunes of unskilled workers in industrial countries. We look at the labour market impact of trade and foreign direct investment in the case of Italy. Our empirical framework allows for trade, technology and factor supply...

The article examines regional policies in Italy after the end of the "intervento straordinario". After illustrating the changes in the legal and operating framework of the regional policies, the paper then uses a range of different data to perform an initial assessment of their results.

Every national system is also a sum of all its regional economies. Then, there are economically differentiated regions within nations. If the foregoing is true, a crucial problem for economic policy is determining which policies should be pursued at the national level (national policies), and on...

The paper investigates the main characteristics of the most relevant high-tech industrial districts (or clusters) located in the South of Italy and analyzes the public policies that aim to support their development. Section one, which draws on a wide survey to describe both the start-up process...

We study six high tech areas in the Mezzogiorno through in-depth field research. The starting point of these industrial systems is always the opening of a large new plant owned by a large firm. Other large firms follow, together with new locally-owned small and medium enterprises. These...