This paper aims at assessing whether dualistic mechanisms represent a significant component of the aggregate labour productivity convergence observed across the European regions in the 1980s. The potential of an explanation of convergence based - in part, at least - on the existence of dualism...

International data on per-capita income show that, in the last few years, growth in some countries specialized in tourism was faster than in the average country included in the World Bank-World Development Indicators. Fast growth in tourism countries might be due to fast, unsustainable...

Differences in productivity levels represent a major component of the large cross-country differences in per capita income observed in international datasets and even in some regional ones. Nowadays, few economists would dispute neither this finding, nor that differences in productivity reflects...

Is tourism an opportunity for lagging countries in the elusive quest for growth (Easterly, 2002)? Recent empirical evidence suggests that the answer is a cautious yes. Aggregate cross-country data show that tourism specialization is likely to be associated with higher per capita GDP growth rates...

Since Putnam's work on social capital, the Italian regional case has been a very rich source of both data and theories about the origins of large and persistent differences in local stocks of social capital, and about the impact of such differences on economic performances. The Italian case is...

The growing interest on the economic geography issues has provided new vigour to the research efforts aiming at explaining economic phenomena without neglecting space. In particular several studies have focused on the role of spatially bounded externalities on firms agglomeration processes at...

This paper explores the spatial distribution of innovative and productive activity across 109 regions of the European Union, thanks to an original databank on regional patents statistics. The main results worth highlighting are as follows. The technological activity in the EU appears to be...

This paper investigates on the presence of innovation and production clusters in Europe. The analysis is based on an original statistical databank set up by CRENoS on regional patenting at the European Patent Office spanning from 1978 to 1997 and classified by ISIC sectors (3 digit) and on the...

The paper aims at analysing the impact of domestic and international tourism on the economic growth process for 179 regions in ten European countries, which are highly representative of total tourism flows. The econometric analysis is carried out for the period 1999-2009 and it is based on a...