This paper adopts sociometric analysis to explore the process of knowledge acquisition and diffusion in clusters of firms. By comparing the knowledge systems of two clusters selected for being at different stages of their development path, this study shows that the knowledge system of the...

Firms from emerging countries such as Brazil, India, and China (BIC) are going global, and Europe is attracting around one-third of their direct outward investments. Growing internationalization constitutes an opportunity for technological catch up. In this paper we analyze BIC firms'...

This paper stems from the recognition that, in the current globalized world, the achievement of economic development goals is not necessarily accompanied by improved social conditions, or respect of people?s human rights more generally. Through their internal resources and capabilities, which...

The work studies the processes of growth of the world top 150 pharmaceutical firms, on the grounds of an original database which allows also disaggregate analysis at the level of single therapeutical classes and chemical entities.Our findings show that the industry -whose long-term evolution is...

This paper provides a description of the production process by comparing different frameworks in which to analyze the relations between inputs and output. The analysis is performed on a representative sample of Italian manufacturing firms. We employ both parametric and non-parametric analysis....

Since the seminal work of Pareto, many empirical analyses suggested that the distribution of firms size is characterized by an asymptotic power like behavior. At the same time, recent investigations show that the distribution of annual growth rates of business firms displays a remarkable...

In an economic geography model where both a negative pecuniary and a positive technological externality are present, we introduce an explicit dynamics of firms locational choice and we characterize its long run distribution. Our analysis shows that economic activities evenly distribute when the...

The aim of this paper is to review the development of steam power technology in the light of the key ideas proposed in General Purpose Technology growth models. We intend to provide a critical evaluation of the interpretive power of such models, which are elaborated around three properties of...

This empirical paper analyses the importance of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the technological diversification trend among the world’s largest manufacturing firms during the 1980s and 1990s. The objective of the research is twofold: firstly, to emphasise the emerging...

This paper is an empirical test of the hypothesis that the appropriateness of different business strategies is conditional on the firms distance to the industry frontier. We use data on four 2-digit high-tech manufacturing industries in the US over the period 1972-1999, and apply semi-parametric...