We investigate the determinants of TFP growth of Italian manufacturing firms. Using stochastic frontier techniques, we consider three approaches for taking into account the influence of external factors, i.e., the determinants or drivers of growth. First, in our novel approach external factors...

This paper assesses the impact of Research and Development (R&D) efforts on production in the North and Centre-South of Italy by using a panel of 1,203 manufacturing firms over the period 1998–2003. The estimations are based on a nonlinear translog production function augmented by a measure of...