We study the relation between workers' skill dispersion and firm productivity using a unique dataset of Italian manufacturing firms from the early eighties to the late nineties with individual records on all their workers. Our measure of skill is the individual worker's effect obtained as a...

Using firm-level based TFP indicators (as opposed to employment-based proxies) we estimate the effects of alternative sources of dynamic externalities at the local level. In contrast to previous empirical work, we find that industrial specialization and scale indicators affect TFP growth...

We study the role of human capital in the restructuring of the Italian economy. The share of university graduates in the population has long been far lower in Italy (12 percent in 2007) that in the rest of Europe (24 percent). The 32 reform of Italian degree programmes has significantly...