The performance of Italian Industrial Districts in and out of the 2008-2012 crisis

Valter Di Giacinto, Andrea Sechi () and Alessandro Tosoni ()
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Andrea Sechi: Bank of Italy
Alessandro Tosoni: Bank of Italy

No 701, Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area

Abstract: By exploiting firm level balance sheet data from the Cerved database and employment data from the INPS database, we provide a detailed description of the productivity performance of Italian industrial districts firms over the 2003-2017 period. The main structural features of industrial districts are first compared with those of the other types of local labour market areas. The performance of district firms is subsequently analysed both overall and separately for the firms belonging to the core district industry and the remaining companies. We find evidence of a positive and sizeable district productivity premium, increasing over the period of analysis. However, in order to consolidate their performance, industrial districts had to undergo significant structural changes. Medium-sized and large firms have grown in importance, also through a process of capital deepening that involved both tangible and intangible fixed assets. At the same time, structural adaptation involved the acquisition of a more significant role by firms not operating in the main district industry.

Keywords: industrial districts; agglomeration economies; structural adaptation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L25 L60 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cfn, nep-geo, nep-sbm, nep-tid and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_701_22

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