Essays in Spatial Economic Analysis at the Firm-Level.

Fiducia verso persone e istituzioni: evidenze da una survey sul capitale civico degli studenti

Trust in people and institutions: evidence from a survey on the civic capital of students Objectives: According to economic theory, civic capital is the result of a process of social investment through vertical transmission channels, internal to the family, and horizontal socialization, among peers. The reference context, such as the neighbourhood, plays an important role influencing both of these channels. This paper presents some initial evidence obtained from a statistical survey conducted on students of secondary high schools of the city of Palermo with the aim of measuring the basic dimensions that contribute to the formation of the civic and human capital. In particular, the focus is …

Estimating Verdoorn law for Italian firms and regions

In empirical regional economics, returns to scale are typically estimated at the regional level in search for evidence on alternative theories of growth and agglomeration. However, returns to scale may also have a firm-level dimension. In this paper, we exploit micro level data and estimate the dynamic Verdoorn law in a multilevel-setting, where returns to scale are obtained simultaneously for the micro and the regional level. Using Italian firm-level data and the NUTS-3 level of aggregation, we estimate the classic and augmented versions of Verdoorn law for the manufacturing sector, and the rest of the economy for comparison. Our results show that increasing returns to scale co-exist at bo…

Agglomeration Externalities and the Productivity of Italian Firms

Despite the richness of contributions on the effects of agglomeration on economic activity, the empirical evidence still falls short, especially at the microeconomic level, where they should matter the most. This paper adds to this literature by performing an empirical exploration of the role of Marshallian, Jacobian, and Porterian externalities for the productivity of Italian firms. In particular, a large dataset of small and medium enterprises is first employed to estimate firm-level total factor productivity (TFP). Then dynamic panel and instrumental variables estimation methods are used to assess the effects of agglomeration externalities. The findings seem to suggest that these effects…