Maria Sole Brioschi

Ownership linkages and business groups in industrial districts. The case of Emilia Romagna

Italy’s model of industrial development has always been viewed as anomalous in the panorama of the industrialised economies. Satisfactory long-run performance, on the whole, despite a number of structural weaknesses, has been achieved by an industrial system consisting largely of small and medium size enterprises not generally operating on a large enough scale to withstand international competition.

Common Frameworks for Regional Competitiveness - Insights from a Number of Local Knowledge Economies

Common Frameworks for Regional Competitiveness: Insights from a Number of Local Knowledge Economies - In this paper we analyse the innovative capacity of the most productive and most industrialised Italian regions by comparing them with a set of European regions that in the past two decades followed an industrial restructuring path towards knowledgebased sectors, doing so via the formation of a Regional Innovation System. Even though the European benchmarking regions now specialise in high-tech sectors and are characterised by high innovative activity, they share an industrial past based on heavy and traditional industries. In this respect, the two groups of regions are not so different in nature, and comparing them yields strategic insights for the Italian regional transformation process and suggests interesting local policy implications. Keywords: Knowledge economies, regional development, regional innovation systems. Parole chiave: economie della conoscenza, sviluppo regionale, sistemi regionali d’innovazione JEL classification: R11, R58.