1 Productivity and Infrastructure in the Italian Regions

I address the issue of whether public infrastructure play any role in determining factor productivity in the Italian regions. To this end, a new data set on Italian regional capital is used for the first time. The empirical analysis, carried out using panel data econometric techniques, leads to the conclusion that the role of public capital is significant, the more so for those categories of public goods, such as roads and railways, that form the so called «core» infrastructure. As a policy implication of the empirical evidence, it is argued that an effort should be made to increase investments in infrastructure. This indication seems to be particularly relevant for the Italian Mezzogiorno, as a geographically disaggregated analysis indicates