The Evolution of Trade and Technology in the Italian Regions

Within the European arena, the heterogeneous socio-economic conditions of the Italian regions are a clear example of intra-border imbalances. In fact, the different growth rates characterising the Italian regions are far to be an exception in the Union, where heterogeneities across member states are a reflection of domestic socio-economic disparities re-produced over time. Differences in growth differentials, trade and technological sectoral patterns within Europe at national level call for further intra-border investigations. Existing studies have neglected territorial disaggregations more detailed than the national one. Similarly, although relative large streams of (both theoretical and empirical) literature have investigated the relationship between growth differentials and technology, relative little attention has been devoted to the evolution of technology and trade specialisation. On this respect, the novelty of the analysis carried out in this paper lies in the attempt to fill the gap by focusing on the relationship between technology and trade over time from a geographical perspective centred on the regional space. In this context, the hypothesis of whether the technological effort impacts on regional internationalisation (understood in terms of international trade) over time is tested. The ultimate aim is to explain current leading and lagging-behind conditions by identifying regional profiles of industrial structure