The irresistible rise of craft breweries in Italy: magic out of nowhere or just another example of agro-food diversification?

This research empirically investigates the emergence of craft breweries in Italy over the period 1993-2014, whose rise has generated, in the recent years, an high number of entries in the sector. Two different order of possible drivers can be taken into account. therefore the rise of craft brewing can be simply interpreted as the consequence of a change in the beer market, particularly the increasing attention of consumers to the quality of productions and their geographical origin, with the consequent differentiation and segmentation of the market. Secondly, it can be argued tha, the rise of craft breweries in Italy shows a territorial concentration thus indicating that also local factors may represent major drivers. Due to agglomeration economies of different nature, areas with a specialization in food and, above all, beverages production may represent preferential territories for new entries. The same can be argued for areas showing a strong tendency towards agricultural diversification.At the same time, this geographical concentration may generate congestion effects (or localized diseconomies) whenever localized entries become too many given the size of the market. The present study proposes an empirical investigation on the role of local drivers in determining the entry into this sector of new craft breweries as well as the selection process of the existing breweries. This investigation takes the form of an entry-exit analysis and is carried out through a sequence of survival models