Medium-sized manufacturing firms in the years of zero growth

This paper is based on the survey of Italian mid-sized enterprises conducted regularly by Mediobanca and Unioncamere. Statistics for 1996-2005 years cover phases of both economic expansion and contraction. Analytical studies in recent years have found the competitive strenght of these businesses to lie in product differentiation and in an ability to draw entrepreneurial drive and skilled human resources from their local territory. Productivity trends are somewhat paradoxical, with a dynamic that displays decreasing returns as capital intensity increases. But in interpreting this pattern one must take account of the characteristics of these companies and their repositioning, with a shift towards up-scale, high-value products in markets where the competition from emerging countries is intense. The financial soundness of these mid-sized companies confirms their ability to withstand periods of slow growth and justifies their limited resort to stock exchange listin