Structure, performance and growth potential of Italian exporting firms during the «doubledip » years

The paper analyzes the Italy's export performance in 2010-2014, from a macro-, mesoand microeconomic point of view. Firstly, we show that Italian export shares remained stable among main European countries, also in a period of growing competitive pressures. However, the input-output analysis reveals that the positive effects of the foreign demand on the Italian economy growth is somehow limited (with respect to Germany case) by a structure of intersectoral relations characterized by lower activating power. Finally, on the microeconomic side, we point out that the internationalization of Italian firms has high extensive margins (number of exporters) but very limited intensive margins (firm's export-to turnover ratio). This result, along with the evidence of better performance for the highly-internationalized firms, suggests that the Italian export competitiveness might be fostered by a (further) increase of the number of exporters, an increase of the openness degree of firms already operating on international markets, and (above all) a shift towards more complex forms of internationalization.