IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa06p663.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Italian Mezzogiorno: From a "National Matter" to an "European Opportunity"

Author

Listed:
  • Vincenzo, Claudio Genna

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to analyze the present economic conditions of Southern Italy, particularly regarding the actual competitiveness of this region and possible future developments. We will outline the various features of Southern Italy economy giving emphasis to those limiting its competitiveness and, subsequently, suggesting opportune ways to improve it. Besides an opportunity coming from the international economic scenario, Southern Italy also has a great chance for its development from its traditional sectors. Moreover, it has really important environmental and cultural capitals which, besides an important touristical attractive, represent a potential of competitiveness able to start up development processes. The geographical position of Southern Italy can also bring significant advantages: Mezzogiorno is right in the middle of the mediterranean area which is showing high development potentials and is itself a large potential market. Regarding the institutional and political context, the governmental capacity of local administrations has improved over the last years and they started to pay more attention to increasing and promoting territories’ resources. There has also been a major ability to face criminality and corruption and a new “social disapproval†towards illegal phenomena is growing. Among weaknesses the infrastructural endowment still seems to be inadequate. Transportation infrastructures present low integration between the different modalities with the consequence of difficult reachable market outflows. Logistic systems are still underdeveloped. Negative features are also present within the productive system. Traditional businesses with scarce innovation capacity are still too strong and generally the whole system is not improving network connections and scales economy. Then bureaucracy, even though much less than in the past, is an obstacle especially regarding the start-up of new firms. A big threat is represented by the growing competitiveness of developing countries in some traditional sectors of Mezzogiorno production. Final recommendations will result from the analysis of the actual and perspective economic situation compared with the main developments of global economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Vincenzo, Claudio Genna, 2006. "The Italian Mezzogiorno: From a "National Matter" to an "European Opportunity"," ERSA conference papers ersa06p663, European Regional Science Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa06p663
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa06/papers/663.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luciano Mauro, 2002. "Human Capital and the Regional Italian Growth: Why Does Unemployment Matter?," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 92(5), pages 127-154, September.
    2. Rodriguez-Pose, Andres, 1998. "Dynamics of Regional Growth in Europe: Social and Political Factors," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198233831.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Riccardo Crescenzi, 2008. "Mountains in a flat world: why proximity still matters for the location of economic activity," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 1(3), pages 371-388.
    2. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Tobias D. Ketterer, 2012. "Do Local Amenities Affect The Appeal Of Regions In Europe For Migrants?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 535-561, October.
    3. Peter Wostner, 2003. "Regional Disparities in Transition Economies: the case of Slovenia," SCIENZE REGIONALI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2003(1).
    4. Monasterolo, Irene & Benni, Federica, 2013. "Non parametric methods to assess the role of the CAP in regional convergence in Hungary," Studies in Agricultural Economics, Research Institute for Agricultural Economics, vol. 115(3), pages 1-9, December.
    5. Paul Cheshire & Stefano Magrini, 2006. "Population growth in European cities: Weather matters - but only nationally," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 23-37.
    6. Cheshire, Paul C. & Magrini, Stefano, 2002. "The distinctive determinants of European urban growth: Does one size fit all?," ERSA conference papers ersa02p100, European Regional Science Association.
    7. Rosa Bernadini Papalia & Silvia Bertarelli, 2013. "Identification and Estimation of Club Convergence Models with Spatial Dependence," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(6), pages 2094-2115, November.
    8. Giorgio Fazio & Davide Piacentino & Erasmo Vassallo, 2006. "Regional Disparities and Public Policies in Italy: Some Considerations in Light of a Performance Analysis," ERSA conference papers ersa06p439, European Regional Science Association.
    9. Enrique López-Bazo & Tomás del Barrio & Manuel Artis, 2002. "The regional distribution of Spanish unemployment: A spatial analysis," Papers in Regional Science, Springer;Regional Science Association International, vol. 81(3), pages 365-389.
    10. Giorgio Fazio & Davide Piacentino, 2010. "A Spatial Multilevel Analysis of Italian SMEs' Productivity," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 299-316.
    11. Karlsson, Charlie & Rouchy, Philippe, 2015. "Regional Economic Development, Social Capital and Governance: A Comparative Institutional Analysis France - Sweden," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 406, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    12. Paul Cheshire & Stefano Magrini, 2005. "European Urban Growth - throwing some Economic Light into the Black Box," ERSA conference papers ersa05p13, European Regional Science Association.
    13. Lambregts, Bart, 2002. "Global city-region ambition in the Netherlands: From Randstad to Deltametropolis," ERSA conference papers ersa02p313, European Regional Science Association.
    14. Davide Piacentino, 2008. "Productivity, Infrastructures and Convergence: Panel Data Evidence on Italian Regions," SCIENZE REGIONALI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2008(2), pages 5-26.
    15. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Vassilis Tselios, 2009. "Mapping Regional Personal Income Distribution in Western Europe: Income Per Capita and Inequality," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 59(1), pages 41-70, January.
    16. Beñat Bilbao‐Osorio & Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose, 2004. "From R&D to Innovation and Economic Growth in the EU," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 434-455, September.
    17. Ioannis Chorianopoulos, 2002. "Urban Restructuring and Governance: North-South Differences in Europe and the EU URBAN Initiative," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 39(4), pages 705-726, April.
    18. Mauro, Luciano, 2004. "The macroeconomics of Italy: a regional perspective," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 26(8-9), pages 927-944, December.
    19. Paul Lewin & Baptiste Gerbier, 2005. "Efectos de la Política de Estado Hondureña sobre la Seguridad Alimentaria," Public Economics 0506014, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Gustavo Gordillo & Rodrigo Wagner, 2004. "Catalysts for regional development: putting territorial coordination in practice," Urban/Regional 0411002, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa06p663. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gunther Maier (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ersa.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.