Article
Reference
Inward FDI and local innovative performance. An empirical investigation on Italian provinces
ASCANI, Andrea, GAGLIARDI, Luisa
ASCANI, Andrea, GAGLIARDI, Luisa. Inward FDI and local innovative performance. An
empirical investigation on Italian provinces. Review of Regional Research , 2015, vol. 35, no.
1, p. 29-47
DOI : 10.1007/s10037-014-0084-2
Available at:
http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:91798
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Received: 11 December 2013 / Accepted: 15 April 2014 / Published online: 13 May 2014
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
L. Gagliardi ( ) · A. Ascani
Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics (LSE), Houghton Street,
WC2A 2AE London, UK e-mail: l.gagliardi@lse.ac.uk L. Gagliardi
Centre for Regional Economics, Transports and Tourism (CERTeT), Bocconi University, Milano, Italy
Inward FDI and local innovative performance.
An empirical investigation on Italian provinces
Andrea Ascani · Luisa Gagliardi
Rev Reg Res (2015) 35:29–47 DOI 10.1007/s10037-014-0084-2
Abstract Do knowledge externalities from FDI foster local innovative perfor- mance? Employing manufacturing data for the period 2001–2006 this paper in- vestigates the impact of inward FDI on the generation of innovation. Adopting a Knowledge Production Function approach (KPF), we find that in the case of Italian provinces the presence of foreign investment is beneficial for the innovative per- formance of recipient economies. These results are robust to a number of checks adding new evidence to the literature on FDI impact. In terms of policy consider- ation, this implies that a structured policy for the attraction of external capital might channel external sources of knowledge to complement local capabilities.
Keywords Technological change · Foreign direct investment · Regional development · Globalization
JEL Codes O3 · F23 · R11 · F63
1 Introduction
In the current wave of globalisation of the world economy it is widely acknowledged that foreign direct investment (FDI) plays a growing and primary role (WTO 1996;
Dicken 2007). UNCTAD (2012) shows that the volume of FDI has dramatically risen
