Productivity and structural reforms : evidence on the Italian economy

This paper aims at contributing to the debate on the determinants of differentials in firms’ productivity. The case of Italy looks particularly interesting, since it is characterized by a substantial and long-lasting productivity gap of industrial firms located in the Southern regions with respect to the rest of the country. We test the hypothesis that the macro factors, particularly the quality of institutions, play a central role in explaining Italian firms’ productivity. Consistent with previous studies, our results show that institutional quality is one of the basic determinants of the observed TFP differentials across firms located in different Italian regions