Sui benefici della rispecializzazione dei distretti industriali nei "macchinari del made in Italy"

Since several years, a better performance can be observed in the machinery and equipment sector of the Italian production system compared to other sectors. Many authors and observers have wondered whether Italian economy is re-specializing in machinery and equipment devoted to produce typical Italian products, the so called “made in Italy” ones. This paper tackles the issue of assessing whether (and in this case to what extent) Italian re-specialization in machinery and equipment is giving rise to better employment performances and to an increase in the average firm size. The analyses, carried out on the industrial districts belonging to the four main sectors of Italian specialization, namely food-and-beverages, textile-andclothing, leather-and-shoes and furniture, shows that in the 1991-2001 decade respecialization has taken place at a slow pace. Considering the total of the four above mentioned sectors, the ratio between employees of firms machinery and equipment and the total number of employees has increased from 4.02 to 4.24%. Although slow, the re-specialization has contributed to raise the average firm size, or at least to hinder its decrease. Estimates report that 4% of the firms operating in the four typical Italian industrial districts have re-specialized in the machinery and equipment sector, raising the average firm size by about 5%. Furthermore, caeteris paribus, a 1% increase in the share of employees in the machinery and equipment sector would determine an increase of 0.08 units of employees in the average firm size. Finally, a re-specialized district on average is found to benefit from a 1.73% increase of the employment.