The Location Determinants of Foreign-Owned Manufacturing Plants in Italy: Preliminary Results

This paper analyses the locational determinants of FDI inflows in Italy. Given the discrete nature of the data (count data), a random- effect negative binomial-regression model is used to test the a priori expectations on the locational determinants of FDI inflows. The results show that the number of new foreign entrants is fostered by the following provincial characteristics: level of infrastructure, demand level, education attainment and prior concentration of manufacturing plants (in particular, of foreign-owned manufacturing plants). The results also confirm that a high labour cost hinders foreign entry.