Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Domini, Giacomo
Author-Email: domino@merit.unu.edu 
Author-workplace-name: UNU-MERIT, and Department of Economics and Statistics,
	 University of Siena
Title: The innovation-trade nexus: Italy in historical perspective (1861-1939)
Abstract: This work investigates the relationship between trade and technological 
 specialisation in Italy, during the long time span ranging from 
 Unification to the eve of the Second World War. To do this, new series 
 of Italy's indices of specialisation in trade and technology are 
 calculated on the base of offcial data. Empirical analysis, based on 
 Spearman rank correlation coefficients and fixed-effects regression, shows 
 the emergence of a positive relationship between specialisation in 
 technology and specialisation in trade after the start of the country's 
 modern economic growth, around the turn of the twentieth century. This, 
 however, was uniquely driven by a negative relationship between 
 technological specialisation and import shares, while no significant 
 relationship between the former and export shares emerges. Furthermore, 
 this finding excludes the most important sector, leading Italian 
 industrialisation, i.e. textiles, the outstanding performance of which 
 can be seen as largely determined by its being particularly suited to 
 the country's factor endowment.
Keywords: innovation, industrial specialization, trade, import-export,
	 economic history, Italy, specialisation, comparative advantage  
Classification-JEL: N73, N74, O14, O33
Series: UNU-MERIT Working Papers
Creation-Date: 20151210
Number: 2015-055
File-URL: https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2015/wp2015-055.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 275 kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2015055