The performance of Italian Industrial districts in and out of the 2008-2012 crisis

By exploiting firm level balance sheet data from the Cerved database and employment data from the INPS database, we provide a detailed description of the productivity performance of Italian industrial districts firms over the 2003-2017 period. The main structural features of industrial districts are first compared with those of the other types of local labour market areas. The performance of district firms is subsequently analyzed both overall and separately for the firms belonging to the core district industry and the remaining companies. We find evidence of a positive and sizeable district productivity premium, increasing over the period of analysis. However, in order to consolidate their performance, industrial districts had to undergo significant structural changes. Medium-sized and large firms have grown in importance. At the same time, structural adaptation involved the acquisition of a more significant role by firms not operating in the main district industry.