The Impact of Distributive Services on the Productivity Growth: The Case of Italian Industrial Districts
The Impact of Distributive Services on the Productivity Growth: The Case of Italian Industrial Districts

Summary/Abstract: The relationship between tertiary activities and productivity growth has been extensively studied over the past decades. Research has shown that, within tertiary activities, distributive services play a key role in this dynamic. This framework overturns the traditional view of services as unproductive activities, usually responsible for a structural burden that slows down the evolutionary dynamics of the economic system. Given the slow pace with which the process of modernization of services is moving forward, Italy seems to be making an important exception to this general conclusion. It should be noted that empirical research that approached this problem in the past was usually based on data at the national level. Such an approach does not consider the strong heterogeneity that usually exists between territorial clusters within a nation. In order to overcome such limitations, this paper focuses on the impact of distributive services on productivity growth at the local level, using the Italian industrial districts as a unit of analysis. The results show that in industrial districts the growth of the employment share of distributive services is the consequence of a positive integration with the industrial activities. In the industrial districts, in addition, distributive services make a positive contribution to the productivity growth of the whole economy and to the productivity growth of the industrial sector, confirming that no structural burden seems to be at work. On the contrary, non- district manufacturing areas do not show such positive trends, thus confirming the existence of a district effect.

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