Abstract

In the recent literature, industrial parks have emerged as a potentially very important policy tool, which favours industrial development through the provision of services, consolidation of the industrial atmosphere, infrastructure and logistics, etc. In Italy, the equivalent of industrial parks are the so-called «consorzi industriali»: entities promoted by local authorities with the aim of providing convenient locations for manufacturing premises and providing infrastructure and other collective services. Our study exploits an unprecedented database, built through geo-referentiation of industrial premises which allows to distinguish those that are located in areas served by consortia. Therefore it is possible to compare the performance of the firms located in industrial parks with that of other firms at the national and regional scale. Our study suggests that this impact exists, but is very moderate; we try to interpret this result with the aim of providing insights useful for policy reform.