Abstract

This paper provides empirical evidence on the relation between industrial districts, medium-large enterprises and the belonging to the «western comma» territorial macro-area on the one hand, and the technical (in)efficiency on the other hand, by estimating stochastic production frontiers on manufacturing and mechanical engineering sector panel data for the Italian regions over the 2008-2010 period, using ISTAT data. Industrial districts and their evolution are the first analysis to understand for implementing a new productive system. The SMEs productive framework has shown its limits and vulnerabilities in the current global market. To develop and to survive, the industrial district firm has to transform itself into a net-firm, but this could be not sufficient if it is not accompanied by the boost of a "focal-firm" by a medium-large enterprise in order to improve the diffusion of information and knowledge and to internationalize the industrial district. The western comma macro-area, that can exhibit both such components, should be incentivized in promoting this transformation into this new productive framework. The main empirical results seem to confirm the need to follow this trend.