Abstract

The present essay makes use of the taxonomy of the so-called “archipelagosµ, reshaped starting from Istat’s proposed pattern, and investigates their evolution from 1995 to 2018 in Italy, comparing them with those of Germany, France, and Spain. Acknowledging the existence of such archipelagos (potentially) triggers the shaping of a theoretical model that, if duly developed, may have the same significance in conceptual terms as the Phillips curve in the past. Archipelagos are open and ever-changing sectoral clusters, where traditional vertical integration patterns (of the production process) take root, and (demanddriven) horizontal integration patterns become relevant. The classification of archipelagos, as a percentage of total value added, allows for the weighting of the (specialised) contribution of each and every archipelago by country