Spatial networking and firms’ organization. The case of Italy

The literature on business groups played a significant role in the debate over the evolution of Italian industrial districts. The diffusion of business groups in industrial districts resulted in a hierarchization of productive relationships and increased output concentration. This paper focusses on the presence and the characteristics of business groups in industrial districts. We assume that there are particular features of business groups that are specific to district compared to non-district business groups: the former are less diversified, more spatially concentrated and with a higher level of hierarchization. We use a novel dataset on Italian manufacturing groups based on information provided by the AIDA database. The empirical evidence confirms our expectations.