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Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) are vital for safeguarding and enhancing foreign investments, pivotal in Global Production Networks (GPNs). This study assesses the impact of BITs on GPNs driven by EU multinational enterprises, with a focus on regions hosting corporate headquarters due to their influence on the local economy. While considering the endogeneity of BITs and their diverse effects on GPN structures, our findings reveal a positive correlation between BITs and GPNs, notably stronger in less globally integrated regions. Additionally, the influence varies based on firms' network role (headquarters or subsidiaries) and the spatial distribution of headquarters. BITs stimulate GPNs in less internationalized regions but have minimal impact in headquarters-rich regions.

This study provides novel insights into the debate concerning the external drivers of productivity at local (NUTS-3) level. In particular, it explores the role played by global production networks, measured through ownership ties among multinational firms and their subsidiaries abroad, in shaping patterns of productivity growth of local economies. Focusing on the Italian experience and using spatial econometrics techniques, the article demonstrates that external relations play a crucial role in sustaining the productivity of Italian provinces, even during periods of severe economic downturns, like the Great Recession. In detail, productivity growth is positively correlated with the Intensity of the networks established by multinational firms and their geographical dispersion.

This article investigates the determinants of FDI at sub-national level. It recognizes that MNEsʻ foreign activities are organized in networks of strongly interconnected, but geographically dispersed affiliates. This implies a different approach to the analysis of the determinants of FDI, which should focus on contextual factors able to stimulate economic relations at distance. Methodologically, we use a gravity-type model and different regression techniques with a new dataset on networks of FDI involving German and Italian regions. We find evidence that technologically proximate regions sharing the same industry profile are more likely to experience positive and large networks driven by MNEs, with weaker evidence related to cultural and institutional proximities, which cannot compensate the negative impact of geographic distance. The distinctive contribution of this paper is to emphasize that local policies to attract FDI are more likely to succeed if addressed to similar regions.

In this paper we analyse the effect of constitutional structures over policy outcomes. In particular, we exploit the heterogeneity in parliamentary systems deriving from the presence and the use of the confidence vote to investigate whether stable and unstable parliamentary systems behave differently in terms of the policies they implement. This finer partition of parliamentary systems allows us to identify effects that are more robust than the ones previously discussed in the literature. We show that the difference between presidential and parliamentary systems documented in previous works is driven by a difference between presidential and stable parliamentary systems. We suggest that possible transmission channels are legislative cohesion and (the absence of) selection.

A large academic consensus exists on the idea that successful innovative processes are geographically bounded within regions. Nevertheless, the ability of regions to capture and re-use external knowledge is also regarded as a fundamental element to sustain and refine the local profile of specialisation and competitiveness. The present article combines these views to investigate the sources of the regional innovation process, by analysing data on Italian regions over the period 2007–2012. We define global networks based on all the local firms identifiable as global ultimate owners and their foreign subsidiaries. Our main results suggest that both the internal specialisation and the regional external linkages can generate indigenous innovation, but the role of the networks varies substantially according to its density, its degree of complementarity with the specialisation profile, its geographical spread and the specific location of the foreign subsidiaries. Our results, then, support a view of the regional innovation as an interactive process whereby valuable knowledge resources are not only generated within the reach of the local economy, but they are also integrated with external inputs. This contrasts with recent anti-globalisation views according to which the increase in the foreign operations of national companies impoverishes the local economy.

A large academic consensus exists on the idea that successful innovative processes are geographically bounded within regions. Nevertheless, the ability of regions to capture and re-use external knowledge is also regarded as a fundamental element to sustain and refine the local profile of specialisation and competitiveness. The present article combines these views to investigate the sources of the regional innovation process, by analysing data on Italian regions over the period 2007-2012. We define regional external networks based on all the foreign subsidiaries of local multinational enterprises identifiable as global ultimate owners. Our main results suggest that both the internal specialisation and the outward networks can generate indigenous innovation, but the role of the networks varies substantially according to its density, its degree of complementarity with the specialisation profile, its geographical spread and the specific location of the foreign subsidiaries. Our results, then, support a view of the regional innovation as an interactive process whereby valuable knowledge resources are not only generated within the reach of the local economy, but they are also integrated with external inputs. This contrasts with recent anti-globalisation views according to which the increase in the foreign operations of national companies impoverishes the local economy. Keywords

The effect of constitutional structures (such as the effect of a presidential vs. a parliamentary system) over policy outcomes has been widely studied in the economic literature. In this paper, we investigate whether stable parliamentary systems and unstable parliamentary systems behave differently in terms of the policy outcomes they implement. We show that accounting for the stability of parliamentary systems generates results that are more robust compared to the previous literature. More precisely, we find that stable parliamentary systems are significantly different both from presidential and from unstable parliamentary ones. Moreover, we show that this result is robust to changes in the set of countries, and to changes in the definition of stability. Finally, we discuss how these results are consistent with the presence of a selection effect in parliamentary systems

Motivated by the need to understand voting behaviour under different electoral rules, Laslier et al. (Eur Union Polit, 16(4):601–615, 2015) have conducted an online experiment, the EuroVotePlus experiment, focusing on the effects of the different rules adopted to elect members of the European parliament on voters’ behaviour. The experiment took place in several European countries in the 3 weeks before the 2014 elections for the European Parliament. This paper focuses on the Italian data. Firstly, we show that the behaviour of Italian respondents is consistent with the empirical findings at the European level. Then, we exploit the change from open list to closed list elections implemented in Italy in 1993 to investigate whether and how preferences over institutions are affected by experience. We find that respondents who voted using the open list system in Italy are more likely to prefer closed list systems, and that the effect is stronger the higher the number of open list elections the respondents have faced

The thesis is intended to shed light on some crucial open questions in the political economy literature. The structure of the work is as follows: Section 1 reviews the literature; Section 2 compares constitutional systems over a set of economic outcomes; Section 3 is a research connecting revolution to voting behaviours. In detail, the aim of the literature review is twofold: it is aimed to provide the theoretical background for the empirical part of the thesis, and it goes over empirical works in the political economy literature so to highlight the novelty of the thesis. In Section 2, the difference in performance between constitutional systems is investigated. The effect of constitutional structures (such as the effect of a presidential vs a parliamentary system) over policy outcomes has been widely studied in the economic literature. This paper accounts for the heterogeneity in parliamentary systems by investigating whether stable and unstable parliamentary systems behave differently in terms of the policy they implement. This distinction of constitutional systems generates results that are more robust compared to the previous literature. More precisely, we find that parliamentary and presidential systems do not systematically differ but it depends on structural characteristics of the former constitutional design. Moreover, we show that this result is robust to changes in the set of countries and to changes in the definition of stability. Finally, we discuss how these results are consistent with the presence of a selection effect in parliamentary systems. Indeed, Section 3 analyses the autocracy-democracy transition focusing on the peculiar case of Tunisia and Egypt in the aftermath of the Arab Spring waves. In particular, the analysis is aimed at connecting revolution to election. In literature, revolutions have been mainly described as collective action problems where people coordinate in order to overthrow a tyrannical political regime. But, participating or n