Regional industrial competitiveness: tales of success and failures from European regions

In the aftermath of the Great Recession, European economies have recognised the relevance of industrial sector competitiveness and have taken a wide set of actions to increase it. In this view, the European Commission has introduced a wide set of instruments to relaunch industrial sector competitiveness. Among others, incentive zones present several features which might allow them to become booster of regional competitiveness, by generating spillover effects able to shape the environment where industrial firms operate. Based on these premises, the research aims at assessing if the establishment of incentive zones acts as a booster of regional industrial competitiveness and which contextual factors allow to enhance it. First, we construct a novel metric of regional industrial competitiveness and, subsequently, by using econometric techniques, we evaluate the effectiveness of different typologies of incentive zones in promoting regional industrial competitiveness. The diversification among the different typologies of zones allows to evaluate the effectiveness of each. These results, interpreted together with the contextual factors of the regions in which they are localised, allow to provide useful suggestions to policymakers willing to implement regional industrial policies, by informing them on both the strengths and weakness of these instruments realised in specific regions.