INDUSTRIAL CLUSTER ECONOMICS

The aim of the course is to provide students with conceptual and analytical tools to understand why entrepreneurship and firm competitiveness thrive inside specific innovation eco-systems. The main assumption is the idea that the competitivity of the firm increases in relation to the ability to share complex knowledge with other companies, with institutions and within social cooperation networks. In this perspective, an important task is to analyse the role of territorial capital as a source of competitive advantage both for SMEs, and global companies.

Students will develop specific skills in the analysis of different business systems such as industrial districts, technological clusters, and innovation ecosystems. During the course students will be involved in the analysis of real case studies, focusing on the external resources that affect firms' performances and, consequently, on the main policies to improve the industrial commons. Students will get even useful knowledge to asses location strategies of firms and affiliates in international contexts. Attention will be also paid to clusters of firms as an economic model able to integrate institutional and cultural character of the local system with the opening to the global value chains.

Students must have the basic knowledge of microeconomics and industrial economics. Some theoretical concepts will be recalled during the lessons

1. Firm competitiveness and territorial capital: why Industrial Clusters do matter in modern economy
2. Economic externalities and Industrial commons
3. The local determinants of the competitive advantage
4. Polarized regional development: the core-periphery model
5. Specialized Industry location: the Marshallian triad
6. Knowledge economy and the complexity of production spaces
7. Industrial Clusters in Global Value Chains
8. Innovation ecosystems and Industrial Clusters policies

Textbook:
Vicente J., Economics of Clusters. A Brief History of Cluster Theories and Policy, Palgrave, 2016

Integrative readings:
Becattini G., M. Bellandi. L. De Propris, A Handbook of Industrial Districts, Edward Elgar, 2009
Buciuni G., G. Pisano, “Knowledge integrators and the survival of manufacturing clusters”, Journal of Economic Geography (2018) pp. 1–21
Corò G., S. Micelli, “Industrial Districts as Local Innovation Systems”, Review of Economic Conditions in Italy, 2009
De Marchi V., Di Maria E., Gereffi G., Local Clusters in Global Value Chains. Linking Actors and Territories Through Manufacturing and Innovation, Routledge, 2017
Porter, M., “Location, Competition, and Economic Development: Local Clusters in a Global Economy”, The Journal of the Local Economy Policy, 27 (1), 2012

The student can choose bettween a written examination, responding to open questions on the topics of the course, or a research essay on an industrial cluster or a theoretical issue agreed with the professor

Lectures, seminars, case studies, active learning group

English

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Cities, infrastructure and social capital" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development