We analyse the geographical location and the productivity of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) in Italy, using both census data and balance-sheet data at firm level.
We find that KIBS are generally clustered in urban areas where they attain significantly higher labour productivity levels. Urban productivity advantages are found to be strongly associated with the local availability of human capital and with standard proxies for agglomeration economies.
Published in 2020 in: Annals of Regional Science, v. 65, 3, pp. 557-590.
