The paper provides descriptive evidence on the productivity trends of manufacturing firms in Italy's industrial districts from 2003 to 2017, exploiting Cerved and INPS data. The comparison is conducted between companies operating in industrial districts and those established in non-district and non-urban local labour systems, controlling for firm sector, size and geographical area.
Firms located in industrial districts attain higher labour productivity levels and this advantage has increased since 2013. The productivity premium has been wider and more persistent in districts specialized in traditional sectors (fashion, luxury goods and food) and, to a lesser extent, in the mechanical industry. The relative improvement in productivity involved mainly medium-large enterprises and those not operating in the specialization sector of the district.
