Globalization and endogenous regional growth

Abstract

Globalisation is not a state of the world but an evolutionary process, which entails the increasing planetary integration of markets for goods and services, markets of location sites for economic activities, markets of production factors as technologies and information. Regions are involved in the globalization process to a different extent depending on their structure and specialization. The first aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of a regional dimension in the analysis of globalization trends, and to explore the debate between exogenous and endogenous factors driving economic development, with their relative importance appearing to be different according to the development stage of the economies. The paper also investigates the factors of growth, showing that, after national effects and innovative capabilities, one of the most important aspects is represented by FDI penetration, whose impact is shown to differ according to the source, sector and technological level.