We test whether there is a link between the performance of universities, measured through a concept of efficiency, and the economic development of the regions in which they operate. Indicators of teaching, research, and third mission are considered as outputs. To handle endogeneity problems between the efficiency of universities and economic development, a system generalized method of moments and then an instrumental variable approach are used. Our findings reveal that the presence of efficient universities fosters local economic development. Knowledge spillovers occur to areas that are in close geographical proximity to efficient universities. Results are robust to different estimation strategies.

We test the nexus between local financial development and economic growth upon Italian data highly disaggregated at the territorial level, paying particular attention to the role of local banking market structure. We specify a growth model where a qualitative measure of financial development, bank profit efficiency, is considered in conjunction with a customary quantitative measure of financial development. The model is estimated on panel data over the period 2001 to 2010. The evidence suggests that both indicators of financial development have a significant impact on GDP per worker, especially when considering areas characterized by a larger number of cooperative banks. Results are not much affected by the occurrence of the ongoing recession

Relying upon highly territorially disaggregated data taken at labour market areas, the paper explores the relationship between bank performances and financial stability of the banking system taking into account the role of market concentration. The z‐score is used as financial stability indicator, while the performance of financial intermediaries is measured using a parametric method recently developed (Kumbhakar et al. 2014). The empirical evidence shows a positive relationship between bank performance and financial stability and supports the ‘concentration–stability’ view for non‐cooperative banks only when concentration is measured on the whole sample of banks. Differences in the performance–stability nexus seem to depend more on the type of banks rather than different levels of market concentration. Higher market concentration of cooperative banks affects systemic stability by reducing the z‐scores of non‐cooperative banks, supporting the hypothesis that the presence of non‐profit‐maximizing entities can pull down stability of other financial institutions.

In this article, we test whether economic growth depends on human capital development mainly operating through an upgrading of human capital stock in the area where the universities are located. We specify a growth model where a qualitative measure of human capital development, university efficiency, is considered in conjunction with a customary quantitative measure of human capital development, number of graduates. The model is estimated on panel data over the period 2003 to 2011. The evidence suggests that both indicators of human capital development have a positive and significant impact on gross domestic product per capita. Results also show that knowledge spillovers occur between areas through the geographical proximity to the efficient universities, suggesting that the geography of production is affected. Results hold when robustness checks are performed.

No abstract