Access to capital markets and the geography of productivity leaders and laggards

Abstract

This paper examines whether access to the capital market of convertible and nonconvertible bonds affects total factor productivity (TFP) for the population of Italian joint stock manufacturing companies, based in highly segmented local financial markets, between 2007 and 2017. The hypothesis, well grounded in the literature, is that longterm capital favors investment in intangibles and other risky assets necessary for productivity growth. To identify this