The aim of this article is to analyze the subnational spread of COVID‐19 in Italy using an economic geography perspective. The striking spatial unevenness of COVID‐19 suggests that the infection has hit economic core locations harder, and this raises questions about whether, and how, the subnational geography of the disease is connected to the economic base of localities. We provide some first evidence consistent with the possibility that the local specialization in geographically concentrated economic activities acts as a vehicle of disease transmission. This could generate a core‐periphery pattern in the spatiality of COVID‐19, which might follow the lines of the local economic landscape and the tradability of its outputs.

This article investigates how the location behavior of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) is shaped by the economic institutions of the host countries. The analysis covers a wide set of geographically proximate economies with different degrees of integration with the 'Old' 15 European Union (EU) members: New Member States, Accession and Candidate Countries, as well as European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) countries and the Russian Federation. The article aims to shed new light on the heterogeneity of MNE preferences for the host countries' regulatory settings (including labor market and business regulation), legal aspects (i.e. protection of property rights and contract enforcement) and the weight of the government in the economy. By employing data on 6,888 greenfield investment projects, the random-coefficient Mixed Logit analysis shows that, while the quality of the national institutional framework is generally beneficial for the attraction of foreign investment, MNEs preferences over economic institutions are highly heterogeneous across sectors and business functions. JEL Classification: F23, P33, L20, R30.

A large academic consensus exists on the idea that successful innovative processes are geographically bounded within regions. Nevertheless, the ability of regions to capture and re-use external knowledge is also regarded as a fundamental element to sustain and refine the local profile of specialisation and competitiveness. The present article combines these views to investigate the sources of the regional innovation process, by analysing data on Italian regions over the period 2007-2012. We define regional external networks based on all the foreign subsidiaries of local multinational enterprises identifiable as global ultimate owners. Our main results suggest that both the internal specialisation and the outward networks can generate indigenous innovation, but the role of the networks varies substantially according to its density, its degree of complementarity with the specialisation profile, its geographical spread and the specific location of the foreign subsidiaries. Our results, then, support a view of the regional innovation as an interactive process whereby valuable knowledge resources are not only generated within the reach of the local economy, but they are also integrated with external inputs. This contrasts with recent anti-globalisation views according to which the increase in the foreign operations of national companies impoverishes the local economy.

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