Le scelte strategiche degli enti locali nei processi di sviluppo territoriale. Profili teorici ed evidenze empiriche

This work aims to provide evidence of the impact of strategic decisions on local development.

The basic assumption of the research concerns the role that public investments play in economic growth and the attractiveness of the territories, and it assumes that local authority encourages the dynamics of competitiveness and growth of the territories when it orients its strategic stance towards long-term investments. The effect of local public investment on local economic development in Italy, in fact, will be tested empirically as we measure it using several proxies, such as GDP per capita and employment rate.

The paper is organized as follows. At first we provide a review of existing literature. Then we present our research question, which elaborates either on the role of investment in the dynamics of competitiveness and economic development and on the territorial dualism present in Italy in terms of infrastructure. In the next part, then, we will introduce the concept of local public investment under a legal and accounting profile. Finally the research hypothesis will be tested empirically through a multivariate linear regression model using panel data. The article end with an analysis of the results of econometric estimates and policy implications.