摘要：During the 1990s the link between specialisation and/or variety of the production structure and long-run local development has been widely studied both at theoretical and empirical level. Following this research line, the aim of this paper is twofold. First of all, we analyse, by means of transition matrices, the evolution of the model of specialisation/variety of manufacturing industries at regional level in Italy during the twentieth century. Secondly, we investigate, from an econometric point of view, the potential impact of specialisation and/or of variety on the different growth rates of manufacturing employment of the Italian regions during the period 1927-91. In order to carry out this kind of empirical investigation, we have built up a new and original historical data set which, using statistical information drawn from the Italian Industrial Census carried out from 1911 to 1991, provides data on the number of employees for 15 manufacturing industries and for 18 regions. JEL Codes: R12, L60, R11, R23 Keywords: Manufacturing, Regional Development, Regional
