Incentivi economici e disincentivi di contesto: Gli investimenti esteri nel Mezzogiorno

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in Italy tends to be concentrated in certain regions. Over the period here examined (2000-2005), eight Northern regions received around 75% of the total FDI inflows, compared to the mere 1% received by the eight regions of Southern Italy. This unbalance in the geographical distribution of foreign investment is easily perceivable on observation of data pertaining to multinational enterprise in Italy. The aim of this article is to examine some location determinants of the FDI inflows into 103 Italian provinces, concentrating, in particular, on the impact of financial incentives, public infrastructure and organized crime. Different estimation methods (OLS, WLS, LAD) have been used to carry out the empirical analysis, resulting principally in a demonstration of the negative effect of criminality on FDI, whereas the presence of infrastructure represents a positive influence and financial incentives do not appear influential on FDI. Our analyses point out how the presence of determining disincentives connected to the socio-economical context –such as the presence of organized crime and the lack of adequate infrastructure – negatively influences the appeal of the Mezzogiorno and, probably, even compromises the effectiveness of policies aiming to attract foreign enterprise to the less developed areas of the country.