La relazione tra imprenditorialità, innovazione e crescita economica: un confronto tra le macroregioni italiane

The Relationship between Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Growth: a Comparison between Italian Macro-Regions. This work is part of the scientific debate on the relationship between innovation and economic growth. In this paper the study of this quite complex and bidirectional relationship has been enhanced by a third factor that is entrepreneurship as a driving force for the development of local economies. Entrepreneurship can play a key role, especially for the regions of Southern Italy marked by significant delays in development than the regions of Central/North. The paper try to launch a reflection on the role of the University in the creation of entrepreneurship through two special innovation ecosystems science and technology parks and research spin-offs. These two analyzes will be preceded by a review of the literature to focus on the concept of entrepreneurship and what are the key factors that influence its genesis and later development. The descriptive analysis will allow you to capture the similarities but above all the differences of the "physical or real" and not "virtual" scientific and technological parks investigating some of their characteristics (focusing on only one sector-field or greater sector diversification, the strengths and weaknesses, the “vocational/endogenous” or “political/exogenous” genesis, the relationship with successfully high-tech districts localized in the same territory, the size of the hosted firms). The empirical analysis (estimation of a “fixed effects” panel) verifies if the research spin-off may have a significant economic impact on the reduction of development gap compared to the objectives / targets set by the Europe 2020 that penalize the South than in the Centre/Northern Italy. In particular the objective placed under observation concerns the R&D activities. As reflected by the indicators related to this objective the South Italy is characterized by a lower competitive ability even in an international context. The results will also be enriched by some final suggestions of policies for the development of successful entrepreneurship.