Plant communities of central Tibetan pastures in the Alpine Steppe/Kobresia pygmaea ecotone

Abstract

Using a panel data model to control for differences in regional technological levels and to take into account endogeneity, we find two key results for the growth of Italian regions.Firstly, we show that the rate of conditional convergence of each region is much higher (from 12% to 18% according to specifications) than that estimated in standard cross-section regressions (2%).Secondly, a large part of productivity gaps across regions cannot be imputed to differences in physical or human capital but it is rather related to relevant differences in Total Factor Productivity (TFP).