Trade and change: A meso perspective from four Italian provinces

We investigate the evolution of the economy of the four provinces of the Marche regionusing information derived from international trade flows. Although mainly descriptive, theanalysis reveals several aspects on the changes of their economic structure associated toeconomic growth. We first compare the Marche provinces’ features to the ones of otherItalian provinces; this evidences a loss of export shares, but also an intensity of structuralchange in line with that of the Italian provinces and a positive evolution in terms of thecomplexity/sophistication of the goods produced. Nevertheless, a comparison with thedynamics of several international emerging and dynamic economies reveals that the pace ofevolution in the Marche region is for some aspects slower than what is probably possible.