Politiche regionali per un'industria globale? Riflessioni sul sistema aeropsazio in Puglia

The aim of this paper is to describe the recent evolution of the Apulian aerospace cluster and critically analyze the role of regional industrial policies in a "global" industry. Industrial policy at the regional level shows some shortcomings, and could serve for a second-best solution in the absence of a national strategy in the current Italian framework. We argue that a "normalization" of industrial policy and a clear division of labour between the different government levels is needed in order to avoid erosion of Italy’s comparative advantage in high tech industries characterized by strong market failures.