Location and productivity of the italian bank branches: what changes in the last years

How are the physical productivity and the location of italian bank brancheschanged in the last years? The paper estimates an unconditional beta-convergence modelfor provinces and SLLs in the segment 1998-2005. After the verification of statisticallysignificant spatial effects, the beta-convergence model is improved with a spatial lag andspatial error specification. At last, a positive and significant speed of convergence for theproductivity index is obtained among provinces in Italy and Mezzogiorno but not in Centre-North. On the contrary, the bank branches by population show a positive and significantspeed of convergence in all the areas (Italy, Centre-North and Mezzogiorno) among SLLs. Inany case, the spatial models produce (statistically and therefore substantially) betterestimates than classic models