Regional Productivity Di®erentials in a Large Italian Firm

This paper documents the existence of striking regional di®erences in the reported behaviour of employees working within the same ̄rm but in di®erent Italian regions. In particular, the frequency of recorded and punished misconduct episodes is signi ̄cantly higher among employees working in the south; migrants moving from the north to the south assimilate completely to the higher rate of misconduct in the receiving region while migrants moving from the south to the north assimilate only partially to the lower misconduct rate in the receiving region. These di®erences can in principle be attributed to discrimination or to individual e®ort. The absence of any evidence of regional discrimination in the process by which misconduct episodes are reported to the personnel o±ce and in terms of careers and earnings suggests that the second explanation is more likely to be true. This conclusion is supported also by the evidence on absenteeism that replicates the ̄ndings on misconduct. The hypothesis of discrimination had to be ̄rst dismissed before the existence of true regional di®erences in individual e®ort could be accepted. Now, the search for the possible ultimate causes of these di®erences comes next in our research