The manufacturing specializations of the automotive sector in the Atlas of Economic Complexity

Observatory on automotive components in Italy_Research project and didactic activities

Osservatorio sulla componentistica automotive italiana  
Emilia-Romagna Observatory, coordinated by Margherita Russo  |  Department of Economics Marco Biagi , University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

20th February 2017

The design idea

The 2017 edition of the Observatory avails itself of the collaboration of CAPP-DEMB of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, where the project teaching&research project "Le specializzazioni produttive della filiera automotive nell'Atlas of Economic Complexity" [The production specialization of the automotive chain in the Atlas of Economic Complexity] takes place with the class of students of Economia e istituzioni dei distretti industriali.

Launched in 1997, the Observatory on Italian automotive components represents one of the most important studies at national level aimed at monitoring trends, the main evolutionary drivers and the peculiar characteristics of a strategic sector for the Italian production system. The research activity, carried out by ANFIA (Associazione Nazionale Filiera Industria Automobilistica), the Turin Chamber of Commerce and the CAMI (Center for Automotive & Mobility Innovation) of the Ca' Foscari University of Venice-Management Department, is conducted through an online questionnaire for all enetrprises in the automotive supply chain.

In the didactic activity 2016-17 of the course Economics and Institutions of the Industrial Districts, about 40 students will accompany the survey phase, offering support and assistance to businesses in the online compilation of the questionnaire. Each student is assigned a company. The collaboration with students will take place in compliance with the confidentiality of the information released during the interview.

Each company will be able to make questions to the students for possible in-depth studies that will be dealt with in the "open classroom" discussion.

The didactic objective of the project is to promote active learning of the analysis tools learnt during the studies [project data sheet].

For the company that has been assigned to him/her, the student will identify:

(a) the location of the employment areas in which enterprises of the same specialisations are located (analysis of ISTAT data on enterprises, employees, employment areas and employment areas; commentary on the information obtained from Istat)

(b) a selection of the company's products (no fewer than three) for which the student will identify the SITC and HS4 codes. With this information, she/he will examine the relative position of those products in international trade, using the Atlas of Economic Complexity and exploring: 1) treemap (export, import: two years in comparison); 2) world map (export, import: two years in comparison); 3) stacked graph (export, import: 1995-2014); 4) Product & Country space; 5) Product feasibility (complexity vs opportunity gain); 6) ring: analysis of direct and indirect connections in the trade of selected products.

The student will produce a report in which she/he reports the classification codes used and the elaborations identified in ISTAT and Atlas with a brief commentary.

At the end of the course (April 2017), the report will be discussed with the teacher of the course and sent to the company.

The companies participating in the project are invited to the "open classroom",  on 11th April 2017 (from 3.45 pm to 5.45 pm), to discuss some of the results of the students' analysis [Classroom 4, 1st floor, east wing, Viale Berengario 51,41121 Modena, Department of Economics Marco Biagi].

Raffaele Ambroselli, Andrea Bezzecchi, Chiara Bonacorsi, Francesca Calicchia, Giuseppe Corsi, Giulia Di Caprio, Andrea Di Novi, Wafa Fadili, Beatrice Ferri, Lorenzo Forini Preti, Francesca Gilioli, Cristina Iacovavaccio, Manuele Malaguti, Michele Manfredini, Donatella Mauro, Sara Meschieri, Giovanna Miranda, Grazia Musio, Daniele Muzzarelli, Angela Ndriollari, Sara Pagliani, Nia Monique Panganiban, Francesco Prandi, Diana Radi, Matteo Roversi, Lucia Salierno, Marco Schlagenauf, Daria Solovieva, Carmen Beatrice Teodorescu, Enrico Toto, Valentina Vaccari, Alberto Vantaggiato, Claudio Veronesi, Eleonora Zanini, Francesca Zinani participate to the project. 

Jasmine Avitabile collaborates to the project with the curricular internship.

For information on the project, please contact prof. Margherita Russo  margherita.russo@unimore.it [059 2056877]