Titolo della tesi: Il legame tra complessità, crescita e disuguaglianze: cosa ci dice l'Economic Complexity Index
Economic Complexity refers to the extent of intricacy present within the network of interactions occurring among the different activities of a country. The Complexity reflects the level of productive knowledge a society is able to deploy. The Economic Complexity Index (ECI) is a measure of such endowment. Namely, the Index measures the sophistication of an economy's productive structure by combining data on the number of products exported by a country (“Diversity”) and the number of countries that export that product (“Ubiquity”). The set of products that a country exports is a good proxy of the level and gamma of knowledge and knowhow available in the economy. It is also a proxy of the social capital level and health of institutions. The present work explores the theoretical framework of the Economic Complexity Index and investigates its possible role in the traditional growth and income inequality analysis. The empirical part of the work, based on a panel of 27 countries of the European Area for 12 years (2007-2018), aims to test two working hypotheses: a positive correlation between ECI and economic growth and a negative correlation between ECI and income inequality. The results corroborate the hypotheses and provide sounding evidence on the relevant role played by ECI to extend traditional growth and inequality models.