This work is made up of three pieces of research and is meant to be a contribution on several aspects of the new theories of trade, location and growth and on the interaction among these

The aim of the first chapter (endogenous regional policy and agglomeration) is to develop a theoretical understanding of the political economy forces affecting the allocation of subsidies to rural communities in reaction to tighter trade integration when agglomeration forces are important

The second one (empirical evidence on non-linearity in openness and growth links) focuses on the non-monotonic link between trade and growth both from the theoretical and the empirical point of view

The last one (agglomeration and economic growth: some puzzles) aims at empirically investigate the relationship between economic growth and geographic agglomeration of industry, with the ultimate goal of helping the understanding of the consequences of regional and infrastructure policies affecting the spatial allocation of economic activity