In the eleven years 2011-2021, Italy lost over 111 young graduates under 40 to other countries. What makes the Italian regions less attractive? This question gave rise to a new work by the Nord Est Foundation. The comparison with the other available indices and the focus on the attractiveness of young people (which is one of the main research lines of the Nord Est Foundation) led to the construction of an index original of regional attractiveness, and to baptize it RAI (Regional Attractiveness Index). The indicator is calculated on a regional basis and favors a European comparison along the idea that the Foundation has been proposing for some time, using a football comparison, that the Italian regions must play the Champions League, rather than being satisfied with winning the Italian championship. Only in the European league, in fact, are the structural gaps and territorial competitive shortcomings that hold back Italian development fully understood.
How is RAI built?
Research led to selection 26 variables which explain the differences in effective attractiveness of young people. These variables were selected based on five great attractive forces. The first is Enable, that is economic qualification, which is expressed in wealth (per capita GDP and its distribution) and in the ease or difficulty of finding work (various unemployment rates). The second is Attract, and expresses the actual attractiveness (expressed by the presence of people with other nationalities) and the ability to innovate, observed indirectly, as the aim is to attract talent. The third is Grow and consider the innovative potential given by those employed in frontier activities. The fourth is Retain, i.e. retaining people through the recognition of merit, which passes through transparency and is denied by corruption. The fifth and last is Global-Knowlegde-Skills, i.e. the intensity of presence of highly skilled people but also the ease of moving around, which allows those with talent to reduce travel times to reach regions and move around more easily, and the presence of an evolved entrepreneurial culture that patents innovations and creates recognizable and therefore attractive brands.
Each variable was then recalculated so that it assumed a value between zero and one hundred and was assigned a weight calculated with different methodologies.
Which are the most attractive countries?
In the order, Luxembourg (which is a special and insignificant case), Netherlands and Sweden; followed by Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Slovenia and Belgium. Italy is on a lower step and is characterized by a strong dispersion of regional results, which reflects the large gap in the levels of attractiveness of talent between the regions of the North and those of the South, in which the differences in income between the two areas play a relevant role: the low income it is an important factor that pushes people to leave and seek better opportunities elsewhere.
The capital effect
A deeper analysis of the data reveals the capital effect. Many of the more attractive regions host the capital, an area which normally sees a high concentration of economic activity and therefore also of opportunity. This is the case of the already mentioned regions hosting Stockholm and Paris but also of the Área Metropolitana de Lisboa in Portugal, of the Comunidad de Madrid in Spain, of Helsinki-Uusimaa in Finland, of Bratislavský kraj in Slovakia and of Warszawski stołeczny in Poland.
No high-end Italians
Depending on the RAI score, the European regions have been divided into five large groups: the three best, with RAI over 60, Stockholm, Ile-de-France (Paris) and Oberbayern (the German region in which Munich is located); the second band has 23 regions with an RAI between 50 and 60. In neither of the two there is one Italian, but eleven German, three Dutch and two Belgian; the hard core of Europe (from which the UK has excluded itself).
In the third bracket, with RAI between 40 and 50, there are 79 European regions, 11 of which are German, 9 Italian (Lombardy, Veneto, Lazio, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, the Autonomous Province of Trento, Piedmont, Liguria and Umbria in descending order of RAI) and 7 Dutch. In the fourth band (RAI between 30 and 40) there are many regions of France, Spain, Poland and eight from Italy, almost all of the Center-South (Tuscany, Marche, the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, Abruzzo, Molise, Sardinia, Basilicata and Puglia).
In last band here are the remaining four Italian ones: Valle d'Aosta, Campania, Sicily and Calabria.
Where to do more
The distance between the best European regions and the Italian ones in the north-east is significant. Not so much in terms of income level and distribution, which in fact are not far from those of the leading areas. And not even for the quality of the institutions. How much for the low number of graduates compared to the European average, due to the small share of workers employed in creative sectors and of knowledge workers and the lower production of trademarks and patents, the latter effect more of the backwardness of the entrepreneurial culture than of the size of the companies. Also regarding infrastructure and connectivity by land and air Triveneto+Emilia-Romagna lose positions compared to the best European regions.
Therefore, higher education, better mobility infrastructures and more research and patenting and branding are the areas in which it is most urgent to intervene in order to avoid further increasing the gap with the best performing European regions and regain competitiveness and, consequently, the ability to train and retain talent employed in sectors with higher added value. Research, patents and corporate brands directly involve companies and their development policies.
