Italy: Sicily Spatial Productivity Review

Sicily Regional Productivity Review: rigorous analysis for effective policy making.

This review is the result of a collaboration between the Sicilian Federation of Cooperative Banks and the OECD Trento Centre for local development, through its Spatial Productivity Lab. The project is developed in close collaboration with a local scientific committee to ensure strong territorial grounding and policy relevance.

The region of Sicily, Italy, has long faced structural challenges related to low productivity levels, but has been showing signs of revived convergence in recent years. Building on this momentum, the Spatial Productivity Lab at the OECD Trento Centre is coordinating a productivity review for Sicily to support sustained and inclusive productivity growth.

Implementation period: 2026-2027.

The project aims to strengthen and expand the evidence base for effective policy making. Drawing on rigorous empirical analysis and international benchmarking, it seeks to diagnose the structural drivers of Sicily’s persistent productivity gap and to identify realistic pathways for raising productivity, resilience, and living standards over the medium to long term.

The review combines quantitative analysis of productivity levels, growth dynamics, and key drivers -including human capital, firm dynamics, innovation, digitalisation, labour market functioning, and infrastructure - with targeted thematic assessments of priority policy challenges. These may include demographic change, knowledge transfer between universities and firms, adoption of digital and emerging technologies (including generative AI), technical and vocational education pathways, and integration into Mediterranean and global value chains. Sicily’s performance is systematically compared with structurally similar OECD regions that have successfully reversed low productivity trajectories.

For more information, please contact Carlo.Menon@oecd.org and Zuzana.Zavarska@oecd.org.