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Cuccia, Tiziana; Santagata, Walter --- "Collective Property Rights for Economic Development: The Case of the Ceramics Cultural District in Caltagirone, Sicily" [2004] ELECD 118; in Colombatto, Enrico (ed), "The Elgar Companion to the Economics of Property Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004)

Book Title: The Elgar Companion to the Economics of Property Rights

Editor(s): Colombatto, Enrico

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781840649949

Section: Chapter 21

Section Title: Collective Property Rights for Economic Development: The Case of the Ceramics Cultural District in Caltagirone, Sicily

Author(s): Cuccia, Tiziana; Santagata, Walter

Number of pages: 16

Extract:

21 Collective property rights for economic
development: the case of the ceramics
cultural district in Caltagirone, Sicily
Tiziana Cuccia and Walter Santagata*


Introduction
Murano is famous all over the world for its exquisite glassware, created by
designers with great aesthetic taste and refined technological know-how. In
Arezzo, Vicenza and Valenza Po, hundreds of goldsmiths work precious
metals and diamonds using a combination of traditional techniques and orig-
inal creativity: Como's printed silks, Prato's fabrics, Biella's fine wool, and
Faenza's, Albissola's and Caltagirone's artistic ceramics are other examples
of localized production of culture-based goods. This diffused system of local-
ized small firms with a high aesthetic and intellectual content makes Italy the
land of cultural districts par excellence (Santagata 2002a, 2004). Italy, more
than other countries, provides favourable conditions for so many small firms
to flourish, for community cultures to thrive; for the development of the
necessary know-how and conditions to turn an area of craftsmanship into an
industrial cultural district.
The aim of this chapter is to analyse the institutional aspects of the ceram-
ics industry in the cultural district of Caltagirone. As the market of intangibles
goods (ideas, forms and design) develops and expands, protecting intellectual
property becomes a key issue. Therefore public policies supporting the sus-
tainable economic development of localized industry become necessary
(Benghozi and Santagata 2001). From this perspective, we believe that estab-
lishing individual and collective property rights would facilitate entry into the
post-Fordist industrial ...