1 Cluster Absorptive Capacity: a comparative study between Chile and Italy Paper to be presented at the conference in honour of Keith Pavitt: ‘What Do We Know About Innovation?’ Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, 13-15 November 2003 Elisa Giuliani* PhD Student SPRU, University of Sussex and Dipartimento di Economia Aziendale, University of Pisa E.Giuliani@sussex.ac.uk Giulel@ec.unipi.it (First Draft) Key words: Clusters, absorptive capacity, social network analysis, patterns of localised learning JEL Classification: O14, O30, L20 * The author would like to thank Martin Bell and Nick von Tunzelmann for helpful comments on a previous version of this paper. Many thanks go also to Erica Nardi, Christian Diaz Bravo and Marcelo Lorca Navarro and to the participants of the “Serie dei Seminari dei Dottorandi e Giovani Ricercatori” held on the at the Faculty of Economics in Pisa. Financial support from EU (Marie Curie Fellowship), ESRC and Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research is gratefully acknowledged.