italy sgrowthanddecline,1861 2011 - facoltà di economia and... · italy’sgrowthanddecline,1861...

Emanuele Felice and Giovanni Vecchi

Italy’sGrowth andDecline, 1861–2011 Throughout thecourse of its history, Italy has undergone several ages of prosperityand decline. In ancient times, Rome was the most advanced countryof the world. According to Maddison, at the time of the EmperorAugustus’ death (14 A.D.), the Italian peninsula was (by far) the richestRoman province of the Mediterranean basin. Although Maddison’sreconstruction of gross domestic product (GDP) during the ancientRoman period is clearly adventurous from a methodological stand-point, the evidence from ancient sources corroborates Maddison’sfindings; most scholars acknowledge Italy’s primacy by the apex ofthe Roman Empire. Conversely, the subsequent centuries were bleak,characterized by long swings of economic depression. Signs of recov-ery are not in evidence until the tenth century.1

For the Middle Ages and the early modern period, the GDP esti-mates produced by other economic historians are equally uncertain.The earliest long-run series for per capita GDP of the Italian peninsuladate back to 1300. They show that by the early 1300s, Italy had re-turned to a leading role, at least in the European context. Accordingto Cipolla’s thesis, the Italian economy of the early Middle Ages had

Emanuele Felice is Visiting Professor of Economic History, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.He is the author of Perché il Sud è rimasto indietro (Bologna, 2013);Divari regionali e intervento pubblico:Per una rilettura dello sviluppo in Italia (Bologna, 2007).

Giovanni Vecchi is Associate Professor of Economics, Università di Roma, “Tor Vergata.”He is the author of In ricchezza e in povertà: Il benessere degli italiani dall’Unità a oggi (Bologna, 2011);with Andrea Brandolini, “Standards of Living,” in Gianni Toniolo (ed.), The Oxford Handbook ofItaly and the World Economy since Unification (New York, 2013), 227–248.

The authors thank Alessandro Brunetti and Michelangelo Vasta for data and advice andAlessandro Nuvolari and Gianni Toniolo for helpful discussions. All remaining errors are theauthors’ responsibility. Emanuele Felice gratefully acknowledges financial support from theSpanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, project HAR2013-47182-C02-01, andthe Generalitat de Catalunya, project 2014 SGR 591.

© 2015 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of InterdisciplinaryHistory, Inc., doi:10.1162/JINH_a_00757

1 Angus Maddison,Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History(New York, 2007); Frank Tenney, An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome. V. Rome and Italy of theEmpire (Paterson, 1959); Richard Duncan-Jones, The Economy of the Roman Empire: QuantitativeStudies (New York, 1982); Raymond W. Goldsmith, Premodern Financial Systems: A HistoricalComparative Study (Cambridge, 1987), 55–58; Elio Lo Cascio and Paolo Malanima, “Cyclesand Stability: Italian Population before the Demographic Transition,” Rivista di Storia Economica,III (2005), 204–205.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XLV:4 (Spring, 2015), 507–548.

a mastery of the most advanced technology of the times. With theadvent of the modern age—after, say, 1500—the overall GDP of theItalian economy started to rise, but it was accompanied by an evengreater increase in the population, resulting in a slow decline inper-capita income. Despite an overall downward trend, Italy rankedamong the most advanced countries until the mid-1700s when the gapbetween it and other Western European countries began to grow:“Things changed after 1750. For more than a century, with very shortinterruptions, the Italian economy experienced a decline which wasat once absolute and relative.”2

At the time of its political unification (1861), Italy was a relativelybackward country, located on the European “periphery.” Yet, afteran impressive revival, which took place mostly during the second halfof the twentieth century, Italy managed to reach the “center” of theworld economy. Statistics from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show that in GDP per person atmarket exchange rates, Italy temporarily overtook Great Britain in1987; Maddison found that in GDP per person at purchasing powerparity (PPP, 1990 international Geary-Khamis dollars), Italy overtookGreat Britain in 1991. In the recent past, however, Italy’s economicperformance has been disappointing, by any standards. Since the early1990s, economic growth has come to a halt; most socioeconomic indi-cators reveal the country to be sliding down the chart, suggesting tomany that a new phase of economic decline might well be underway.3

Scholars disagree about interpretations of Italy’s economic per-formance not only during the entire post-unification history but alsoduring specific periods. Fenoaltea called the years from unificationuntil World War I a “failure,” whereas Federico termed the yearsfrom unification until World War II a “little-known success story.”Zamagni expressed a generally optimistic view in The Economic History

2 Malanima, “Measuring the Italian Economy 1300–1861,” Rivista di Storia Economica, III(2003), 265–295; Carlo Maria Cipolla, “Note sulla storia del saggio d’interesse, corso dividendie sconto dei dividendi del Banco di S. Giorgio nel Sec. XVI,” Economia Internazionale, II (1952),255–274; Malanima, “The Long Decline of a Leading Economy: GDP in Central and NorthernItaly, 1300–1913,” European Review of Economic History, II (2011), 169–219; idem, “When DidEnglandOvertake Italy? Medieval and EarlyModern Divergence in Prices andWages,” EuropeanReview of Economic History, I (2013), 45–70; idem, “Alle origini della crescita in Italia 1820–1913,”Rivista di Storia Economica, III (2006), 306–330. For the quotation, see idem, “An Age of Decline:Product and Income in Eighteenth–Century Italy,” Rivista Historia Economica, II (2006), 111.3 Maddison, “Historical Statistics of the World Economy: 1–2008 AD” (2010), available athttp://www.ggdc.net/maddison/content.shtml (accessed October 6, 2013).

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of Italy (1861–1990), in disagreement with Ciocca’s more pessimisticRicchi per sempre?1796–2005 (Wealthy Forever?). Di Martino and Vastaargued, “Italy never really converged towards the technologicalfrontier and never left the semi-periphery of the world economy,”in stark contrast to Toniolo’s opening chapter of The Oxford Handbookof the Italian Economy since Unification, which tells of a long convergence(1896–1992) and two briefer periods of divergence (1870–1896 and1992–2010). In spite of the disappointing performance of the lasttwo decades, Toniolo’s interpretation is not a pessimistic one. His“divergence” is not to be construed as “decline”; he places Italy’s“diminished social capacity for growth” in the context of otherEuropean countries that struggled to adapt to the challenges of thesecond globalization era.4

This article documents the historical trajectory of Italy’s mod-ern economic growth, taking advantage of the last generation oflong-run statistics made available by Italy’s recent 150th birthday,updated with the latest historical estimates of industrial produc-tion and regional accounts. The focus is on GDP, for the countryas a whole and for its administrative regions, covering the periodfrom Italy’s unification to the present day. How and to whatextent has Italy succeeded in reaching the standards of the mostadvanced economies? How serious is the prospect of Italy’s economicdecline?

To diagnose whether a country is declining is a difficult andambitious task. The first difficulty is to determine an adequatedefinition of economic decline. At this point, the term has many differ-ent meanings. A useful distinction is between an absolute decline (acountry’s inability to maintain the level of well-being achieved inthe past) and relative decline (its inability to keep pace with the most

4 Stefano Fenoaltea, “Lo sviluppo economico dell’Italia nel lungo periodo: riflessioni su trefallimenti,” in Pierluigi Ciocca and Gianni Toniolo (eds.), Storia economica d’Italia. I. Interpretazioni(Rome, 1998), 3–41; idem, “I due fallimenti della storia economica: il periodo post-unitario,”Rivistadi Politica Economica, III–IV (2007), 341–358;Giovanni Federico, “Italy, 1860–1940:ALittle-KnownSuccess Story,” Economic History Review, IV (1996), 764–786; Vera Zamagni, Dalla periferia al centro:La seconda rinascita economica dell’Italia (1861–1990) (Bologna, 1993; orig. pub. 1990, though inclusiveonly until 1981); Ciocca, Ricchi per sempre? Una storia economica d’Italia (1796–2005) (Turin, 2007);PaoloDiMartino andMichelangeloVasta, “Happy 150th birthday Italy? Institutions and EconomicPerformance since 1861,”Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia Politica e Statistica, Università di Siena,no. 662 (2012), available at http://www.econ-pol.unisi.it/dipartimento/it/node/1729; Toniolo,“An Overview of Italy’s Economic Growth,” in idem (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the ItalianEconomy since Unification (New York, 2013), 29, 35.

ITALY ’S GROWTH AND DECLINE | 509

dynamic economies and to hold steady in the international rankingof prosperity, although not experiencing any actual worsening ofliving conditions). The second difficulty attends the fact that declineis slow and hardly perceptible, becoming a political and social prob-lem only when the cost of ignoring the results becomes unbearablefor a governing elite (sometimes due to such shocks as wars, revolu-tions, and financial crises). Decline often occurs when an old produc-tion model fails to cover new circumstances, especially if this modelwas highly successful in the past.5

Neither economists nor economic historians have developed aunified conceptual framework to analyze economic decline. More-over, the multidimensional nature of decline adds to the complexityof measurement exercises. The strategy in this article is to rely onGDP as the main tool for analyzing economic decline. Despite itsshortcomings, GDP remains the single best way to describe the per-formance of a market economy, like that of Italy throughout theperiod under consideration. If the value of GDP equals a country’soverall income, and GDP per person the average income of that coun-try, GDP per person might appear to be a good proxy measure of(average) well-being (no matter how theoretically inappropriate thisline of argument is). Furthermore, GDP per worker can be interpretedas a measure of productivity, the increase in which ultimately deter-mines the sustained income rise observed during the process ofmodern economic growth. As we will see, the differences betweenGDP per capita and GDP per worker can provide useful insights intothe determinants of convergence and divergence—the characteristicsand causes of economic growth, or the lack of it.6

Hence, GDP is the prime indicator in comparisons betweenthe economies of the present as well as of the past (at least as far backas the onset of the Industrial Revolution). Economic historianshave devoted many efforts to the art of reconstructing GDP timeseries, and Italy can be proud of its long tradition in this field. Oneof the main limitations in these attempts—the lack of subnationalseries of GDP—has been remedied by a number of recent studies.Time seems to be ripe for re-assessing the long-run dynamics ofItaly’s economic progress.

5 Toniolo, L’Italia verso il declino economico? in idem and Vincenzo Visco (eds.), Il declino economicodell’Italia: Cause e rimedi (Milano, 2004), 9–10.6 François Lequiller and Derek Blades, Understanding National Accounts (Paris, 2006).


LESSONS FROM NEW LONG-RUN ESTIMATES OF GDP Thanks to thereconstruction published by the Italian national statistics agency(ISTAT) in 1957, Italy was one of the first countries to create itsown historical series for GDP, though the results of this pioneeringwork were not entirely successful. Italy’s first series of GDP, run-ning from 1861 to 1955, had serious inconsistencies, which sub-sequent revisions did not fully remedy. The main criticism isthat these official statistical series were never accompanied by anadequate description of methods and sources; without these ele-ments it is difficult—if not impossible—to evaluate the quality ofthe data. Hence, the consensus of the scientific community wasthat Italy’s “first generation” time series did not meet internationalstandards.7

In the following decades, the reconstruction of the historicalseries of Italian GDP intensified; new estimates of the same variablehave been published at an average rate of one every four years.Nonetheless, the scholars entrusted with producing the historicalseries of national accounting were not able to devise a consistenthistorical time series for the entire post-unification period. Not untilthe 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification, celebrated in 2011, did aproject coordinated by the Bank of Italy (in cooperation with ISTAT

and Rome’s “Tor Vergata” University) manage to publish a com-plete reconstruction of the national accounts. The study did notjust connect all of the existing series; it also incorporated the resultsof new studies for uncovered sectors and periods, thereby yieldinghistorical series covering the entire 150-year history of united Italy.This work has recently been updated, filling the last gap in the re-construction of industrial GDP. Furthermore, by taking advantage ofnew data about the Italian labor force, we are now also able to discuss

7 ISTAT (Istituto centrale di statistica), Studi sul reddito nazionale (Rome, 1950); idem, “Indaginestatistica sullo sviluppo del reddito nazionale dell’Italia dal 1861 al 1956,” Annali di statistica, IX(1957); idem, Sommario di statistiche storiche italiane 1861–1955 (Rome, 1958). The system of nationalaccounting was introduced in Italy in the aftermath of World War II, shortly after “the govern-ments of Britain, Canada and the United States had started to use it, during the war, in order toassess compatibility between aims and resources.” See Gian Carlo Falco, La contabilità nazionaleitaliana (1890–1995), in Claudio Pavone (ed.), Storia d’Italia nel secolo ventesimo: strumenti e fonti(Rome, 2006), I, 377; Andre Vanoli, A History of National Accounting (Amsterdam, 2005). Forthe early GDP series compiled in the 1960s, see Giorgio Fuà (ed.), Lo sviluppo economico in Italia.III. Studi di settore e documentazione di base (Milan, 1968); for criticism, Fenoaltea, “Notes on theRate of Industrial Growth in Italy, 1861–1913,” Journal of Economic History, III (2003), 695–735.For the consensus view of the first-generation time series, see Jon S. Cohen and Federico,The Growth of the Italian Economy, 1820–1960 (New York, 2001), 8–9.


the new series of Italy’s GDP per worker (productivity), as a total andby sector of activity.8

The yearly series of Italy’s GDP per head and per worker, runningfrom 1861 to 2011 at constant prices, are presented in Appendix II.

8 Many of the previous estimates were variations on those published by ISTAT in 1957: Vecchi,“Il benessere dell’Italia liberale (1861–1913),” inCiocca andToniolo (eds.), Storia economica d’Italia.III. Industrie, mercati, istituzioni. I. Le strutture dell’economia (Rome, 2003), 71–98. For the new es-timates, see Alberto Baffigi, “National Accounts, 1861–2011,” in Toniolo (ed.),Oxford Handbook,157–186; Alessandro Brunetti, Felice, and Vecchi, “Reddito,” in Vecchi (ed.), In ricchezza e inpovertà: Il benessere degli italiani dall’Unità a oggi (Bologna, 2011), 209–234. For the years 1938 to1951, see Felice and Albert Carreras, “When DidModernization Begin? Italy’s Industrial GrowthReconsidered in Light of New Value-Added Series, 1911–1951,” Explorations in Economic History,IV (2012), 443–460. For productivity, see StephenN.Broadberry,ClaireGiordano, and FrancescoZollino, “Productivity,” in Toniolo (ed.), Oxford Handbook, 187–226. GDP per hour worked, analternativemeasure of productivity, could not be calculated due to lack of suitable data: SeeAndreaBrandolini and Vecchi, “Standards of Living,” in Toniolo (ed.), Oxford Handbook, 227–248;Michael Huberman, “Working Hours of the World Unite? New International Evidence ofWorktime, 1870–1913,” Journal of Economic History, IV (2004), 964–1001.

Fig. 1 Italy’s Per Capita GDP, 1300–2011

NOTE For the years 1300 to 1861, the series refers to Northern Italy; for 1861 to 2011, thegraph uses the new series.SOURCES Paolo Malanima, “Measuring the Italian Economy 1300–1861,” Rivista di StoriaEconomica, III (2003), 265–295; our series presented in Appendix II.


Figure 1, however, has an even more ambitious goal: By supple-menting Malanima’s reconstruction with the new estimates of theperiod from 1861 to 2011, it displays the long-run evolution of Italy’sper capita GDP from the late Middle Ages to our time. The contrastwith the period of pre-unification highlights a defining character-istic of modern economic growth, its sustained increase in GDP percapita. Figure 1 also shows the distinctive feature of a pre-industrialeconomy, such as that of medieval and Renaissance Italy—thecenturies-long stagnation of per-capita GDP. Note, however, thatthe graph’s scale hides the frequency as much as the intensity ofthe annual variations during that period: Even though at that time,Italy was a leading economy, famines were recurring, even withinthe same generation, with disastrous consequences for the popula-tion’s standard of living, regardless of the cycles around the same,flat trend.9

At the close of the 1700s, Italy did not participate in the firstIndustrial Revolution because it could not adopt British steam tech-nology and construct a railway system. Hence, the GDP trend forthis period in the figure shows a smooth continuation of the past.The curve starts to rise during the last decades of the nineteenthcentury, the start of the second Industrial Revolution, which wasbased on electricity, oil, and chemicals. At this epochal juncture, Italybegan the process of “modern economic development,” as describedby Kuznets: Rural backward Italy embarked on a deep transforma-tion that would eventually change its features, on both qualitativeand quantitative levels, and turn it into an advanced economy withinthe space of a century or so.10

When measured in absolute terms, and over the long run, theincrease in GDP per head in the century and a half from unificationuntil the present day is remarkable. On average, Italians today earnthirteen times more than their ancestors did at the time of unifica-tion. Figure 1 also shows that the most impressive progress in GDP perhead is a recent phenomenon, largely occurring in the latter halfof the twentieth century. Since World War II, per capita GDP has in-creased more than sevenfold; in the previous 100 years or so (1861 to

9 Malanima, “Measuring the Italian Economy”; Massimo Livi Bacci, Population and Nutrition:An Essay on European Demographic History (New York, 1991); Cormac Ó Gráda, Famine: A ShortHistory (Princeton, 2009).10 Robert C. Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective (New York, 2009);Simon Kuznets, Modern Economic Growth: Rate, Structure and Spread (New Haven, 1966).


1951), it had little more than doubled. The income of the Italiansmade a long leap in a short time.11

Most of the action in Figure 1 takes place in the late nine-teenth century. For post-unification Italy, the nonlinear natureof the growth can best be grasped by looking at the rate at whichGDP increased (or decreased) in the main periods of Italy’s post-unification history (Table 1). The main “facts” emerging fromthe Table are capable of schematic analysis by period.

Table 1 The Changeable Growth Rate of Italy’s GDP

GDP/PERSON

AVERAGE ANNUAL

VARIATION (%)

YEARS NECESSARY

FOR GDP PER

PERSON TO DOUBLE

GDP/WORKER

AVERAGE ANNUAL

VARIATION (%)

(1) (2) (3)

Pre-unification Italy(1300–1860)

−0.06 −1,167 n.a.

Italy in the Liberalperiod (1861–1913)

0.91 77 0.89

1861–1881 0.61 115 0.261881–1901 0.71 99 1.151901–1913 1.73 40 1.53

Fascist Italy(1922–1938)

1.46 48 1.65

1922–1929 3.12 22 3.091929–1938 0.19 372 0.54

Republican Italy(1948–2011)

3.10 23 2.78

1948–1973 5.51 13 4.961973–1992 2.51 28 1.921992–2002 1.56 45 1.322002–2011 −0.48 −146 0.25

Italy 150 years on(1861–2011)

1.74 40 1.58

NOTE Column (2) shows the number of years needed for per capita GDP to double, assumingthat it changes at the average rate given in column 1; the negative values are interpreted as thenumber of years necessary for per capita GDP to halve.

11 Toniolo andVecchi,Nel secolo breve il lungo balzo del benessere degli italiani, in Luca Paolazzi (ed.),Libertà e benessere in Italia: 150 anni di storia unitaria e i traguardi del futuro (Rome, 2010), 15–59.


1861 to 1901 The first two generations of Italians in post-unification Italy did not experience high growth rates in per capitaGDP. Indeed, the rate at which GDP increased during the first fourdecades of the new Kingdom of Italy (0.6 to 0.7 percent per year)would have required at least a century to double. The politicalunification of the country did not lead to any “take-off ” with re-gard to the average income of its citizens but to a slow and gradualincrease. Productivity, however, strongly increased during the sec-ond half of the period, anticipating the momentous change in GDP

per head that was about to come at the dawning of the twentiethcentury.12

1901 to 1913 The years of the so-called “Giolitti age,”GiovanniGiolitti being prime minister from 1903 to 1914, saw an accelerationin GDP: Compared to the previous two decades, the economic growthrate more than doubled (1.7 percent per year in per capita terms).World War I marked a sharp break in this favorable period, butgrowth resumed rapidly again in the aftermath of the Treaty ofVersailles.13

1922 to 1938 The new estimates describe the interwar periodas the combination of two decades that differed vastly from oneanother. The 1930s were as bleak (average per capita GDP growthrate was +0.2 percent) as the 1920s were rosy (+3.1 percent); differ-ences in productivity were only slightly less pronounced and negli-gible on the whole.

1948 to 2011 The republican period shows three well-knownfeatures: (1) from 1948 to 1973, Italy advanced at an unprecedentedrate—+5.5 percent per year in per capita terms—not since matched;(2) from 1973 to 1992, the rate decreased conspicuously; and (3) from2002 to 2011, per capita GDP actually fell by 0.5 percent per yearwhile the growth rate of productivity slowed but remained slightlypositive.

12 Toniolo, “Overview,” 3–36, gives two reasons for the deadlock of this period. First, in threeparts, was the sluggishness of (1) the process for creating a single national market (political,administrative, and economic unification), (2) the slow formation of an adequate human capitalstock (schooling of the population was difficult), and (3) the establishment of the new legal institu-tions (from the single currency to the approval of the commercial and administrative codes). Secondwas the succession of external shocks (two wars of independence and the problem of banditry inthe south of the country) and policy mistakes with regard to trade and monetary matters.13 Growth actually began in 1898. The yearly growth rate for the years 1898 to 1913 is1.75. Also, the previous decades were marked by significant cyclical movements (as discussedbelow), which did not change the overall picture. The growth rate for the years 1876 to 1898is 0.76 and for the years 1876 to 1888, 1.18.


ITALY AS AN OPEN ECONOMY Nations do not live in isolation; Italy’sperformance must be assessed relative to that of other countries.Thanks to the availability of new long-term statistical series, wecan track Italy’s participation in the international economy withgreater accuracy. The evolution of Italy’s openness to internationaltrade is shown in Figure 2, using the ratio of the sum of imports andexports to GDP. The increase in the degree of openness is particularlymarked in the early stages of industrialization—between 1892 and1914—despite the country’s propensity for protectionism, whichwas, in fact, more apparent than real. AfterWorldWar I, the increaseresumed during the 1920s, only to decline following the autarchic

Fig. 2 International Factor Mobility, Italy 1861–2011

SOURCES For current account as a percentage of GDP, 1870–1939, see Brian R. Mitchell, Inter-national Historical Statistics: Europe 1750–2005 (London, 2007); Maurice Obstfeld and Alan M.Taylor,“TheGreatDepressionasaWatershed: InternationalCapitalMobilityover theLongRun,”in Michael D. Bordo, Claudia Goldin, and Eugene N. White (eds.), The Defining Moment: TheGreat Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century (Chicago, 1998), 353–402;International Monetary Fund (IMF), “World Economic Outlook Database” (2012), available athttp://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2012/02/weodata/index.aspx (accessed on 6 October2013). The emigration rate is our own calculation from ISTAT data; trade openness was kindlyprovided to the authors by Michelangelo Vasta.


policies of the Fascist regime. Economic recovery during the boomyears of the so-called “economic miracle” coincided with Italy’sinclusion in the new international order, as well as in the EuropeanCommon Market, which, among other things, involved a gradualabatement of international tariffs. The great fluctuations of the1970s and 1980s were due to sharp changes in oil prices. In general,the correlation between GDP and long-term trade openness is posi-tive: In the liberal age (1863 to 1963), imports (Granger) caused GDP,which in turn caused exports (Granger); in the period followingWorld War II (1951 to 2004), Granger causality, although weaker,is reversed, exports–GDP–imports.14

A second aspect of openness concerns migration flows.Between 1869—the first year for which reliable estimates areavailable—and 2005, more than 28 million Italians emigrated, themajority of them beyond Europe (to the United States, Canada,Argentina, and Brazil). The right axis of Figure 2 shows the grossemigration rate (emigrants per 1,000 inhabitants). The late 1860ssaw fewer than 5 per 1,000, but in the years leading to WorldWar I, almost 25 per 1,000 left the country. The war almostcompletely stopped migration flows. After a brief resumption, Italianemigration found a new obstacle in the restrictive U.S. quotas of1921 (Emergency Quota Act) and 1924 (Immigration Act), in theFascist laws of 1927, and in the world crisis of 1930. The combinedeffects of lower supply and demand with regard to migrants led to areal drop in the emigration rate. When emigration picked up againafter World War II, the Italians went mainly to Western Europeancountries. Although the (gross) emigration rate was always below 10per 1,000, the actual number of people emigratingwas significant—2.5to 3 million Italians emigrated during the 1950s and the 1960s.Gomellini and Ó Gráda found that “relative wages, relative per capitaincomes and network effects (proxied by previous migrants) are thevariables that explain most [of the emigration].” Emigrant networks

14 Michelangelo Vasta, “Italian Export Capacity in the Long-Run Perspective (1861–2009): ATortuous Path to Stay in Place,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, I (2010), 133–156; Federico,Sandra Natoli, Giuseppe Tattara, and Vasta, Il commercio estero italiano, 1862–1950 (Rome, 2011);Baffigi, “National Accounts”; Federico and Antonio Tena, “Was Italy a Protectionist Country?”European Review of Economic History, I (1998), 73–97. For tests of Granger causality, see BarbaraPistoresi and Alberto Rinaldi, “Exports, Imports and Growth: New Evidence on Italy: 1863–2004,”Explorations in Economic History, II (2012), 241–254. A variable x is said to Granger-cause variable y, ify can be predicted better by using past values of both x and y than by using past values of y alone.


seem to be the single most important factor behind the Italian emi-gration flows.15

The third aspect of openness concerns capital movements,which have significant implications for economic growth—fromboth a theoretical and an empirical standpoint. The mobility ofinternational capital, which enables the bond constraining domesticinvestments to a country’s saving capacity to be broken, is one of themost important factors promoting economic growth in the morebackward economies. Obstfeld and Taylor’s estimates of the mean ab-solute value of current account for Italy show high values—indicatinghigh capital mobility—as far back as the first globalization during thethe 1900s and 1920s. These years showed the highest economic growthbefore World War II, as well as the most intense capital movements.Before World War I, capital flew to Italy from elsewhere in Europe(especially Britain) to finance construction and infrastructure, signifi-cantly contributing to the upward bend of the GDP series.16

Capital flows reached a low during the 1930s, correspondingwith the Italian Fascist period, and began to rise again during theyears of the economic miracle. They peaked during the 1960swhen GDP growth was also at its best. Conversely, in the finaldecades of the twentieth century, capital movements underwent agentle downward trend, despite being on the rise throughout theworld. As we have seen, the economic performance of the countrydeclined dramatically at this time. In general, Italy’s economicgrowth seems to be strongly correlated with its degree of opennessto foreign capital movements. Participation in the internationaleconomy was vital to the country.

TECHNOLOGY AND INSTITUTIONS: RE-INTERPRETING THE ITALIAN

ECONOMY The debate about Italy’s industrialization and economicgrowth has a long tradition. Romeo and Gerschenkron disputedabout capital accumulation and the “prerequisites” of industrializa-tion more than half a century ago. Despite accumulated research,

15 The data reported herein refer to gross emigration rates. See Matteo Gomellini andÓ Gráda, “Migrations,” in Toniolo (ed.), Oxford Handbook, 271–302. For an analysis of regionalflows, see Felice,Divari regionali e intervento pubblico: Per una rilettura dello sviluppo in Italia (Bologna,2007), 42–54; Gomellini and Ó Gráda, “Migrations,” 282. For the post-World War II period,see Alessandra Venturini, Postwar Migration in Southern Europe, 1950–2000: An Economic Analysis(New York, 2004).16 Fenoaltea, “International Resource Flows and ConstructionMovements in the Atlantic Econ-omy: The Kuznets Cycle in Italy, 1861–1913,” Journal of Economic History, III (1988), 605–638.


the debate is still lively and contentious. The new body of quantita-tive evidence makes it possible to add new insights to the inter-pretation of the Italian economy over the long run. Italy’s per-capitaGDP series can be divided into the three periods corresponding to thecountry’s political history during the 150 years since its unification—the Liberal age (1861 to 1913), the Fascist period (1922 to1938), and therepublican era (since 1946). Placing these GDP series within a broadercontext that includes technological progress and institutions is usefulin explaining the country’s long-term economic performance.17

Technology is the driving force behind increases in productivity(per worker GDP) that represent the main determinant of per capitaGDP. During the 150 years since its unification, Italy has experiencedfour technological regimes: the first (1861 to 1875) identified by thethree main inventions of the previous decades—the steam engine, thespinning machine, and the railways; the second (1875 to 1908) co-inciding with the “Second Industrial Revolution,” characterized byheavy industry (steel, first and foremost, vital to mechanical industry)and electricity; the third (1908 through the 1970s) defined by theestablishment of mass production (exemplified by Henry Ford’s auto-mobile manufacturing) in which petroleum was key, and durableconsumer goods began to emerge; and the fourth associated withthe “Third Industrial Revolution,” or the electronics age (1970s tothe present day), triggered by the advent of information technologyand telecommunications, particularly computer technology.18

Technology is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for acountry to determine its own course toward prosperity; technological

17 For the debate, see Rosario Romeo, Risorgimento e capitalismo (Bari, 1959); AlexanderGerschenkron, “Notes on the Rate of Industrial Growth in Italy, 1881–1913,” Journal of EconomicHistory, IV (1955), 360–375;Gerschenkron andRomeo, “Lo sviluppo industriale italiano [testo deldibattito tenuto a Roma, presso la Svimez, il 13 luglio 1960],” Nord e Sud, XXIII (1961), 30–56.18 Boyan Jovanovic and PeterRousseau, “General PurposeTechnologies,” in PhilippeAghionand Steven Durlauf (eds.), Handbook of Economic Growth (Amsterdam, 2005), I, 1181–1224;Christopher Freeman and Carlota Perez, “Structural Crises of Adjustment, Business Cycles andInvestment Behaviour,” in Giovanni Dosi et al. (eds.), Technical Change and Economic Theory(London, 1988), 38–66; Robert J. Gordon, “Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innova-tion Confronts the Six Headwinds,” NBERWorking Papers 18315, National Bureau of EconomicResearch, Inc. (2012), available at http://www.voxeu.org/epubs/cepr-reports/us-economic-growth-over-faltering-innovation-confronts-six-headwinds (accessed October 6, 2013). Thedates marking the shift from one regime to another are obviously approximate, serving only tooutline the timeline of the main innovations. Franco Amatori, Matteo Bugamelli, and AndreaColli, “Technology, Firm Size, and Entrepreneurship,” in Toniolo (ed.), Oxford Handbook,455–484, provide an excellent and up-to-date account of unified Italy’s different technologicalparadigms during the past 150 years.


change must be accompanied by institutional change, in the broadestsense, as well as ideological change. Did the new technologicalparadigms—exogenous factors with regard to the Italian economy—find fertile terrain in the country because institutions and ideologieswere favorable to their adoption?19

Much has been written about the economic history of Liberalperiod Italy. The question at the heart of the historiographical debateconcerns when and why Italy was able to transform itself from a rural,poor, and backward country into a wealthy, modern, and industrialone. Along with Romeo, Gerschenkron, the intellectual “giant whodominated the Italian debate” after World War II, dated the “big in-dustrial push” of the country at the mid-1890s, attributing it to thecreation ofmixed banks—BancaCommerciale Italiana (Comit), foundedin 1894 with German capital; Credito Italiano (Credit); Banco di Roma;and, later, Banca Italiana di Sconto. Mixed banks—or universal banks—collect capital (the prerogative of commercial banks) and channel it tofavor industrial development (the prerogative of investment banks).Through their network of branches, mixed banks collect short-termdeposits from ordinary citizens to invest in shares; that is, they turnthe capital into long-term credits to industry—precisely what isneeded, according to Gerschenkron, to industrialize a backwardcountry. Mixed banks were the institutional innovation that acted asGerschenkron’s “engine of growth” in both Italy and Germany. Theywere able to compensate for the country’s scarcity of natural resources,its political instability, and its governmental sluggishness during the firstdecades after unification on the path toward Italy’s industrialization.20

19 Kuznets made this point about technological change in Stockholm when he received theNobel Prize for economics. See Kuznets, “Modern Economic Growth: Findings and Reflec-tions,” American Economic Review, III (1973), 247–258; Moses Abramowitz, Thinking about Growthand Other Essays on Economic Growth & Welfare (New York, 1989); Daron Acemoglu and JamesRobinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (New York, 2012).20 Among themore importantworks about the Liberal period are Toniolo, Storia economica; idem,“Overview”; Zamagni, Economic History; Ciocca, Ricchi per sempre?; Fenoaltea, L’economia italianadall’Unità alla Grande Guerra (Roma, 2006); idem,The Reinterpretation of Italian Economic History: FromUnification to the Great War (New York, 2011). The quotation about Gerschenkron and Romeo isfrom idem, “I due fallimenti,” 352. The mixed banks typically entered the boards of the firms thatthey financed, thus obtaining access to strategic information. The advantages associated with thepresence of a mixed bank must be weighed against the greater fragility of the economic system,due to the relationship between credit capital (banking system) and industrial capital (the real econ-omy). Gerschenkron, “Notes”; idem, “Rosario Romeo e l’accumulazione primitiva del capitale,”Rivista Storica Italiana, IV (1959), 557–586; idem, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (NewYork, 1962).


The debate that Gerschenkron’s work sparked remained intensefor decades. The common denominator of its various interpretationsthrough the years—particularly by Romeo, Cafagna, and Bonelli—was the assumption that economic development followed a stage-by-stage progression. According to this view, a country developsthrough an orderly sequence of stages (or phases). The first stageencompasses the prerequisites for growth—for instance, infrastructureand human capital; the second stage involves a striking economictake-off, introducing a distinct break with the previous GDP seriestrend; the next stage marks a rise to maturity, in which technologycreates new investment opportunities, the economy becomes morecomplex, and, finally, mass well-being ensues.21

It is difficult to establish whether the per-capita GDP series inFigure 3 shows a trend congruent with the explanation offered bystage-based models. The figure displays the series of GDP per personand per worker against the background of technological changesand the main political and economic innovations. The first twodecades of post-unification Italy reveal an uncertain start; only withthe beginning of the “Historical Left” and the Depretis Govern-ment (1876) did GDP begin to grow at an increased rate. The trenddoes not show any trace of the crisis of the 1880s, but the slowdownof the 1890s is visible. On the whole, however, the terms “take-off”or “big industrial push” are inappropriate to describe the trend ofGDP per capita during the latter half of the 1890s—especially if welook at GDP per worker.

Fenoaltea proposed an alternative to the stage-based model.He observed that the new GDP series has an upward trend with nobreaks or take-offs, only fluctuations—“economic cycles” mainlycaused by the construction industry and more generally by the in-frastructure sector. According to Fenoaltea, foreign investment,especially British, was responsible for the various stages of Italianeconomic growth during the Liberal period. In this model, Italybehaved like any other European fringe country: When the political

21 Romeo, Risorgimento; Luciano Cafagna, “L’industrializzazione italiana: La formazione diuna ‘base industriale’ in Italia fra il 1896 e il 1914,” Studi storici, III–IV (1961), 690–724; idem,Intorno alle origini del dualismo economico in Italia, in Alberto Caracciolo (ed.), Problemi storicidell’industrializzazione e dello sviluppo (Urbino, 1965), 103–150; Franco Bonelli, Il capitalismoitaliano: Linee generali di interpretazione, in Ruggiero Romano and Corrado Vivanti (eds.), Storiad’Italia: Dal feudalesimo al capitalismo (Turin, 1978), 1193–1255; Fenoaltea, L’economia italiana, 38;Walt W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth (New York, 1960).


climate positively influenced investor expectations, capital flowedinto the country and moved the economy forward; when investorsperceived greater risk, capital flows into Italy ceased, or reverseddirection, and the economy contracted. The view of Italy as an openeconomy does not require any stage-based developmental processand does not warrant any take-off stage; the process was guided bythe interweaving of the international economic cycle, investorexpectations, and the domestic political cycle. Fenoaltea’s interpreta-tion appears largely consistent with a cyclical development alongan increasing trend, like the one shown in Figure 3. Less convinc-ing is its disregard for the role played by national institutions anddomestic economic-policy decisions.22

Toniolo made this point effectively: “In order to profit fromthe international boom, Italy had to abandon expensive colonialadventures and put order to its public finances, rebuild almostfrom zero a banking system that laid in tatters, create a centralbank, overcome the credibility shock generated by the suspension

Fig. 3 GDP per Person and per Worker, 1861–1913

SOURCE Elaborations from Appendix II.

22 Fenoaltea, “International Resource Flows”; idem, L’economia italiana; idem, Reinterpretation.


of gold convertibility. More than that: Italy had to overcome a socialand political crisis that threatened to undermine the very founda-tions of the liberal state. Both politics and society stood up to theoccasion: the crisis (…) was overcome. Democracy was maintained,the disastrous African policy was discontinued, sound economicinstitutions were put in place and the banking system was revitalized.In the following years successive governments maintained a time-consistent fiscal and monetary policy, the gold standard was shad-owed but cleverly not officially reinstated, commercial treaties broughtback the fresh air of freer trade. All this lies behind Italy’s ability tosurf the long wave of international growth. It did not need to be so: evensailing with the tide requires expert skippers” (our italics).23

On a more technical level, the estimates of Felice and Carreraspertaining just to industry from 1911 to 1951, when combined withthose of Fenoaltea (1861 to 1913), suggest that the cyclical modelis valid only until the mid-1890s. From that time onward, moreor less coinciding with the creation of the mixed banks, not onlydoes the production of durable goods count for the cycle of Italianindustry; so does the production of consumer goods. In short, thenew quantitative evidence is consistent with a cyclical model(exogenous) in combination with the institutional innovations(endogenous): Domestic policy intervened to reinforce the upwardcurve cycle of foreign capitals.24

The interwar period has received considerably less attentionthan the Liberal period even though during these years, Italymodernized and enhanced the sectors of the Second IndustrialRevolution (chemicals and heavy industry, at the expense of textilesand foodstuffs), and created the institutional framework that wouldaccompany the subsequent economic miracle.25

Previous GDP estimates view Italy’s economy, unlike that ofother belligerent countries, as booming during the World War I

23 Toniolo, “Stefano Fenoaltea, L’economia italiana dall’Unità alla Grande Guerra (Rome,2006),” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, I (2007), 132.24 Felice and Carreras, “When Did Modernization Begin?”25 Among those few who covered the interwar period are Toniolo, L’economia dell’Italiafascista (Rome, 1980); Gualberto Gualerni, Storia dell’Italia industriale: Dall’Unità alla SecondaRepubblica (Milan, 1995); Fabrizio Galimberti and Luca Paolazzi, Il volo del calabrone: Breve storiadell’economia del Novecento (Florence, 1998); Rolf Petri, Storia economica d’Italia: Dalla grandeguerra al miracolo economico (1918–1963) (Bologna, 2002); Charles Feinstein, Peter Temin, andToniolo, The World Economy between the World Wars (New York, 2008); Felice and Carreras,“When Did Modernization Begin?”


period: From 1913 to 1918, Italy’s total GDP at constant prices in-creased by 33.3 percent according to Maddison, and by 45.4 percentaccording to Rossi, Sorgato, and Toniolo. Scholars were skeptical,to say the least, about these figures, which sharply contrasted withthose of the other major countries of continental Europe—Germanyat −18.0 percent, Austria at −26.7 percent, and France at −36.1 per-cent. Italy’s increase in total GDP was even higher than those of Britain(+13.2 percent) and theUnited States (+14.8 percent).New estimatesfor both the service sector and industry, however, bring the perfor-mance of the Italian economy more into line with that of the otherwarring countries: From 1913 to 1918, Italy’s total GDP reduced by2.7 percent and Italy’s per capita GDP by 4.6 percent. After the waryears, when Italy’s allies favored imports of crucial materials, Italy re-oriented toward a more inward-looking industrialization, whichculminated in the autarchy of the 1930s. Even though the periodfrom 1919 to 1938 was difficult on every level, Italy’s per-capita GDP

growth rate (1.5 percent per year) was significantly higher than the onerecorded during the Liberal period (0.9 percent). Behind this overallfigure, however, lay the oscillations of the 1920s and 1930s. Figure 4

Fig. 4 GDP per Person and perWorker fromWorldWar I toWorldWar II



shows a boom in the decade after the Treaty of Versailles (1919to 1929), a recession following the 1929 crisis, and a lively recoverystarting in the latter half of the 1930s.26

The growth of the 1920s was rapid, the result of an increase inproductivity; if the war had any beneficial consequence, it wasits positive effect on the preexisting technological backwardness;progress in the chemical industry, in motor-vehicle production,and in aeronautics went hand-in-hand with the war effort. Between1919 and 1929, Italy grew at a high rate, more than 3 percent peryear, on average. But the 1920s were followed by economic andpolitical calamity. The Great Depression of 1929 appears to havehad a greater impact than previously thought. Between 1929 and1933, Italy suffered an 8 percent decrease in per-capita GDP, signifi-cantly lower than the 3.5 percent decrease estimated by the “old”series. This decrease is worse than Britain’s (−4 percent), close toFrance’s (−10 percent) and Germany’s (−12 percent) but a long wayfrom the catastrophic U.S. figure (−27 percent).27

Paradoxically, at least from one perspective, the deflationarypolicies of the Fascist regime favored modernization and thus theexpansion of the Italian productive base, as is clear from the differ-ence between GDP per person and GDP per worker, which was sub-stantially better from the second half of the 1920s until WorldWar II(see Figure 4). The deflationary turning point of 1926 (with thedrastic revaluation of the Italian lira) made the price of importedmaterials (for example, cast iron) and of machinery drop, therebybenefiting industry. But it made prices rise for traditional Italianexports in such light industries as textiles, thereby damaging the lessadvanced Italian production sectors. The 1929 crisis led to a broadreform of the Italian production system. On the one hand, it forcedthe industrial sector to replace labor (now more expensive) with

26 Maddison, Monitoring the World Economy, 1820–1992 (Paris, 1995), 148–151; Nicola Rossi,Antonio Sorgato, and Toniolo, “I conti economici italiani: una ricostruzione statistica 1890–1990,”Rivista di Storia Economica, I (1993), 1–47. For a skeptical view, see Broadberry, “Appendix:Italy’s GDP in World War I,” in idem and Mark Harrison (eds.), The Economics of World War I(New York, 2005), 305–307. The new estimates for the service sector and industry are fromPatrizia Battilani, Felice, and Zamagni, Il valore aggiunto dei servizi a prezzi correnti (1861–1951)(Rome, 2011); Carreras and Felice, “L’industria italiana dal 1911 al 1938: ricostruzione della seriedel valore aggiunto e interpretazioni,” Rivista di storia economica, III (2010), 285–333.27 Feinstein, Temin, and Toniolo,World Economy, 87; Ornello Vitali, La stima del valore aggiuntoa prezzi costanti per rami di attività, in Fuà (ed.), Lo sviluppo economico in Italia: Studi di settore edocumentazione di base (Milan, 1969), III, 463–477.


capital, leading to an increase in mechanization. On the other hand,the disastrous effects of the crisis on the real economy and on financeled to the institutional re-organization of national capitalism: Theinstitute for industrial reconstruction (IRI, or Istituto per la RicostruzioneIndustriale) was created in 1933, and in 1936 the banking reform laweffectively severed banking from industry, that is, the tie betweenshort-term and long-term credit.28

According to Petri, the state’s decisive intervention in sup-port of certain strategic sectors—metal-making, engineering, andchemicals—during the extremely difficult interwar years paved theway for the economic boom to follow. As argued by James andO’Rourke, among others, “Financial restructuring was used as anopportunity to reshape the structure of industry.” Today, the wide-spread view is that the Fascist interwar years were not a break in thelong-term path of the Italian economy but rather a preparation forthe great leap that occurred afterWorldWar II. This interpretation isconsistent with the new series with regard to the aggregate picture,as we have seen, but also with regard to the development of theindustrial sectors and structure.29

The new GDP estimates for the years after WorldWar II (Figure 5)do not add much to what we already knew. GDP in the decades afterWorld War II shows an upward trend—per capita and, even more,per worker—and a conspicuous slowdown starting in the 1990s,leading to stagnation with the advent of the new millennium.

Once postwar reconstruction was completed, Italy “put onwings” and embarked on the period of growth that has becomeknown as the “economic miracle.” The new estimates confirm theexceptional performance of the 1950s and 1960s, which emphasizes,as evident in Figure 1, a break in the centuries-old trend. In thesetwo decades, Italy completed its transition from, in Zamagni’sterms, the “periphery to the center,” becoming a modern industrial

28 Deflation, that is, price decreases, led to a rise in real wages or to an increase in the cost oflabor factor of production, which becamemore expensive compared to other goods. See FabrizioMattesini and Beniamino Quintieri, “Italy and the Great Depression: An Analysis of the ItalianEconomy, 1929–1936,” Explorations in Economic History, III (1997), 265–294.29 Petri, Storia economica, 336–347; Harold James and Kevin H. O’Rourke, “Italy and theFirst Age of Globalization, 1861–1940,” Bank of Italy Economic History Working Papers, XVI(2011), 3, available at http://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/pubsto/quastoeco/QSE_16/QSEn_16.pdf (accessed October 6, 2013); Gualerni, Storia dell’Italia industriale; Marcello DeCecco, L’economia di Lucignolo: Opportunità e vincoli dello sviluppo italiano (Rome, 2000); Feliceand Carreras, “When Did Modernization Begin?”


nation, with labor shifting from rural to industrial areas, even in Italy’sMezzogiorno (the southern regions). There were many reasons for thisdevelopment, starting from some decisions in the geopolitical andinternational arena. First, the funds provided by the Marshall Planfound better use in Italy (to renovate the industrial apparatus) thanin other countries. Second, Italy’s decision to participate in a largerEuropean context was prescient. Other factors, such as the fixedexchange rate based on the dollar (and the undervaluation of theItalian lira), low prices for oil and other natural resources, and thegradual liberalization of international trade, were particularly benefi-cial to Italy. The decrease in raw-material prices during the 1950sand 1960s was vital to a country lacking in natural resources.30

Among the important elements explaining Italy’s growth afterWorld War II is also Italy’s continuity with its past, especially the

Fig. 5 GDP per Person and per Worker after World War II


30 GDP showed a “miraculous” trend in most countries of Western Europe from 1950 to 1973,which became known as “Europe’s golden age.” For an economic history of the Reconstructionand the “Italianmiracle,” seeGuidoCrainz, Storia del miracolo italiano: culture, identità, trasformazioni fraanni cinquanta e sessanta (Rome, 2005); Nicholas Crafts and Marco Magnani, The Golden Age andthe Second Globalization in Italy, in Toniolo (ed.),Oxford Handbook, 69–107. Zamagni, Dalla periferia


interwar years. Such is the case with the system of partecipazionistatali ( joint stock companies under private law indirectly ownedby the state), which began in the 1930s and became the driving forceof industrial modernization during the 1950s and 1960s. Notwith-standing the lack of genuine counter-evidence, the idea is that thesestate holdings played a key role in devising the “far-seeing strategicplans which were instead absent—if we exclude FIAT of Valletta—inlarge scale private industry.”31

By the end of the 1960s, Italian industry had diversified broadly,even impressively in some respects, excelling in information tech-nology and in the manufacture of automobiles, chemicals, domesticappliances, and, remarkably, aerospace components. The commod-ities traditionally bearing the label “Made in Italy” (particularly tex-tiles, footwear, food, and home furnishings) were also flourishing,supported by a web of small and medium-sized enterprises.32

Growth slowed during the 1970s and 1980s, starting with thefirst energy crisis in 1973. The system of partecipazioni statali fellto clientele-type political demands, which led to the constructionof manufacturing plants in far-flung, inconvenient locations. Large-scale enterprises lost ground, and a shift of GDP from industry toservices ensued.33

In any case, Italy’s GDP increased during this period in stepwith that of its main European competitors, driven by exports

al centro, 409–481; idem (ed.), Come perdere la guerra e vincere la pace: l’economia italiana tra guerra edopoguerra, 1938–1947 (Bologna, 1997); Francesca Fauri, Il piano Marshall e l’Italia (Bologna, 2010);idem, L’Italia e l’integrazione economica europea, 1947–2000 (Bologna, 2001); Ciocca,Ricchi per sempre?228–284. For the position of Italy in the new monetary system, see Virginia Di Nino, BarryEichengreen, and Massimo Sbracia, “Real Exchange Rates, Trade and Growth,” in Toniolo (ed.),Oxford Handbook, 351–377.31 Fabrizio Barca and Sandro Trento, “State Ownership and the Evolution of Italian CorporateGovernance,” Industrial and Corporate Change, VI (1997), 533–560.32 Ivan Paris, “White Goods in Italy during a Golden Age,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History,I (2013), 83–110. In 1964, Italy became the third country, after the Soviet Union and the UnitedStates, to launch a satellite; it launched another one in 1967. See Vera Zamagni, Finmeccanica:Competenze che vengono da lontano (Bologna, 2009), 225. Franco Amatori, “EntrepreneurialTypologies in the History of Industrial Italy (1880–1960): A Review Article,” Business HistoryReview, III (1980), 359–386; idem, “Entrepreneurial Typologies in the History of Industrial Italy:Reconsiderations,” ibid., I (2011), 151–180; Colli and Vasta, “Introduction: Forms of Enterprisein 20th Century Italy,” in idem (eds.), Forms of Enterprise in 20th Century Italy: Boundaries, Structuresand Strategies (Cheltenham, 2010), 1–21.33 Felice, “State Ownership and International Competitiveness: The Italian Finmeccanicafrom Alfa Romeo to Aerospace and Defence,” Enterprise and Society, XI (2010), 594–635; Rinaldiand Vasta, “The Italian Corporate Network after the ‘Golden Age’ (1972–1983): FromCentralityto Marginalization of State-Owned Enterprises,” ibid., XIII (2012), 378–413.


and by the country’s industrial districts, which seemed to establisha new paradigm for enterprise. Some critical observers noted,however, that the rise of these new businesses owed more to thedevaluation of the lira and to a lack of fiscal control than to anyinherent entrepreneurial expertise—a view confirmed in the lightof their disappointing performance in subsequent years.34

The years since 1992 have witnessed a decrease in growth,which is less than half of what it was during the previous twenty-year period. As Rossi observed, “Adapting to the ICT revolutionand globalization … was, and is, not an easy process, above all withregard to the change in technological paradigm” (our translation).The last twenty years were marked by Italy’s inability to adaptto a context once again exogenously created. At the turn of themillennium, while Italy continued to fall behind in Europe, which,as a whole, was losing ground to the United States and to emergingAsian countries, both the Italian press and public opinion spoke interms of an economic decline.35

THE LONG-RUN DIVERGENCE OF THE ITALIAN REGIONS Followingthe reconstruction of Italy’s national accounts, a number of eco-nomic historians began to bestow the same treatment on Italy’sregional accounts. An early attempt, by Zamagni in 1978, includedan estimation of income within the Italian regions for the year1911. Similar regional scholarship lagged until the new millennium,when new studies enabled an outline of long-term per-capita GDP

development for each of the country’s regions, thus offering insightinto the origins of current territorial imbalances.36

34 Giacomo Becattini, “Dal ‘settore’ industriale al ‘distretto’ industrial: Alcune considerazionisull’unità di indagine dell’economia industriale,” Rivista di economia e politica industriale, I (1979),7–21. For critics see, De Cecco, L’economia di Lucignolo, 185–189.35 Salvatore Rossi, Aspetti della politica economica italiana dalla crisi del 1992–93 a quella del 2008–09, in Maurizio Ciaschini and Gian Cesare Romagnoli (eds.), L’economia italiana: metodi dianalisi, misurazione e nodi strutturali: Studi per Guido M. Rey (Milan, 2011), 310; Luca Paolazziand Mauro Sylos Labini, L’Italia al bivio: Riforme o declino, la lezione dei paesi di successo (Rome,2013).36 Zamagni, Industrializzazione e squilibri regionali in Italia: Bilancio dell’età giolittiana (Bologna1978). Official statistics for regional GDP were not published until 1970. See SVIMEZ, I conti delMezzogiorno e del Centro-Nord nel ventennio 1970–1989 (Bologna, 1993). Alfredo G. Espostoproduced estimates for 1871 (macro-regions), 1891, and 1911 in “Estimating Regional PerCapita Income: Italy, 1861–1914,” Journal of European Economic History, III (1997), 585–604.SVIMEZ produced estimates for 1938 and 1951 in Un secolo di statistiche storiche italiane: Nord eSud, 1861–1961 (Rome, 1961). Daniele and Malanima produced annual estimates from 1861 to


Figure 6 shows the trend of regional differences in per-capitaGDP for the five large macro-areas of the country. In the baselineyear (1871), Italy showed distinct per-capita GDP differences: Therichest area of the country, the northwest, had around a 25 percent

1951, by linking estimates by Federico, Fenoaltea, and Felice, with the assumption that, foreach sector of economic activity (agriculture, industry, and services), the regional cycles wouldbe the same as the national cycle. See Daniele and Malanima, “Il prodotto delle regioni e ildivario Nord-Sud in Italia (1861–2004),” Rivista di Politica Economica, III–IV (2007), 267–315;idem, Il divario Nord-Sud in Italia: 1861–2011 (Soveria Mannelli, 2011); Federico, “Le nuovestime della produzione agricola italiana, 1860–1910: primi risultati e implicazioni,” Rivista diStoria Economica, III (2003), 359–381; Fenoaltea, “Peeking Backward: Regional Aspects of In-dustrial Growth in Post-Unification Italy,” Journal of Economic History, IV (2003), 1059–1102;Felice, “Il reddito delle regioni italiane nel 1938 e nel 1951: Una stima basata sul costo dellavoro,” Rivista di Storia Economica, I (2005), 3–30; idem, “Il valore aggiunto regionale: Unastima per il 1891 e per il 1911 e alcune elaborazioni di lungo periodo (1891–1971),” ibid., III(2005), 83–124. This section is based on Felice, “Regional Value Added in Italy (1891–2001)and the Foundation of a Long Term Picture,” Economic History Review, III (2011), 929–950,and on hitherto unpublished estimates for 1871 and 1931.

Fig. 6 The Great Italian Divide, 1871–2009

NOTE The Northwest comprises Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Aosta Valley; the NortheastVeneto, Emilia-Romagna, Trentino-Alto Adige, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia; the Center Tuscany,the Marches, Umbria, and Latium; the South Abruzzi, Molise, Campania, Apulia, Lucania, andCalabria; the Islands Sicily and Sardinia. All of the estimates are at the historical borders.SOURCES See Appendix I and II.


advantage over the poorest area, the south (about 2,000 Eurosper person per year in the northwest versus 1,600 Euros in thesouth)—a significant gap, consistent with what emerges in othersocial indicators and with what we know about the distributionof transport and credit infrastructure. The situation in other coun-tries, such as Spain or the Austria-Hungarian Empire, indicatesa similar disparity in favor of regions with an industrial or ser-vices base—Madrid and Catalonia in Spain and Vienna in Austria-Hungary. In general, however, the dispersion of average incomesat the time was relatively modest compared to later conditions afterindustrialization had progressed.37

Regional differences increased conspicuously during the in-terwar years. The northwest progressed along the path of indus-trialization and modernization, while the Mezzogiorno remaineddramatically still, eventually becoming, in the aftermath of WorldWar II, a sort of second, shadow Italy. The extraordinary develop-ment in the northwest benefited from World War I (1915 to 1918),when the war effort inexorably steered public procurement towardenterprises in the so-called “industrial triangle” (Lombardy, Piedmont,and Liguria). The north also benefited from deflationary measuresand an autarchic policy, which meant an intensification of industrialproduction in advanced sectors, most of which were located there.38

The Mezzogiorno suffered from the demographic policies ofthe Fascist regime: Benito Mussolini’s restrictions to emigrationincreased the demographic pressure on the poorest regions; hisattempt to make Italy self-sufficient in food, starting with wheat(the so-called “wheat battle”), stifled the more profitable crops of

37 For social indicators and transport and credit infrastructures, see Vecchi (ed.), In ricchezza ein povertà: Il benessere degli italiani dall’Unità a oggi (Bologna, 2011); Felice and Vasta, “PassiveModernization? The New Human Development Index and Its Components in Italy’s Regions(1871–2007),” European Review of Economic History, I (2015), available at doi:10.1093/ereh/heu018;Zamagni,Dalla periferia al centro, 42; Andrea Giuntini,Nascita, sviluppo e tracollo della rete infrastruttur-ale, in Amatori et al. (eds.), Storia d’Italia: Annali, XV, L’industria (Turin, 1999), 597; Joan R.Rosés,Julio Martínez-Galarraga, and Daniel A. Tirado, “The Upswing of Regional Income Inequality inSpain (1860–1930),” Explorations in Economic History, II (2010), 244–257; Max-Stephan Schulze,“Regional Income Dispersion and Market Potential in the Late Nineteenth Century HabsburgEmpire,” London School of Economics working paper, 106/07 (2007), available at http://www.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/pdf/WP106schulze.pdf (accessed October 6, 2013).38 Between 1911 and 1951, the percentage of agricultural labor in southern Italy did notdecrease (remaining at around 60%), while in the northwest, it fell from 47% to 28% (Felice,“Regional Value Added,” 938).


Puglia and Sicily (wine, grapes, and citrus fruits); and his protec-tion of rents for landowners, even those without productive land,hindered the modernization of southern agriculture. Once again,although historians have been well aware of the “problem of thesouth” (questione meridionale) since the last century, the sheer scaleof the differences that Figure 6 illustrates is striking: By 1951, per-capita GDP in the South had reduced to less than half of that in thecentral and northern regions.39

Regional imbalances greatly decreased from 1951 to 1971.Convergence of the South during the 1950s and 1960s was excep-tional, made possible by both interregional migration toward thenorth and the deus ex machina of state intervention. The state pro-moted the creation of great infrastructural works in the southernregions—from aqueducts to roads and industrial plants—throughthe Cassa per il Mezzogiorno (the Southern Italy DevelopmentFund), established in 1950, which also provided for indirect fundingof production activities. The initiatives involved public enterprises,which were obliged by law to devote a considerable amount oftheir investment to the Mezzogiorno, as well as private ones; bothkinds of enterprise received loans with low interest rates and freecontributions. This top-down policy focused on such “heavy,” highadded-value sectors as the chemical, steel, and advanced mechanicalindustries, led by state-owned enterprises. In terms of resources allo-cated in relation to GDP, the investment was on a scale unparalleledin any other Western European country.40

This resurgence of the Mezzogiorno turned out to be short-lived, however; the economic policy was not sufficient to triggera continuous self-generating process in the South. When the oil crisisof the 1970s occurred, the model of production that Ford had initi-ated in the United States, based on large energy-intensive factories,

39 For the policies of the Fascist regime, see Piero Bevilacqua, Le campagne del Mezzogiornotra fascismo e dopoguerra: il caso della Calabria (Turin, 1980); Felice, Divari regionali, 124–126, 197.40 Felice, “Regional Development: Reviewing the Italian Mosaic,” Journal of Modern ItalianStudies, I (2010), 72–73; Antonio La Spina, La politica per il Mezzogiorno (Bologna, 2003); Felice,Divari regionali; Amedeo Lepore, “La valutazione dell’operato della Cassa per il Mezzogiorno e ilsuo ruolo strategico per lo sviluppo del Paese,” Rivista Giuridica del Mezzogiorno, XII (2011), 281–317; Amatori, “Un profilo d’insieme: l’età dell’IRI,” in idem (ed.), Storia dell’IRI. II. Il miracoloeconomico e il ruolo dell’IRI, 1949–1972 (Rome, 2013), 30–39; Augusto De Benedetti, “L’IRI e ilMezzogiorno: Una interpretazione,” in Amatori (ed.), Il miracolo economico, 563–673; Felice, “Lepolitiche regionali in Italia e nel Regno Unito (1950–1989),” Rivista economica del Mezzogiorno,I–II (2002), 175–235.


suffered a setback. In Italy, its repercussions were particularly damag-ing for the weaker links of the chain—the plants inconveniently lo-cated in southern Italy because of state incentives or initiatives. Atthis point, public intervention proved to be incapable of re-inventingitself, becoming entangled in welfare or income-support policies,bloating the staff of public administration, and even benefiting orga-nized crime.41

Figure 6 clearly shows that from the 1970s onward, albeitslowly, the southern regions started to fall behind again, whereasthe northeastern regions, and later the central regions, started to con-verge economically with the northwestern ones. The driving forceof the northeast was a growing capillary network of export-orientedmanufacturing firms. The most recent data (2009) confirm gaps thatare wider than the ones estimated for the time of Italy’s unification.Italy is now divided into two halves, the Center/North and theMezzogiorno. The South has partly closed the gap in productivitybut not that in employment rate and structural change, which isgrowing worse. Institutions and social capital have arguably pre-vented it from keeping pace in factor endowments (as measuredby the employment rate and its allocation through agriculture, in-dustry, and services), in spite of factor-price equalization (as measuredby the greater equality in total and within-sector productivity).42

41 See Piero Bevilacqua, Breve storia dell’Italia meridionale dall’Ottocento a oggi (Rome, 1993),126–132; Carlo Trigilia, Sviluppo senza autonomia: Effetti perversi delle politiche nel Mezzogiorno(Bologna, 1992). The Cassa per il Mezzogiorno, which was dissolved in 1984, was followed bythe short-lived Agensud (1986–1992).42 For the northeastern and central regions, see Aldo Bagnasco,Tre Italie: La problematica territorialedello sviluppo italiano (Bologna, 1977); Becattini, “Dal settore al distretto.” Per-capita GDP differencesbetween the various geographical macro-regions cannot even be explained by the price differencesfound in these areas. Brunetti, Felice, and Vecchi (“Reddito”) showed that correcting GDP to allowfor differences in purchasing power does not change the key features of the historical picturedescribed in Figure 5. Felice, “Regional Value Added,” 937–941; idem, “Regional Convergencein Italy (1891–2001): Testing Human and Social Capital,” Cliometrica, III (2012), 267–306; idem,Perché il Sud è rimasto indietro (Bologna, 2013). According to the neoclassical trade theory, differencesin per capita incomes are due to differences in factor endowments and factor prices:Within a unifiedstate, if convergence in factor endowments (via decreasing returns in the production function) isprevented by conditioning variables, there can be convergence in factor prices but also divergencein income. See Matthew J. Slaughter, “Economic Development and International Trade,”AmericanEconomic Review, II (1997), 194–199. The alternative new economic-geography (NEG) approachfocuses instead on the demand side, by looking at the size of the market andMarshallian externalitiesthat favor increasing returns and productivity gains (divergence) but at the cost of congestion (con-vergence): SeeMasahisa Fujita, Paul Krugman, and Anthony J. Venables, The Spatial Economy: Cities,Regions, and International Trade (New York, 1999). Hence, most of the income inequality wouldbe attributable to differences in within-sector productivity rather than differences in the


ITALY’S GDP IN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE Between 1870 and2011, Italy’s GDP per head increased twelvefold, surpassing theaverage figure for the twelve countries of Western Europe (whereper-capita GDP increased elevenfold during the same period). Italy’simprovement was better than that of Britain (sevenfold) andequaled that of France and Germany, but it was not as good as thatof Spain (fourteenfold) or that of Greece (sixteenfold)—or, as thecase may be, that of the United States (thirteenfold). Moreover,certain Scandinavian countries showed exceptional performance inthis regard. Norway and Finland increased their incomes twenty-one times during the same period, and Sweden nineteen timesover. In Asia, Japan’s per-capita GDP rose thirty times over and SouthKorea’s thirty-seven times over. Judging from the long-term pic-ture, Italians have good reason to feel satisfied with their per-formance, nothwithstanding that of southern Italy, which wasradically different from the center/north’s. The northern region in-creased its per-capita GDP almost fourteenfold—similar to Spain andsignificantly better than France and Germany—but the Mezzogiorno’sincrease was less than tenfold—despite its higher potential forconvergence, that is, its lower initial GDP—much worse than anyother country of the European periphery, thereby weakening theperformance of the country as a whole.43

employment rate and structural change. For an application of the NEG framework to the Italiancase, see Brian A’Hearn and Venables, “Regional Disparities: Internal Geography and ExternalTrade,” in Toniolo (ed.), Oxford Handbook, 599–630.43 Conference Board, “Total Economy Database” (2013), available at http://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/ (accessed October 6, 2013). That all of the comparisons aremade through the PPP measured in 1990 Geary-Khamis international dollars is likely to create adistortion for the early periods. For the main advanced countries, current price PPPs have beenestimated by Leandro Prados de la Escosura in benchmark years spanning from 1820 to 1990, byretropolating the relationship between PPPs and basic economic characteristics from the second halfof the twentieth century: According to Prados de la Escosura, “International Comparisons of RealProduct, 1820–1990: An Alternative Data Set,” Explorations in Economic History, I (2000), 1–41,because Italy in 1860 had a real GDP per capita, compared to the United States, lower (0.641)than the one estimated by Maddison (0.722), Italy’s performance over the long run would bebetter than that of the United States. The figures of both Prados and Maddison (his old ones),however, are based on Maddison’s series of Italy’s GDP: See Maddison, “A Revised Estimate ofItalian Economic Growth, 1861–1989,” Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, CLXXVII(1992), 225–241. For the Liberal age, the estimate was based on constant prices from 1870, thusresulting in a lower GDP in 1861 (and higher growth rate) than our estimate at 1911 prices. In thissection, we use Maddison’s 1990 PPPs because those by Prados are only available for a limitednumber of countries. For a positive judgment about Italyʼs long-run economic performance,see Nicola Rossi, Toniolo, and Vecchi, “Introduzione,” in Vecchi (ed.), In ricchezza e in povertà:Il benessere degli italiani dall’Unità a oggi (Bologna, 2011), XI–XXVII.


During the post–World War II years, Italy, in the space oftwo generations, completed the country’s reconstruction and itsroad to well-being. How does Italy’s postwar economic growthcompare with that of other countries? Figure 7 contrasts the Italianper-capita GDP growth with that of the United States, with theaverage figure for the European Union (fifteen countries—theEU 15), with the OECD average, and with the world average. In1950, the gap between the average income of Italians and thatof Americans was huge, but Italy was also significantly poorer thanthe average of the EU 15. The years 1950 to 1973 are the “goldenyears” of Western Europe; a general stability of macroeconomicindicators (acceptable inflation and limited cyclical fluctuations)went hand in hand with extraordinarily high growth rates. Europemay have been rapidly growing at the time, but Italy managed toexpand even more rapidly. In fact, the upward trend, with a turn-ing point at 1991/92, means that during the first forty-two years(1950 to 1992), Italian growth was systematically faster than that ofthe whole world—an average annual rate 3.5 percent higher thanthe average of the other countries. The years 1992 to 2011 show an

Fig. 7 The Rise and Fall of Per-Capita GDP, 1950–2011

SOURCES See the text.


inverse trend: Italy grew less rapidly than the rest of the world, at anescalating rate per year—on average, a 4.4 percent lower rate than theother countries. The diagnosis seems to indicate a country in decline.44

Figure 8 strongly confirms this diagnosis. It compares Italy’sper-capita GDP growth rates with that of every other country inthe world (at least those for which reliable per capita GDP figures

Fig. 8 From the Periphery to the Center, and Back Again: The GrowthRate of Italy’s GDP in International Comparisons (1861–2010)

NOTE Figure 8 excludes countries of sub-Saharan Africa and the oil-based Middle-Eastern econ-omies, as well as countries with a population below 1 million. For certain countries and certainyears, we reconstructed the GDP trend by log-linear interpolation.SOURCES Data are fromConference Board, “Total EconomyDatabase” (2013), available at http://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/ (accessed October 6, 2013). The title of theFigure is an expression taken fromMarcello De Cecco, L’economia di Lucignolo: Opportunità e vincolidello sviluppo italiano (Rome, 2000), 119.

44 For the Italian convergence during the Golden Age, see Toniolo, “Europe’s Golden Age,1950–1973: Speculations from a Long-Run Perspective,” Economic History Review, II (1998), 252.Italy’s average lower rate of growth is not a consequence of the “China effect.” If we compareItaly’s relative growth with that of the rest of the world, after excluding the most dynamic anddemographically important countries (Brazil, India, and China), the conclusions reported in thetext do not change: Between 1950 and 1992, Italy grew faster than the rest of the world (+2.4%per year, on average), whereas between 1992 and 2011, it grew less rapidly (−0.9% per year).World averages are population-weighted.


exist) during the 150 years since the country’s unification. Based oncalculations of the average annual growth rates of per-capita GDP bydecade, the figure indicates (1) the growth rate of per-capita GDP forthe country that grew most rapidly, on average, during each decade;(2) the growth rate of the country that grew most slowly duringeach decade; and (3) Italy’s position between these two extremes.It also displays the trend for Italy throughout the period, comparedwith the OECD average.

The new Kingdom of Italy, which was born poor in 1861,grew below the OECD average during the following forty years,unable to exploit the advantages of its own backwardness. Duringthe first decade of the 1900s, Italy managed to align its growth ratewith the OECD average: Growth during the Giolitti’s age, considered“exceptional” by domestic standards, was nothing of the kind,given the international level. After achieving the growth rate ofthe OECD countries, Italy managed to do little more for decadesthan to “grow with the average.” Witness the entire first half ofthe twentieth century. The years 1950 to 1970, however, mark anextraordinary phase in which the country came a little closer tothe front-runners. For two decades, Italy maintained an annualaverage growth rate of 5 percent before slowing down and fallingbehind. This dynamic might be understandable to some extent. Itis not easy to stay in the vanguard; it is sometimes easier to progressby following another’s lead. Yet, Figure 8 does not convey Italy’sdifficulty in staying close to the top countries as much as it conveysits difficulty in avoiding a fall below the bottom ones. Since the early1990s, the country has embarked on a phase of relative decline, notonly slowing its GDP pace more markedly than the average of theOECD countries but, unlike any of those countries, actually regressing(its per-capita GDP growth rates becoming negative). Italy had theworst average growth rate in the world from 2001 to 2010.45

This last decade has also been characterized by a divergencebetween labor productivity (GDP per worker), the trend of whichwas still slightly positive, and average income (GDP per capita), whichdecreased. This pattern is consistent with the trend observed in GDP

45 For convergence (and divergence) in the second half of the twentieth century, see MosesAbramovitz and Paul A. David, “Convergence and Deferred Catch-Up: Productivity Leadershipand the Waning of American Exceptionalism” (1994), available at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.123.2219 (accessed October 6, 2013); for Italy, Toniolo,“Overview.”


per hour from 2002 to 2011—+ 0.12 percent on average per year.Compared with the Euro’s “core” (Germany and France), Italy fellback in income more than in productivity, whereas compared withthe United States, the opposite pattern holds. But during the 1990s,before the creation of the Euro, Italy’s dynamic relative to Franceand Germany was reversed—(slowly) converging in income but(strongly) diverging in productivity.46

What does this history tell us? After unification, Italy had tocatch up with the European core; after the creation of a commoncurrency in continental Europe, the unified macro-economic set-ting should have fostered this convergence by promoting equaliza-tion in factor endowments (the level and structure of employment)and prices. The fact that Italy’s activity rate has been suffering morethan its productivity suggests that negative conditioning factorsmight be responsible for Italy’s shortfall in factor endowments.Domestic policy and institutions look to be the main subjects offurther investigation; they remain the most important nationalvariables in Italy, as in the rest of the Euro zone.

Since its unification, Italy has managed to bridge the gap in averagenational income with the European countries that were mostadvanced in 1861—Britain, France, and Germany. By reachingthe center from the periphery, Italy accomplished an unlikely feat.In 1916, Louis Bonnefon Craponne, a French industrialist and firstpresident of Confindustria, published L’Italie au travail, in which hedescribed France’s incredulity in learning that Italy had not onlystarted to produce automobiles but was also entering them in thefirst races. Most observers of the day were unable to update thecountry’s image as the poor relation of Western Europe to a countrywell on its way to modern economic development. The GDP esti-mates presented in this article well document the process by whichItaly transformed a pre-industrial rural economy into an advancedeconomy ranking among the major industrial powers of the world.

46 In comparison with Germany’s, Italy’s GDP per capita went from 92.2% (2002) to 78.1%(2011), but during the same period Italy’s GDP per hour reduced only from 83 to 76.5; incomparison with France’s, Italy’s GDP per capita went from 98.6 to 90.0 and its GDP per hourfrom 81.0 to 76.5. Conversely, when compared with the United States, Italy’s GDP per capitadecreased from 70.8 to 63.8 and its GDP per hour from 81.0 to 70.6. Italy’s two variables wereidentical in comparison with those of Britain, which was then arguably in an intermediateposition between the United States and the Euro’s “core”: Italy’s GDP per capita went from92.7 to 82.2 and its GDP per hour from 96.6 to 86.2 (OECD, “StatExtracts”).


Stagnation gradually gave way to growth; today, average per-capitaincome is almost thirteen times what it was at the time of Italianunification.47

The process has been discontinuous, however, and the countryhas experienced an intransigent inequality inside its borders. The“economic miracle” after World War II did not cancel the linedividing the North from the South, an original feature of theKingdom of Italy. The empirical evidence presented in this articleshows that regional convergence has been the exception rather thanthe rule, only evident from 1951 to 1971; the remaining 130 yearswere marked by divergence or immobility, at least in relative terms.The last twenty years have seen Italy’s per-capita GDP stop growing(+0.6 percent per year) and even regional convergence grind to a halt.If southern Italy had continued to converge toward the center/north,Italy’s performance would have improved considerably. The recentdecline has naturally nurtured fears of failure.48

Not all analysts share these apprehensions. Some scholars arestubbornly optimistic. As Macaulay wrote of nineteenth-centuryBritain, “On what principle is it that, when we see nothing butimprovement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deteriora-tion before us?” Contemplating the past to find comfort about thefuture may be an old and licit activity, but it is also a groundlessone: History does not lend itself to mere extrapolation. The anal-ysis of per-capita GDP herein depicts Italy as a country that is at leastin relative decline. Although relative decline is a necessary, thoughnot a sufficient, condition for absolute decline, the negativegrowth rate of per capita GDP during the last decade points towarda decline on any terms. Given the lack of a suitable temporal per-spective to judge whether Italy’s malaise is temporary—prolongedas it is—reversible, or irreparable, is caution about drawing conclu-sions still warranted? Is Italy capable of yet another, in Toniolo’swords, “burst of pride?”49

47 For French incredulity about Italian automobiles, see Louis Bonnefon-Craponne, L’Italieau travail (Paris, 1916), 114; De Cecco, “The Italian Economy Seen from Abroad,” in Toniolo(ed.), Oxford Handbook, 134–154.48 Toniolo and Vincenzo Visco (eds.), Il declino economico dell’Italia: Cause e rimedi (Milan,2004).49 Thomas Macaulay’s quotation, a response to the poet Robert Southey in 1930, is cited inBarry Supple, The Economic History of Britain since 1700 (New York, 1994), 442; Toniolo,“Overview.”


GDP is not the only dimension, however, in which Italy has beenlosing ground. After a century-long decrease, poverty indicators andeconomic inequality have started to move in the wrong direction.Equally alarming are recent measures of institutional efficiency andpolitical/personal freedom, which reveal Italy to occupy last placeamong the countries of Western Europe in the Press Freedom Indexand in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.Italy is also at the bottom, although close to the core, in the FreedomHouse index of political rights and civil freedom. Each one of theseindicators is subject to a number of methodological criticisms, possi-bly reflecting only part of a much more complex story, but they areall in agreement with the hypothesis of Italy’s decline. The GDP datain this article, in conjunction with other socioeconomic indicators,shed undeniable light on Italy’s many structural weaknesses—hardlysigns for optimism.50

APPENDIX I: SOURCES AND METHODS

THE SOURCES FOR ITALY’S GDP, 1861–2011 Industry: for the years 1861–1913, Stefano Fenoaltea, “La crescita economica dell’Italia postunitaria:le nuove serie storiche,” Rivista di Storia Economica, II (2005), 91–121;idem, “Il valore aggiunto dell’industria nel 1911,” in Guido M. Rey(ed.), I conti economici dell’Italia. II. Una stima del valore aggiunto per il1911 (Rome, 1992), 105–190; for 1911, idem and Carlo Bardini, “Il valoreaggiunto dell’industria,” in Rey (ed.), I conti economici dell’Italia. III. Ilvalore aggiunto per gli anni 1891, 1938, 1951 (Rome, 2000), 113–238; Feliceand Albert Carreras, “When Did Modernization Begin? Italy’s IndustrialGrowth Reconsidered in Light of New Value-Added Series, 1911–1951,”Explorations in Economic History, IV (2012), 443–460.

Agriculture: Giovanni Federico, “Il valore aggiunto dell’agricoltura,” inRey (ed.), Una stima del valore aggiunto per il 1911, 3–103; idem, “Una stimadel valore aggiunto dell’agricoltura italiana,” in Rey (ed.), Il valore aggiuntoper gli anni 1891, 1938, 1951, 3–112; idem, “Le nuove stime della produzioneagricola italiana, 1860–1910: primi risultati e implicazioni,” Rivista di StoriaEconomica, III (2003), 359–381, for the years 1861 to 1911.

Services: Vera Zamagni, “Il valore aggiunto del settore terziario italianonel 1911,” in Rey (ed.), Una stima del valore aggiunto per il 1911, 191–239;

50 Brandolini and Vecchi, “Standards of Living.” Reporters without Borders, “World PressFreedom Index 2013” (2013), available at http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html(accessed October 6, 2013). Transparency International, “Corruption Perceptions Index 2012”(2012), available at http://www.transparency.org/cpi2012/results (accessedOctober 6, 2013). Free-dom House, “Freedom in the World 2013” (2013), available at http://www.freedomhouse.org(accessed October 6, 2013).


Zamagni and Patrizia Battilani, “Stima del valore aggiunto dei servizi,” inRey (ed.), Il valore aggiunto per agli anni 1891, 1938, 1951, 239–371; Battilani,Felice, and Zamagni, Il valore aggiunto dei servizi a prezzi correnti (1861–1951)(Rome, 2011).

Credit: Riccardo De Bonis, Fabio Farabullini, Miria Rocchelli, andAlessandra Salvio, Il valore aggiunto del settore del credito dal 1861 al 2010(Rome, 2011); for 1970, estimates by Rey, Luisa Picozzi, Paolo Piselli,and Sandro Clementi, “Una revisione dei conti nazionali dell’Italia(1951–1970),” Banca d’Italia, Quaderni di Storia Economica, XXVII (2012),available at http://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/pubsto/quastoeco/quadsto_27 (accessed October 6, 2013), concerning resource accountingand allocation; for method, Alberto Baffigi, “National Accounts, 1861–2011,” in Gianni Toniolo (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economysince Unification (New York, 2013), 157–186; Alessandro Brunetti, Felice,and Vecchi, “Reddito,” in Vecchi (ed.), In ricchezza e in povertà: Il benesseredegli italiani dall’Unità a oggi (Bologna, 2011), 209–234.

THE SOURCES FOR ITALY’S REGIONAL GDP, 1871–2009 For the years 1871–1951, the regional estimates are obtained by dividing the new estimates ofnational GDP by regional employment and then correcting the results withthe nominal wages per region that approximate the differences in produc-tivity per worker. This procedure, formalized by Frank Geary and TomStark, “Examining Ireland’s Post-Famine Economic Growth Perfor-mance,” Economic Journal, CXII (2002), 919–935, is widely used internation-ally. Nicholas Crafts, “Regional GDP in Britain, 1871–1911: SomeEstimates,” Scottish Journal of Political Economy, I (2005), 54–64;Max-StephanSchulze, “Regional Income Dispersion and Market Potential in the LateNineteenth Century Habsburg Empire,” London School of Economicsworking paper, 106/07 (2007), available at http://www.lse.ac.uk/econom-icHistory/pdf/WP106schulze.pdf (accessed October 6, 2013); Kerstin Enflo,Martin Henning, and Lennart Schon, “Swedish Regional GDP 1855–2000:Estimations and General Trends in the Swedish Regional System,” Universi-dadCarlos III deMadrid,Working Papers in EconomicHistory, III (2010), availableat http://orff.uc3m.es/bitstream/handle/10016/7125 (accessed October 6,2013); Joan R. Rosés, Julio Martínez-Galarraga, and Daniel A. Tirado,“TheUpswing ofRegional Income Inequality in Spain (1860–1930),”Explo-rations in Economic History, II (2010), 244–257; Pierre-PhilippeCombes,MirenLafourcade, Jacques-François Thisse, and Jean-Claude Toutain, “The Riseand Fall of Spatial Inequalities in France: A Long-Run Perspective,” Explora-tions in Economic History, II (2011), 243–271. The procedure is based on theassumption that capital gains are distributed along the lines of incomes fromlabor—that is, that the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor isequal to one.

The method becomes more effective with the degree of sector de-composition. In our case, regarding the four original benchmark years of1891, 1911, 1938, and 1951, we can refer to an exceptionally high level ofdetail unparalleled in other countries. The workforce sources separately


considers data about women and child labor, and are divided by a broadnumber of sectors (for industry and services, about 130 sectors in 1891, 160in 1911, 400 in 1938, and 100 in 1951). The wage data have an identicalsector decomposition in 1938 and 1951, a less detailed but still high one in1891 (thirty sectors) and 1911 (thirty-four sectors). The estimates for 1871and 1931 are less detailed, slightly more than twenty sectors in both cases:Felice, “Estimating Regional GDP in Italy (1871–2001): Sources, Method-ology, andResults,”Universidad Carlos III deMadrid,Working Papers in EconomicHistory, VII (2009), available at http://e-archivo.uc3m.es/handle/10016/5334(accessed October 6, 2013).

For 1871, given the lack of data on wages for the tertiary sector, theproductivity of services is estimated by assuming that in every regionthe ratio between the productivity of individual branches of servicesand industry as a whole was similar to that of 1891. In all of the bench-marks, a different procedure was used with regard to agriculture. It wasbased on the direct reconstruction of saleable gross production, calculat-ed by Federico (“Le nuove stime”) for the years 1891, 1911, 1938, and1951, or reconstructed from scratch by means of official sources for 1871(Felice, “Estimating regional GDP”) and 1931. For part of the industrialsectors from 1871 to 1911, we used the new estimates produced by CarloCiccarelli and Fenoaltea, “Mining Production in Italy, 1861–1913:National and Regional Time Series,” Rivista di Storia Economica, II(2006), 141–208; idem, “The Chemicals, Coal and Petroleum Products,and Rubber Industries in Italy’s Regions, 1861–1913: Time-Series Esti-mates,” Rivista di Storia Economica, I (2008), 3–58; idem, “The Growth ofthe Utilities Industries in Italy’s Regions, 1861–1913,” ibid., II (2008), 175–206; idem, “Construction in Italy’s regions, 1861–1913,” ibid., III (2008),303–340; idem, La produzione industriale delle regioni d’Italia, 1861–1913:una ricostruzione quantitativa. I. Le industrie non manifatturiere (Rome,2009); idem, “Shipbuilding in Italy, 1861–1913: The Burden of theEvidence,” Historical Social Research, II (2009), 333–373; private correspon-dence with the authors in 2009; idem, “Metalmaking in Italy, 1861–1913:National and Regional Time Series,” Rivista di Storia Economica, I (2010),121–153; idem, “The Rail-Guided Vehicles Industry in Italy, 1861–1913:The Burden of the Evidence,” Research in Economic History, XXVIII (2012),43–115. These estimates are based mainly on employment and wages butin some cases also on industrial plants and direct production data. Forthe revision of the estimates of 1891 and 1911, and a comparison of thevarious hypotheses, see Felice, “Regional Value Added in Italy (1891–2001): Estimates, Elaborations,” Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, WorkingPapers in Economic History, VIII (2009), available at http://e-archivo.uc3m.es/handle/10016/5332 (accessed October 6, 2013). Those estimates werealso used for revising regional production by sector in 1891, necessary forthe 1871 estimate.

Estimates from 1961 onward are from official sources: GuglielmoTagliacarne, “Calcolo del reddito prodotto dal settore privato e dalla pubblicaamministrazione nelle provincie e regioni d’Italia nel 1961 e confronto con gli


anni 1960 e 1951: Indici di alcuni consumi e del risparmio bancario,”Moneta ecredito, LIX (1962), 339–419; SVIMEZ, I conti; ISTAT (Istituto centrale di statistica),Conti economici regionali: anni 1980–92 (Rome, 1995); idem, “Sistemi di indica-tori territoriali, contabilità nazionale” (2012), available at http://sitis.istat.it/sitis/html/ (accessed October 6, 2013).


APPENDIX II: GDP STATISTICS

Table A.1 GDP per Person and per Worker, Agriculture, Industry, and Services(1861–2011)

YEAR

GDP PER PERSON GDP PER WORKER

TOTAL

(2011 EUROS)%

AGR.%

IND.%

SERV.TOTAL

(2011 EUROS)AGR./TOT.

IND./TOT.

SER./TOT.

1861 1,971 48.70 23.32 27.98 6,103 0.77 1.32 1.471862 1,996 48.42 22.70 28.88 6,178 0.76 1.31 1.511863 2,044 47.55 22.55 29.89 6,321 0.75 1.32 1.551864 2,047 46.19 23.14 30.67 6,333 0.72 1.38 1.581865 2,171 48.07 21.71 30.22 6,720 0.75 1.31 1.561866 2,167 46.44 22.29 31.26 6,704 0.72 1.38 1.591867 1,979 47.93 23.00 29.07 6,132 0.74 1.44 1.471868 2,019 48.87 21.87 29.26 6,222 0.76 1.40 1.471869 2,045 47.51 22.79 29.70 6,284 0.73 1.48 1.491870 2,095 48.33 22.07 29.60 6,448 0.75 1.46 1.481871 2,049 47.31 23.03 29.65 6,302 0.73 1.55 1.471872 2,003 46.76 23.67 29.57 6,119 0.72 1.56 1.461873 1,993 48.83 22.96 28.21 6,043 0.76 1.48 1.381874 2,096 50.52 21.00 28.48 6,311 0.80 1.33 1.371875 2,107 46.17 23.08 30.76 6,283 0.73 1.43 1.471876 2,055 44.77 23.43 31.80 6,089 0.72 1.42 1.511877 2,068 47.33 23.14 29.53 6,110 0.76 1.38 1.391878 2,120 48.09 22.02 29.89 6,235 0.78 1.29 1.401879 2,126 47.34 21.01 31.66 6,242 0.77 1.21 1.491880 2,159 48.51 20.63 30.86 6,300 0.80 1.17 1.441881 2,225 46.84 21.46 31.70 6,423 0.78 1.19 1.471882 2,252 46.71 22.10 31.20 6,562 0.77 1.25 1.431883 2,272 44.81 22.32 32.87 6,442 0.77 1.11 1.541884 2,238 42.69 22.68 34.62 6,452 0.72 1.18 1.601885 2,271 43.12 23.08 33.80 6,675 0.72 1.27 1.531886 2,321 43.65 22.99 33.36 6,949 0.72 1.33 1.491887 2,379 41.66 22.31 36.02 7,234 0.68 1.38 1.581888 2,367 40.98 22.19 36.84 7,193 0.68 1.33 1.611889 2,295 41.84 22.13 36.02 6,871 0.71 1.21 1.601890 2,296 43.95 21.34 34.71 6,996 0.73 1.22 1.531891 2,327 44.53 20.93 34.54 7,266 0.73 1.32 1.491892 2,330 42.11 21.33 36.56 7,419 0.68 1.45 1.561893 2,366 41.60 21.63 36.77 7,686 0.66 1.61 1.551894 2,379 41.31 21.11 37.58 7,724 0.66 1.50 1.591895 2,399 42.97 20.45 36.58 7,781 0.69 1.40 1.561896 2,435 42.11 20.67 37.23 7,841 0.69 1.33 1.601897 2,439 42.11 20.38 37.50 7,749 0.70 1.21 1.631898 2,429 41.81 20.78 37.41 7,775 0.70 1.24 1.621899 2,456 41.40 21.91 36.69 7,790 0.70 1.23 1.61

Table A.1. (continued )

YEAR


TOTAL

(2011 EUROS)%

AGR.%

IND.%

SERV.TOTAL


IND./TOT.

SER./TOT.

1900 2,521 41.72 20.85 37.44 7,956 0.71 1.12 1.651901 2,562 41.60 21.34 37.06 8,068 0.71 1.12 1.631902 2,603 40.75 21.63 37.62 8,294 0.69 1.18 1.641903 2,626 41.15 21.20 37.65 8,376 0.70 1.13 1.651904 2,672 40.73 21.02 38.25 8,512 0.70 1.11 1.671905 2,727 39.84 21.98 38.18 8,695 0.69 1.14 1.671906 2,820 40.06 22.36 37.57 8,987 0.70 1.14 1.651907 2,870 39.85 23.74 36.40 9,087 0.70 1.18 1.591908 2,930 37.68 23.90 38.42 9,076 0.68 1.09 1.701909 2,954 37.06 24.67 38.27 9,231 0.67 1.14 1.681910 2,957 36.41 25.02 38.56 9,322 0.65 1.18 1.691911 2,989 38.47 23.78 37.75 9,455 0.69 1.10 1.661912 3,004 37.21 25.32 37.48 9,480 0.67 1.19 1.651913 3,149 37.96 24.64 37.40 9,729 0.69 1.11 1.671914 2,987 36.89 24.76 38.35 9,126 0.66 1.12 1.721915 2,825 37.16 22.27 40.57 8,837 0.65 1.11 1.781916 3,054 38.31 21.98 39.71 9,518 0.67 1.11 1.731917 3,071 37.29 23.36 39.35 9,386 0.65 1.15 1.731918 3,005 39.43 23.31 37.27 8,961 0.69 1.13 1.651919 2,906 40.06 21.96 37.98 8,326 0.71 1.05 1.671920 2,960 42.54 21.58 35.89 8,314 0.76 1.02 1.571921 2,843 41.65 21.47 36.88 8,120 0.73 1.12 1.571922 3,055 38.78 24.30 36.92 8,601 0.69 1.22 1.551923 3,300 37.10 25.44 37.46 9,373 0.66 1.29 1.561924 3,357 33.56 27.40 39.04 9,406 0.61 1.29 1.661925 3,577 35.58 27.46 36.96 9,813 0.66 1.21 1.571926 3,579 36.32 26.44 37.24 9,787 0.68 1.15 1.551927 3,461 33.07 27.33 39.60 9,637 0.61 1.27 1.601928 3,635 33.96 27.14 38.89 10,182 0.63 1.24 1.591929 3,788 32.48 28.54 38.98 10,598 0.61 1.25 1.641930 3,585 28.18 30.47 41.34 10,260 0.52 1.42 1.721931 3,506 28.25 28.21 43.54 10,425 0.50 1.45 1.791932 3,548 31.36 25.03 43.61 10,862 0.56 1.43 1.671933 3,484 27.66 28.64 43.69 10,802 0.50 1.63 1.641934 3,452 27.45 28.89 43.66 10,750 0.50 1.57 1.621935 3,621 29.93 27.98 42.09 11,085 0.57 1.34 1.561936 3,466 27.89 28.77 43.34 10,611 0.55 1.36 1.551937 3,779 28.99 29.53 41.48 11,341 0.59 1.26 1.521938 3,853 28.55 30.36 41.09 11,111 0.61 1.14 1.541939 4,011 28.42 30.26 41.31 11,651 0.61 1.13 1.541940 3,837 27.89 29.79 42.32 11,183 0.61 1.12 1.531941 3,709 32.14 25.53 42.33 10,821 0.71 0.97 1.49


YEAR


TOTAL

(2011 EUROS)%

AGR.%

IND.%

SERV.TOTAL


IND./TOT.

SER./TOT.

1942 3,479 39.12 20.20 40.68 10,132 0.88 0.77 1.391943 2,940 43.42 18.45 38.14 8,541 0.99 0.70 1.271944 2,423 52.01 14.83 33.16 7,122 1.18 0.56 1.121945 2,196 48.40 16.79 34.81 6,530 1.10 0.62 1.201946 2,989 42.18 27.85 29.97 9,009 0.95 1.02 1.051947 3,527 36.86 32.22 30.92 10,722 0.84 1.18 1.081948 3,809 34.01 32.70 33.29 11,660 0.78 1.19 1.161949 4,071 30.24 33.43 36.33 12,557 0.70 1.21 1.251950 4,407 29.24 33.38 37.38 13,725 0.68 1.20 1.291951 4,813 25.85 35.65 38.50 15,106 0.60 1.28 1.321952 5,006 24.13 35.11 40.76 15,457 0.58 1.24 1.361953 5,338 24.86 34.50 40.64 16,169 0.62 1.18 1.331954 5,500 22.73 35.42 41.84 16,306 0.58 1.19 1.351955 5,838 21.99 35.35 42.66 17,181 0.59 1.16 1.331956 6,087 20.66 35.07 44.27 17,653 0.57 1.13 1.341957 6,397 19.07 35.65 45.27 18,274 0.56 1.12 1.321958 6,720 19.47 35.16 45.36 18,958 0.59 1.10 1.301959 7,151 17.51 35.87 46.61 20,008 0.54 1.11 1.321960 7,605 15.22 37.21 47.58 21,010 0.49 1.13 1.331961 8,158 15.62 37.37 47.01 22,094 0.54 1.08 1.301962 8,650 15.05 37.65 47.29 23,638 0.53 1.07 1.291963 9,110 13.77 37.88 48.34 25,136 0.53 1.04 1.301964 9,386 13.17 37.37 49.46 25,733 0.53 1.02 1.291965 9,724 12.81 36.34 50.85 27,131 0.51 1.00 1.311966 10,292 12.07 36.22 51.70 28,952 0.50 1.00 1.301967 11,004 11.87 36.47 51.66 30,376 0.51 1.00 1.281968 11,726 10.22 36.98 52.80 32,278 0.47 0.99 1.281969 12,421 10.12 37.56 52.32 33,730 0.50 1.00 1.251970 13,096 8.99 38.62 52.39 35,243 0.48 1.00 1.231971 13,268 8.47 37.66 53.87 35,925 0.45 0.98 1.261972 13,695 7.68 36.87 55.46 37,451 0.44 0.97 1.251973 14,560 8.18 38.09 53.74 39,253 0.49 1.00 1.191974 15,260 7.33 39.68 52.99 40,598 0.46 1.05 1.151975 14,847 7.58 38.08 54.34 39,719 0.49 1.02 1.151976 15,810 7.10 39.07 53.83 41,873 0.47 1.06 1.121977 16,138 6.90 38.37 54.73 42,509 0.48 1.03 1.131978 16,596 6.74 37.45 55.81 43,650 0.47 1.02 1.141979 17,522 6.52 37.26 56.21 45,543 0.47 1.02 1.131980 18,074 6.15 37.51 56.34 46,198 0.46 1.03 1.131981 18,202 5.76 36.54 57.70 46,604 0.45 1.02 1.121982 18,266 5.52 35.68 58.80 46,545 0.46 1.02 1.111983 18,468 5.63 34.55 59.82 46,787 0.47 1.02 1.10


YEAR


TOTAL

(2011 EUROS)%

AGR.%

IND.%

SERV.TOTAL


IND./TOT.

SER./TOT.

1984 19,063 5.11 34.29 60.60 48,107 0.44 1.07 1.081985 19,588 4.81 33.75 61.44 49,013 0.44 1.07 1.071986 20,145 4.62 32.81 62.57 49,984 0.44 1.05 1.071987 20,788 4.48 32.56 62.96 51,311 0.44 1.06 1.071988 21,650 4.03 32.23 63.74 52,895 0.42 1.04 1.071989 22,367 3.94 32.55 63.51 54,502 0.44 1.05 1.061990 22,809 3.65 31.58 64.77 55,080 0.42 1.02 1.071991 23,141 3.73 30.65 65.62 55,486 0.44 1.00 1.081992 23,318 3.61 30.15 66.25 56,389 0.43 1.01 1.071993 23,100 3.50 29.77 66.73 57,729 0.44 1.01 1.071994 23,588 3.47 29.76 66.77 59,603 0.45 1.01 1.061995 24,268 3.47 29.89 66.64 61,344 0.46 1.01 1.061996 24,543 3.45 29.31 67.23 61,832 0.47 1.01 1.061997 24,987 3.34 29.08 67.58 62,715 0.47 1.00 1.061998 25,337 3.29 28.80 67.91 63,041 0.48 0.99 1.061999 25,702 3.24 28.18 68.58 63,610 0.50 0.98 1.062000 26,634 3.03 27.72 69.25 64,759 0.48 0.97 1.062001 27,113 2.93 27.29 69.77 64,813 0.47 0.96 1.072002 27,219 2.84 27.01 70.15 64,285 0.47 0.96 1.072003 27,051 2.76 26.39 70.86 63,856 0.48 0.93 1.072004 27,250 2.71 26.42 70.86 64,721 0.48 0.94 1.072005 27,234 2.46 26.26 71.28 65,221 0.45 0.93 1.072006 27,695 2.45 26.63 70.93 65,641 0.45 0.95 1.072007 27,981 2.35 26.99 70.66 66,112 0.45 0.96 1.062008 27,431 2.32 26.55 71.13 65,578 0.45 0.95 1.062009 25,740 2.36 24.75 72.89 63,793 0.45 0.92 1.072010 26,076 2.23 24.93 72.84 65,525 0.42 0.95 1.062011 26,065 2.32 24.44 73.24 65,743 0.45 0.94 1.06

SOURCES Per person GDP is based on resident population. Full-time equivalent (FTE) workers arefrom StephenN. Broadberry, Claire Giordano, and Francesco Zollino, “Productivity, in Toniolo(ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy since Unification (New York, 2013), 187–226;sectoral figures are from data at current prices. All estimates are at present boundaries.

TableA.2

GDPperPerson

inItaly’sRegions,1871–2009(Euro2011)

1871

1891

1911

1931

1938

1951

1961

1971

1981

1991

2001

2009

Piedmon

t2116

2516

3446

4354

5348

7061

10768

16054

21278

26473

31125

27953

Aosta

Valley

--

--

-7604

14472

17964

22771

28047

33593

33436

Liguria

2844

3349

4597

5763

6469

7778

10678

15417

19858

26867

29499

27490

Lombardy

2272

2681

3566

4319

5356

7369

11992

17752

23735

29111

35220

32355

Northwest

2276

2692

3646

4529

5510

7335

11470

16969

22188

28070

33484

30656

TrentinoAlto

Adige

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

3211

3664

5092

9495

13440

20441

27769

35084

33230

Veneto

2071

1864

2579

2615

3236

4721

8565

13148

19640

26057

30665

29446

FriuliVeneziaGiulia

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

4424

4573

5362

7505

13307

19840

26867

30366

28880

EmiliaRom

agna

1944

2460

3225

3832

4011

5381

9234

15125

23462

27862

33240

31068

Northeast

2014

2127

2854

3292

3691

5082

8769

13931

21205

26982

32020

30347

Tuscany

2151

2376

2911

3720

3888

5058

8663

13958

20040

24506

29526

28494

Marche

1682

2043

2421

2496

3036

4125

7130

12060

19148

23673

26869

26177

Umbria

2034

2362

2759

3499

3687

4336

6950

12299

17783

21683

25920

23990

Lazio

2997

3644

4459

4901

4585

5145

9406

14170

18985

26751

30583

30399

Center

2200

2585

3141

3884

3976

4900

8623

13692

19385

25224

29417

28751

Abruzzo

1635

1573

2032

2223

2239

2796

5466

10986

15763

20526

22965

21158

Molise

--

--

--

4960

9248

13524

16893

22504

20592

Cam

pania

2196

2253

2815

2854

3159

3331

5825

9447

12159

16291

17705

16679

Puglia

1828

2367

2543

2987

2766

3128

5572

9964

13160

17101

18193

17091

Basilicata

1371

1722

2194

2461

2185

2267

4797

9937

12450

13885

19738

19047

Calabria

1418

1552

2095

1967

1884

2257

4462

8850

11704

13815

17434

17297

South

1834

2011

2469

2615

2647

2960

5425

9659

12760

16453

18410

17503

Sicily

1928

2160

2543

2885

2766

2796

4788

9301

12341

16129

17894

17426

Sardinia

1598

2180

2744

2997

3183

3032

5882

11251

12942

17703

20660

20437

Islands

1862

2169

2579

2910

2863

2844

5041

9765

12960

16523

18572

18172

Center/North

2180

2502

3279

3937

4477

5920

9822

15138

21078

26913

31830

29987

South

1842

2064

2505

2713

2720

2921

5294

9685

12832

16476

18464

17709

Italy(Euro2011)

2049

2327

2989

3506

3853

4813

8158

13268

18202

23141

27113

25740

SOURCE

Seethetext.A

llestim

atesareathistoricalbo

undariesandbasedon

presentp

opulations.A

ostaValleywasinclud

edin

Piedmon

tuntil1938;M

olise

wasinclud

edin

Abruzziun

til1951.

italy sgrowthanddecline,1861 2011 - facoltà di economia and... · italy’sgrowthanddecline,1861...

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