This article explores the structure of the italian capitalist system by focusing on the relationships between financial firms – banks, insurance and holding companies – and industrial companies in italy during the period 1952–72 through the analysis of the interlocks that existed between them. By an interlock is meant the link created between two firms when an individual belongs to the board of directors of both. The analysis is based on a database – imita.db – containing data on over 30,000 directors of italian joint-stock companies for the years 1952, 1960 and 1972. After a descriptive statistical overview of the companies and the directors included in the database, the article develops a network connectivity analysis of the system. This is integrated with a prosopographic study of the big linkers, defined as those directors cumulating the highest number of offices in each benchmark year. The article confirms that italian capitalism maintained substantial peculiarities in the period investigated. in particular, it argues that interlocks played an important role in guaranteeing the stability of the positions of control of the major private companies and their connections with state-owned enterprises. In 1952 and 1960 the system, centred on the larger electrical companies, showed the highest degree of cohesion. That centre dissolved after nationalisation of the electricity industry in 1962 and was replaced by a less strong and cohesive one, hinged on banks, insurance and the major finance companies.

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Women entrepreneurs have long been an understudied topic in business history. This paper contributes to fill this gap by analyzing Italian women's entrepreneurship from the mid-20 th century to 2016. It is based on a new dataset concerning the profiles of the 80 women who were successful entrepreneurs and became Cavalieri del Lavoro (Knights of Labour), i.e., they were decorated with the Ordine al "Merito del Lavoro" (Order of Merit for Labour), the highest recognition for achievements in the world of business in Italy. The dataset also includes a comparable balanced sample of men who obtained the same award to single out the main similarities and differences between men and women entrepreneurs. This paper employs a quantitative prosopographic approach: after presenting some descriptive statistics and some exemplary cases of women entrepreneurs, it uses cluster analysis to identify typological groups of women versus men entrepreneurs. This paper show that the institutional context and gender stereotypes slowed down the development of Italian women's entrepreneurial abilities. Women entrepreneurs tend to cluster in family firms and to have become entrepreneurs by inheritance, whereas they have been handicapped in all other fields relevant to entrepreneurial success: access to education (especially STEM), managerial career and experience abroad. Nonetheless, women entrepreneurs operated beyond women's niches tied to the traditional ideology of femininity, e.g., textiles, garment and services. Several women operated in sectors such as chemicals and engineering in which many Italian industrial districts are specialized.

Until the banking reform in 1936, banks and industrial companies in Italy were strongly intertwined (both in terms of ownership and interlocking directorates). Using Imita.dba large dataset containing data on over 300,000 directors of Italian joint stock companies -this paper analyses what would have happened to the Italian corporate network in the years 1913, 1921, 1927 and 1936 if the German type universal banks and their directors would have not been there. Our test shows that new centers of the system would have emerged (financial, electricity and phone companies), confirming the interconnected nature of the Italian capitalism. We also analyze two industries (textiles and iron and steel) characterized by different labor-to-capital intensities to check for sectoral differences. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that local banks were important in funding both industries.