The paper reviews the economic motivations of the Arab Spring. After examining the possible relationships between the Arab riots and the global economic crisis started in 2007, the analysis focuses on some structural aspects characterizing North Africa and Middle East Countries, such as their demographic structure, the profound social inequalities and the discrepancy between the education levels, of youth in particular, and the civil and political rights accorded to the populations. The combination of youth demographics, high unemployment rates and high educational levels, coupled with an unrepresentative political system, increases the likelihood of social unrest.
The particular development of the Italian regional disparities and North-South inequality is correlated with the structural change which came about during the process of industrialisation. This process began in certain Northern poles producing a sudden increase in regional inequality, but, as it later spread through the North and Centre, a fall in regional disparities resulted. Industrialisation only superficially interested the South, which remained relatively backward. While regional convergence occurred both within the North and the South, divergence between North and South persisted. After presenting series of both labour force in industry and regional GDP, we analyse the relationship between industrialisation and inequalities and, finally, quantify the importance of the North-South dualism within the context of the Italian regional disparities.
This paper deals with industrialization in Italy between 1871 and 2001, and is based on data on the labour force per province (NUTS 3) from population censuses. Particular attention is devoted to long-term trends and North-South disparities. After the analysis of the geographic spread of industry and its changes, we test the role of access to markets on the distribution of the labour force in manufacturing. The results show that access to markets played a main role in Italian industrialization and in the evolution of inequalities among Northern and Southern regions.JEL classification: N94, R18
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