A Historical Reconstruction of Capital and Labour in Italy, 1861-2013

Abstract

The purpose of the Economic History Working Papers (Quaderni di Storia economica) is to promote the circulation of preliminary versions of working papers on growth, finance, money, institutions prepared within the Bank of Italy or presented at Bank seminars by external speakers with the aim of stimulating comments and suggestions. The present series substitutes the Historical Research papers-Quaderni dell'Ufficio Ricerche storiche. The views expressed in the articles are those of the authors and do not involve the responsibility of the Bank.

A tale of two Fascisms: Labour productivity growth and competition policy in Italy, 1911–1951

“…35-39). Furthermore, new estimates reconstructed in Giordano and Zollino (2012) indicate an erosion of total capital stock at 2010 constant prices from approximately 380,354 to 371,364 million euros which would confirm that it suffered relatively little during the war, at least from an aggregate economy perspective, hence not slowing labour productivity growth down significantly via this channel. Thirdly, another aspect to be considered is what occurred to the labour-force.…”

“…PC data are therefore necessary to cover the first fifty years of Italian development, as well as to gain information on the agricultural and services sectors which are not covered by the ICs. Refer to Giordano and Zollino (2012) for more details concerning historical labour data sources and connected issues. 81 The 1921 PC suffered from a range of irregularities, which were particularly acute in the Southern regions and which led to an overestimation of the population.…”

“…Thirdly, another aspect to be considered is what occurred to the labour-force. Unfortunately data on employment are very few for this period, but between 1945 and 1951 there is quantitative evidence of total industrial labour (both headcount and full-time equivalent) being almost stationary (Giordano and Zollino 2012), given the high number of workers fired by large firms specialised in war production, who however often became small self-employed entrepreneurs (Zamagni 1997, p. 22). Relative to an increasing output, this stationarity of the labour-force also could have contributed to an increase in labour productivity.…”

Geography, market potential and industrialization in Italy 1871–2001

“…The first three Italian population censuses, held in 1861, 1871 and 1881, have often been seen as less reliable than those that followed (Vitali ; Zamagni ). In 1871 census officials had already warned about a possible overestimation of the female population employed in Southern industries (Giordano and Zollino ). Yet more recently, scholars have begun to be less critical about those early censuses (Ciccarelli and Missiaia ; Ciccarelli and Fenoaltea ).…”

The Fruits of Disaggregation: The Engineering Industry, Tariff Protection, and the Industrial Investment Cycle in Italy, 1861-1913

“…Unlike the other censuses, the 1901 census was taken early in the year; it is taken to illustrate the labor force reached in 1900. The limited coverage of the industrial census of 1911 is in fact a matter of ongoing controversy: see Giordano and Zollino (2015), Fenoaltea (2015cFenoaltea ( , 2016b, Zamagni (2016). series.…”