Overview
- Provides a long run examination of the Italian economy since Unification
- Highlights the role of cultural values in understanding the performance of the Italian economy
- Applies a Schumpeterian perspective of 'creative destruction' to understandings of Italian society and economy
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Economic History (PEHS)
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About this book
This book surveys the development of the Italian economy over the 150 years since unification, integrating economic analysis with an economic and social history of Italian society.
The book challenges several key assumptions about the growth of the Italian economy, including the notion that Italy has ‘caught up’ with its main Western partners and arguing that in long-run perspective the Italian economy has performed disappointingly. In particular, the book highlights how the role of cultural values, beliefs and preferences are just as important as institutions and institutional change in explaining the trajectory of the economy, arguing that a widespread ‘growth-averse’ culture exists in Italian society that diverges from the dominant market paradigms of the Western world. Rather than treating the twenty years after WWII – the period of rapid growth known as Italy’s ‘economic miracle’ years – as an indicator of Italy’s success, the author analyses these years as an anomaly where capitalist processes like creative destruction and innovism were briefly permitted to flourish. The book draws out key questions, for example exploring why institutional reforms have not led to sustained rates of growth, and why other markers of quality of life have improved in Italy while economic performance has remained slow. This book will be a fascinating read for scholars of economics and economic history, as well as non-specialist readers looking for a comprehensive understanding of Italian socio-economic conditions since the country's unification.
Keywords
- Italian economic history
- creative destruction
- Italian society
- Italian unification
- history of the Italian economy since unification
- Schumpeterian creative destruction
- destructive protection
- cultural markers in Italian society
- the Italian 'economic miracle'
- World War Two
- Italian business dynamism
- Italian innovation
Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Italian Business Dynamism
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Front Matter
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Beliefs, Values, and Preferences
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Front Matter
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Re-reading Italian Economic Events
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
“A book that combines economic and social history, bringing together indicators of various kinds, literary, linguistic and cultural into a comparative design, to arrive at a diachronic synthesis. This book captures the essence of the Italian history since unification, evaluates successes and failures of Italian economy, will likely influence public debate on Italian politics and deserves a place of honour in the discourse on the role of Italy in the European Union.” (Sabino Cassese, Justice Emeritus of the Italian Constitutional Court and former Minister for Public Administration)
“In this hugely important study, Nicola Rossi describes the contrast between the behaviour of the Italian economy and society in the epoch of the 'economic miracle,' the years which came before and those which followed. A must read.” (Edmund Phelps, 2006 Nobel Laureate)
“Nicola Rossi rereads the history of Italian economic development on the basis of an unusually rich set of elementary data on business demographics and innovative activity. However controversial his findings may be, this attempt to identify the deep-seated factors that have limited innovation and creative destruction leads to a must-read for economic historians (not only Italian) and policy makers.” (Ignazio Visco, former Governor of the Bank of Italy)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Nicola Rossi is a former full professor of economics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Throughout his career he has moved back and forth from the academic world to employment at economic institutions (the Bank of Italy from 1977 to 1980 and the International Monetary Fund from 1986 to 1987) and the realm of politics (as economic advisor to the Italian prime Minister from 1998 to 2000, as Member of Parliament from 2001 to 2008 and, finally, as member of the Italian Senate from 2008 to 2013).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Reframing Italian Economic History, 1861–2021
Book Subtitle: Creative Destruction and the Italian Society
Authors: Nicola Rossi
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Economic History
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67271-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-67270-5Published: 21 September 2024
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-67273-6Due: 05 October 2025
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-67271-2Published: 20 September 2024
Series ISSN: 2662-6497
Series E-ISSN: 2662-6500
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXXVII, 311
Number of Illustrations: 27 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour
Topics: Economic History, Political Economy/Economic Systems, Economic Growth, History of Italy