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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 great deal of new quantitative research has been produced over the last three decades which has radically changed the received interpretation of Italian economic development. Against this backdrop, the Bank of Italy, Istat and the University of Rome "Tor Vergata", together with academics from other institutions, developed a project to estimate a new historical national accounts time series. The reconstruction covers the 150 years following the political unification of Italy and is based on the most up-to-date results in the literature. It provides estimates of supply and uses at constant and at current prices. In this chapter a general picture of the new time series is drawn. Historically significant periods are taken into consideration, using them as case studies in order to illustrate some features of the new data, both technical and substantial. A detailed methodological account is given in the appendices.

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