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This paper provides a within-country analysis of the impact of corruption on economic growth using a panel of Italian regions from 1968 to 2011 through a robust measure of corruption. This measure is averaged over 5-year periods to reduce short-run fluctuations and to reduce probable delayed effects, which are typical for latent phenomena such as corruption. The results show a significant negative impact of corruption on long-term growth in all specifications, both on average and for each Italian region. As a consequence, a zero-level of corruption is growth maximizing. This effect is non-linear such that the negative impact of corruption on growth becomes less intense as corruption increases.

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Starting from the Medieval period, women in the Italian Alps experienced a progressive erosion in property rights over the commons. We collected documents about the evolution of inheritance regulations on collective land issued by hundreds of villages over a period of six centuries (thirteenth-nineteenth). Based on this original dataset, we provide a long-term perspective of decentralized institutional change in which gender-biased inheritance systems emerged as a defensive measure to preserve the wealth of village insiders. This institutional change also had implications for the population growth, marriage strategies, and the protection from economic shocks.