Notes on the Rate of Industrial Growth in Italy, 1881–1913

Abstract

This paper represents an attempt to summarize the first stages of a research project, the completion of which is still remote. Its purpose is to pose one or two basic problems and to indicate the directions along which the answers may lie.It is obvious that in the decades following its political unification Italy's economy remained very backward in relation not only to that of England, but also to the economies of industrially advancing countries on the continent of Europe. Whatever gauge one may choose for the purposes of comparison, be it qualitative descriptions of technological equipment, organizational efficiency, and labor skills in individual enterprises; or scattered quantitative data on relative productivity in certain branches of industry, or the numbers of persons employed in industry; or the density of the country's railroad network; or the standards of literacy of its population, the same conclusion will result.

What drives the comparability effect of mandatory IFRS adoption?

“…For Italy we find a robust negative impact of the geographical region on compliance, consistent with the Italian business environment being geographically diverse (Gerschenkron [1955], Eckaus [1961], Terrasi [1999]) with Southern regions being characterized by informal governance institutions that are expected to reduce the demand for disclosure compliance. On the other hand, we do not find a similar effect for Germany although, subsequent to reunification, a lack of convergence between the less developed East and the more industrialized West led to considerable disparity in the levels of income, investment, and productivity (Boltho et al [1999]).…”

GDP and life expectancy in Italy and Spain over the long run: A time-series approach

“…On the whole, however, the results were disappointing, not least due to the opacity of sources and methods (e.g., Fenoaltea 2010). From the 1950s (Gerschenkron 1955;Fenoaltea 1969) until the present day (Fenoealtea 2003(Fenoealtea , 2005Carreras and Felice 2010;Battilani, Felice, and Zamagni 2014), economic historians have tried to address the main flaws by reconstructing their own indices of national production for specific sectors and periods. Just recently, under the joint auspices of the Bank of Italy, Istat, and the University of Rome II, these efforts have been unified in a long-run series of Italy's GDP, at both current and constant prices and spanning 150 years, with fully verifiable procedures and sources (Baffigi 2011;Brunetti, Felice, and Vecchi 2011).…”

Comparability Effects of Mandatory IFRS Adoption

“…We take particular interest in the result for the geographic origin dummy. The Italian business environment has been documented to be geographically diverse (Gerschenkron [1955], Eckaus [1961], Terrasi [1999]). In general, the informal institutions that shape the governance environment of Italian society are very different between the northern, central, and southern regions of Italy.…”