Areas of large enterprise and industrial districts in the development of post-war Italy: A preliminary survey

Abstract

Authors' aim is to lay some statistical and theoretical foundations for an understanding of Italian post-war economic growth, by devoting special attention to what has happened in the hundred different "Italies" that go to make the mosaic of this country. The analysis is concentrated on comparing areas of large enterprise with industrial districts through a distinction between district provinces, large enterprise provinces and other provinces. They investigate manufacturing industry by means of in depth analyses of trends in employment and value added, as well as through brakdowns of export flows and income and prosperity levels. Since the end of WWII it appears that Italian economic growth has largely been formed by the constant, massive flow of exports of personal and household goods and light mechanically-engineered products, that a sizeable flow of exports is attributable to growth in the industrial districts, and that growth by the industrial districts and the policy of industrialization in Southern Italy have together engineered a major territorial dispersion of both light and heavy industr