Quaderni di Storia Economica (original) (raw)

Productivity Growth in Italy: A Tale of a Slow-Motion Change

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018

Productivity is the main factor holding back long-term economic growth in Italy. Since the second half of the 1990s, productivity growth has been feeble both by historical standards and compared with the other main euro area countries. Understanding the reasons for such a performance and finding the most effective policy levers is crucial to increase Italy's potential growth rate. Against this background, we provide a detailed analysis of the data and a critical review of the available empirical evidence to identify both the structural weaknesses limiting productivity growth and the strengths of the Italian productive system that may support it looking forward. Since the end of the 1990s and more intensively since the second half of 2011, the reform effort has been particularly effective in the regulation of product and labor markets and industrial policy. On other factors which are very relevant for productivity dynamics, the reform action has been less effective so far.

The productivity slowdown puzzle of European countries: a focus on Italy

With the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the new millennium in many European countries, and especially those of the Southern Europe, a structural change in the way the economy grows took place. In this essay we use the growth accounting methodology to measure the contribution of different factors to economic growth in some European countries and in the U.S. and to isolate the determinants of the European slowdown during the Great Recession. The focus on Italy suggests that the slowdown of the Italian economy is structural and affects both the non-ICT and ICT sectors.

The Labor Productivity Slowdown: The True Issue of the Italian Economy

American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 2019

This paper deals with the issue of the weak growth in Italian labor productivity with particular reference to the period between 2000 and 2016. In analyzing the data relating to labor productivity, the influence of capital productivity and multifactor productivity were also considered. The analysis shows how the weak growth in labor productivity is due to some peculiar structural aspects of the Italian production system. At the end of the paper some comments are offered on possible policy interventions.

Italy’s Total Factor Productivity in a Global Economy: Growth and Spillover Effects (c. 1400–2010)

Italian Economic Journal

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Multifactor Productivity and Labour Quality in Italy, 1981-2000

Temi Di Discussione, 2001

We investigate how the evidence for Italy from simple growth accounting exercises is modified by more accurate measurements of inputs. We describe the dynamics of total factor productivity in the last 20 years in Italy, and review theoretical and measurement issues that complicate the picture emerging from this simple exercise. We adjust the labour input for its composition and verify its impact on estimated multifactor productivity in the whole economy. We replicate the labour-quality adjustment for the industrial sector together with corrections for hours worked and capital utilisation. We find that a sizeable part of the observed growth of total factor productivity vanishes when these adjustments are applied. They are not sufficient, however, to overturn the evidence of a productivity slowdown in the Italian economy in the second half of the 1990s.

Trends in the Italian Dualims: labour productivity dynamics and structural change

Trends in the Italian Dualims: labour productivity dynamics and structural change, 2013

This paper analyzes the dynamics of labour productivity in the Italian provinces from 1991 to 2010. I find evidence of decreasing dispersion of aggregate labour productivity and of the emergence of a pattern of polarization. In particular, provinces with very low and very high productivity converged towards the Italian mean, clustering in two groups with higher and lower relative productivity. This trend did not change the territorial dimension of the Italian Dualism, since less productive provinces are always located in the South. Rather, distribution dynamics strengthened within homogeneity, both in the South and in the Center North. The analysis of sectoral productivity reveals that provinces in the higher cluster are on average more productive in every sector but non-market services. However, differences in sectoral relative productivity are not enough to explain the aggregate pattern of polarization. Indeed, structural composition of output shows that laggard provinces tend to be more specialised in activities whose productivity is naturally low. Furthermore, productivity growth in the low cluster was not able to reduce the gap with the initially more productive (Northern) provinces. Finally, the overall Italian performance in the 2000s has been unsatisfactory, signalling economic stagnation and decline common to both the clusters.

Italy’s Modern Economic Growth, 1861–2011

Enterprise & Society, 2015

By making the most of a newly-available large set of historical statistics, the paper outlines the main features of Italy's modern economic growth from unification (1861) until the present day (2011). Alongside national GDP estimates, regional inequality, living standards and inequality of personal income distribution are also discussed. Over the long run, Italy successfully caught up with the most advanced economies, and did so in a virtuous manner: while the regional imbalance persisted, at the national level economic growth was accompanied by a secular decline in income inequality. This pattern has come to a halt: during the last two decades, stagnation in GDP per capita has been mirrored by an unprecedented decline in productivity; southern regions have further lagged behind the rest of the country, and income inequality is on the rise. Italy has entered a phase of rapid relative economic decline.

Italy’s Modern Economic Growth, 1861-2011 (E. Felice, G. Vecchi)

Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia Politica e Statistica, Università di Siena 663.

By making the most of a newly-available large set of historical statistics, the paper outlines the main features of Italy’s modern economic growth from unification (1861) until the present day (2011). Alongside national GDP estimates, regional inequality, living standards and inequality of personal income distribution are also discussed. Over the long run, Italy successfully caught up with the most advanced economies, and did so in a virtuous manner: while the regional imbalance persisted, at the national level economic growth was accompanied by a secular decline in income inequality. This pattern has come to a halt: during the last two decades, stagnation in GDP per capita has been mirrored by an unprecedented decline in productivity; southern regions have further lagged behind the rest of the country, and income inequality is on the rise. Italy has entered a phase of rapid relative economic decline

Italy’s Decline: Getting the Facts Right

2005

The Italian economy is often said to be on a declining path. In this paper, we document that: (i) Italy's current decline is a labor productivity problem (ii) the labor productivity slowdown stems from declining productivity growth in all industries but utilities (with manufacturing contributing for about one half of the reduction) and diminished interindustry reallocation of workers from agriculture to market services; (iii) the labor productivity slowdown has been mostly driven by declining TFP, with roughly unchanged capital deepening. The only mild decline of capital deepening is due to the rise in the value added share of capital that counteracted declining capital accumulation.