The growth of the Italian economy, 1861–1913: Preliminary second-generation estimates

• Published in: European review of economic history Vol. 9; no. 3; pp. 273 - 312
• Main Author: FENOALTEA, STEFANO
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.12.2005; Oxford University Press
• Subjects: Aggregates; Consumption; Economic growth; Economic growth rate; Economic history; Estimated taxes; GDP; Gross Domestic Product; Historians; Industrial agriculture; Industrial production; Industry; Manufacturing; Per capita; Population; Prices; Production estimates; Series convergence; Studies; Time series; Value added; Writers; Italy
• ISSN: 1361-4916; 1474-0044
• DOI: 10.1017/S136149160500153X

This article presents new estimates of aggregate production in post-unification Italy: the first since the original Istat-Vitali estimates of some forty years ago not to recombine their component series, and to be based entirely on new research. The new 1911-price GDP series incorporates the recent Federico series for agriculture, the author's recent series for industry, and newly derived series for services that extrapolate the recent Zamagni estimates of their value added in 1911. The new time series for the 11 sectors specified by the original estimates often differ widely from their predecessors. The new aggregate yields a long-term growth rate well above that of the original series, but not as high as that of Maddison's revision. The end-of-the-century acceleration that characterised all the earlier aggregates disappears: total production followed in muted form the long swing in industrial production, which in turn reflected a simple investment cycle. The implications of the new series in the context of the ongoing debates in the literature are also briefly discussed.