TY - JOUR
T1 - The origins of the Italian regional divide
T2 - Evidence from real wages, 1861-1913
AU - Federico, Giovanni
AU - Nuvolari, Alessandro
AU - Vasta, Michelangelo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Economic History Association.
PY - 2019/3/1
Y1 - 2019/3/1
N2 - The origins of the Italian North-South divide have always been controversial. We fill this gap by estimating a new dataset of real wages (Allen 2001; Allen et al. 2011) from Unification (1861) to WWI. Italy was very poor throughout the period, with a modest improvement since the late nineteenth century. This improvement started in the Northwest industrializing regions, while real wages in other macro-areas remained stagnant. The gap Northwest/South widened until the end of the period. Focusing on the drivers of regional trends, we find that human capital formation exerted strong positive effect on the growth of real wages.
AB - The origins of the Italian North-South divide have always been controversial. We fill this gap by estimating a new dataset of real wages (Allen 2001; Allen et al. 2011) from Unification (1861) to WWI. Italy was very poor throughout the period, with a modest improvement since the late nineteenth century. This improvement started in the Northwest industrializing regions, while real wages in other macro-areas remained stagnant. The gap Northwest/South widened until the end of the period. Focusing on the drivers of regional trends, we find that human capital formation exerted strong positive effect on the growth of real wages.
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U2 - 10.1017/S0022050718000712
DO - 10.1017/S0022050718000712
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85062946832
SN - 0022-0507
VL - 79
SP - 63
EP - 98
JO - Journal of Economic History
JF - Journal of Economic History
IS - 1
ER -