rd of living in Italy just before the Great Depression. In fact, this ratio is among the best in all of Europe. The ratio of pre Great Depression standard of living to post WWII standard of living for Germany is 4.5, for France it is 3.5, and for Britain the coefficient of multiplication is roughly 3 (Delong).
As we have seen, the post WWII period in Italy can be characterized as one of steady and rapid economic expansion, as measured by GDP per capita. However, this rosy picture does not fully capture the domestic economic situation in the country. The real story of the Italian economy post WWII has been one of struggle between the public and private sector. Indeed, it is not far-fetched to claim that the private sector has only truly begun to exert its power in Italy since the country entered the European Union. The rest of this paper will focus on the relationship between the central government and the private sector, showing that until relatively recently the public sector held the upper hand.
The private sector in Italy was largely subsumed to the public sector post WWII until the economic liberalization of the 1990's. This fact can be clearly seen in the status of the Bank of Italy (BOI) and the implicit taxation of the private sector by the central government. From the 1960s
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