Post WWII Growth of the Italian Economy

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Italian economic history since World War II (WWII) has been a complex melding together of the public and private sectors. The phenomenal growth of the Italian economy post WWII is undisputable and was based on a variety of factors. Starting from the centralized economy inherited from the repressive regime of Benito Mussolini, two generations of Italians have shepherded their economy into the global market and the European Union (EU). The private sector has benefited greatly from the liberalization of the Italian economy, but the country continues to maintain a vigorous public employment sector. The duality of the Italian economy can be seen in the difference between the Southern and Northern regions of the country. The balance between public employment and private sector growth has increasingly tilted to the private sector, however, and the country's economy has seen an impressive resurgence as a result.

Before analyzing the particulars behind Italy's economic resurgence, we must first look at the overall economic trends within the country. There is no better gauge of a country's growth than the analysis of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. GDP per capita measures the total market of all goods and services produced annually within a country, divided by the number of inhabitants within that country (McConnell, p. G-8). The following chart tracks the growth of the Italian GDP per capita over a hundred and twenty year span. It also compares the growth of the I

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d of taxation. In other words, the government financed its debt by cannibalizing the private sector throughout the 1970s and 1980s (Bruni, 215-218). This resulted in an incipient and mounting crisis in public confidence. The private sector continues to suffer from an overly large public sector in Italy to this day. This can be clearly seen in the relationship between Northern Italy and Southern Italy. Roughly half of the overall wages paid in Southern Italy can be viewed as redistributive, or higher than they should be in comparison to national benchmarks of productivity and wages. This creates a drain on the Italian economy because of two factors. The first is that the public bureaucracy in the Southern Italy is much larger, in relation to the population, than that in Northern Italy. The second is that public sector wages in Italy are relatively stable nationwide, while prices are much higher in Northern Italy than in Southern Italy. This means that real public wages are much higher in the South than in the North. This also means that there is far less incentive to enter the private sector in Southern Italy than in Northern Italy. Thus, the central government to this day continues to depress the growth of the private
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Union EU, Italian Treasury, Additionally Italy, Southern Italy, Italy Depression, War II, Southern Northern, European Union, South Nevertheless, Italian GDP, private sector, italian economy, public sector, southern italy, post wwii, gdp capita, central government, standard living, northern italy, european union, economy post wwii, private sector italy, growth private sector, italian economy post, sector southern italy,
Approximate Word count = 1668
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

Post WWII Growth of the Italian Economy

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