Epicarmo Corbino alla Consulta e alla Costituente (Epicarmo Corbino at the Consulta and at the Constituent Assembly)

This article presents a study of Epicarmo Corbino’s activities between 1945 and 1948. In this period, he was a member of the Consulta nazionale, the temporary parliamentary assembly established in the wake of World War ii, and subsequently a member of the Assemblea costituente, the assembly in charge of writing the new Republican Constitution. For one year he was also the Treasury Minister in the i De Gasperi government, and very briefly under the ii. The speeches that he gave in these capacities reveal both his policy line on the current problems of the Italian economy and his broader normative approach to the social and economic issues confronting the new-born Republic. On the basis of these sources, this article presents an assessment of the ‘Corbino line’, i.e., his policy approach to the stabilization of the Italian economy, which concentrated on three issues: restoring public finances; curbing inflation; re-establishing the equilibrium of the balance of payments. The second part of this article considers his activities in the Assemblea costituente, where he gave his contributions on such issues as property rights, education, the relationship between capital and labour. At all levels of his activity, his was a coherent supporter of a free market approach to economic issues.