Chasing the perfida Albione: Anglo‐Italian productivity gap in the late 1930s

This paper presents new estimates of Anglo‐Italian labour productivity levels in manufacturing in the late 1930s, derived using the standard single‐deflation approach. The findings confirm a substantial productivity gap between Italy and the United Kingdom at the aggregate level, alongside pronounced intersectoral heterogeneity. Italy appears relatively competitive in textiles and, to a lesser extent, in iron and steel and in chemicals. Preliminary estimates using the more advanced double‐deflation methodology, as well as tentative measures of productivity per hour worked, suggest that single‐deflation figures may represent a lower‐bound estimate. Nevertheless, the productivity gap remains large when benchmarked against other industrialized economies, lending support to a more pessimistic interpretation of the Fascist period in terms of labour productivity performance.