IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mul/jqyfkm/doi10.1432-105557y2022i1-2p111-151.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Industrialisation of Southern Italy: XXI-Century Dynamics

Author

Listed:
  • Gianfranco Viesti

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to analyse the dynamics of manufacturing industry in Southern Italy in the 21st century. It shows the limited number of industrial activities, due to the lack of chemical and mechanical industries, considered quite more advanced sectors. It shows that in the 21st century the industrial value added in the South is decreasing, and the productivity gap compared to the Italian average is increasing; a part of the industrial structure has disappeared whereas other parts have consolidated. It shows also that during 2015-2019 industrial employment in Southern Italy increased faster than the national average in specialized sectors, highlighting a geographic polarization in manufacturing industry, that is much weaker in Calabria and in the Islands. The increase in employment in 2015-2019 was concentrated in a limited number of provinces. Moreover, exports in 2000-2019 decreased in some industries but grew in others.The main conclusion of this study is that without an explicit industrial policy the industrial sector is unlikely to grow. A consolidation can occur, but only in the areas already characterized by industrial activities. Manufacturing production may grow only if new, different, production activities will be located in the South. This is hard to be achieved exclusively because of market forces. This can occur as a result of a «mission-oriented» industrial policy, aiming at locating in the South the new production and research activities needed for the digital and green transition of the Italian economy in the 2020s and 2030s

Suggested Citation

  • Gianfranco Viesti, 2022. "The Industrialisation of Southern Italy: XXI-Century Dynamics," Rivista economica del Mezzogiorno, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1-2, pages 111-151.
    • Handle: RePEc:mul:jqyfkm:doi:10.1432/105557:y:2022:i:1-2:p:111-151
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.1432/105557
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1432/105557
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mul:jqyfkm:doi:10.1432/105557:y:2022:i:1-2:p:111-151. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.rivisteweb.it/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.