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The Legacy of Literacy: Evidence from Italian Regions

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Abstract

Italy was unified in 1861. As part of the process of nation-building, a free and mandatory national primary school system was established. While the new school system greatly contributed to the modernization of the country, its initial design did not reduce considerably regional disparities in human capital, with Southern regions lagging behind. The paper studies the effect of the heterogeneous territorial diffusion of literacy during the postunification period (1871-1911) on economic and social outcomes of Italian provinces 100 years later. We exploit the exogenous variations in the territorial spread in literacy rates arising from the gradual building and expansion of the railway network across provinces. We find evidence that provinces with a higher territorial diffusion of primary education in the post-unification period have today higher income per capita, less unemployment, and greater educational attainment. The evidence in terms of social capital outcomes is instead mixed, depending on the indicator considered.

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  • Roberto Basile & Carlo Ciccarelli & Peter Groote, 2020. "The Legacy of Literacy: Evidence from Italian Regions," CEIS Research Paper 497, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 19 Jun 2020.
  • Handle: RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:497
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    Cited by:

    1. Carlo Ciccarelli & Torben Dall Schmidt, 2022. "The impact of history on regional development," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 42(3), pages 219-225, December.

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    Keywords

    Education; long-term effects; regions; Italy.;
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    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913

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