The evolution of bank statistics under corporatism: The 1936 Banking Law and the scientific autonomy of the Bank of Italy affordance perspective

The origins of credit statistics by economic sector (Statistiche sul credito per rami di attività) form a crucial part of the history of official statistics in Italy. In the way they were conceived and in the institutional context in which they were developed, they represent a significant episode for at least two complementary reasons: they enabled a systematic encounter between statistics and economic analysis – something rare in the Italian tradition – and they gave rise to a form of statistical production that was autonomous from political power, and thus stable, reliable, and enduring. Within the context of the fascist dictatorship, the creation of the Research Department at the Bank of Italy contributed to making the institution a stable technostructure over time – one capable of ensuring methodological consistency in its statistical outputs. It allowed to establish a technostructure that did not merely carry out the will of the regime, but rather drew on a degree of theoretical and, to some extent, organizational autonomy.