Italy's Long-Term Economic Performance: GDP Estimates from 1300 to 1861

Giovanni Federico, Alessandro Nuvolari, Leonardo Ridolfi and Michelangelo Vasta

No 19406, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We present new demand-side estimates of GDP per capita for Italy and its two macro-areas, Centre-North and South for the pre-industrial period (1328-1861), based on a novel dataset including almost 95,000 observations from 169 different locations. Our estimates confirm the chronology of the “Little Divergence†relative to the Netherlands and England. Italy maintained its leading position relative to the other European countries and was overtaken by France and Germany only in the first half of the 19th century. GDP per capita trends differed between Centre-North and South determining a “slow-motion†divergence from the 15th century to the political unification.

Keywords: Italy; Gdp per capita; demand side approach; regional divergence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E01 N13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-08
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