Italy’s North-South Divide Yet Again: Some New Evidence from Firms, Sectors and Territories

2021

The recent literature on the North-South divide in Italy has refuted a homogeneous reading and treatment of the “Southern question” and has recalled the importance of deep intra-South disparities. This paper contributes to this line of research, offering some descriptions of intra-South disparities. We first make use of data at the firm level pertaining to the manufacturing sector between 2008 and 2019 to show how productive units differ within each macro-area according to their main balance-sheet indicators and to technical efficiency, both in terms of their average and variability. Secondly, we use different data available at the provincial level to assess the territorial disparities exis…