On the cyclical variability of economic growth in Italy, 1881–1913: a critical note

Since the 1950s, beginning with Gerschenkron’s classic article, a great number of studies have examined Italy’s economic growth in the post-Unification period; and the quantitative evidence has been much improved, particularly by Fenoaltea. However, the cyclical variability of the Italian economy in the sub-period 1893–1913 is low, and apparently underestimated, in Fenoaltea’s reconstruction, whereas it was emphasized in the neglected qualitative–quantitative analyses conducted by Luigi Einaudi and his colleagues of the Turin school in the early twentieth century. This paper uses various advanced spectral methods to reconsider Italian economic growth and cycles in the post-Unification period, detecting in Italian GDP a significant structure which closely matches the Einaudians’ account of Italian development in the period 1881–1913.