The paper describes the evolution of the well-being of the Italians during the 150 years since the country's unification. The progress in material standard of living was substantial, with GDP per capita growing 13 times between 1861 and 2010 and hours of work (and hence effort) falling...

Between the 1880s and the 1930s, three "regulatory cycles" can be identified in Italy. In the underlying model, each financial crisis gives rise to a regulatory change, which is circumvented in due time by financial innovation, that can then contribute to the outbreak of a new financial crisis....

The focus of the present volume - which originates from a workshop held at the Bank of Italy on 16 and 17 April 2009 - is the regulatory response given to financial crises in the past, across countries. Alongside the scholarly interest of such a review its aim is also to offer some insights that...