The conventional wisdom about the early stages of modern economic growth in Italy is still heavily influenced by the work of L.Cafagna (1989). He argued that exports of primary products to industrializing North Western countries were the main source of growth and that exports of silk stimulated...

Trade policy, and its effects oftariffs on structural change and industrialization, is arguably the 1110st contentious topic in Italian economic history. However, so far the discussion has relied almost exclusively on few scattered data and anecdotal evidence. This article builds on a...