After the three Italies the (internally differentiated) North-South divide: Analysing regional and industrial trajectories

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine the comparative economic performance of provincial, regional and macro-territorial entities in Italy and its relationship to their industrial composition and performance. In doing so, the evolution of the Third Italy and of its industrial districts is placed in its wider national context. In the first part of the paper a partitioning of provincial economic performance into regional, macro-territorial and North-South elements demonstrates the overwhelming continuing importance of Italy's North-South divide, while a finer analysis of regional evolutions identifies striking elements of persistence and change in the pattern of territorial inequality in Italy. In the second part of the paper further decompositions permit identification of the role of industrial composition as a driver of regional performance and the importance of examining not just systems of small and medium-sized enterprises organised in districts but also other parts of an interdependent spatial division of labour. The paper concludes by illustrating the ways in which the analysis of performance of the different parts of this interdependent division of labour can help lay the micro-foundations for analyses of regional economic performance. © Armand Colin.