• DOI:10.1080/00213624.2001.11506397
• Corpus ID: 157533301

Economic Policy in France and Italy since the War: Different Stances, Different Outcomes?

@article{Boltho2001EconomicPI,
  title={Economic Policy in France and Italy since the War: Different Stances, Different Outcomes?},
  author={Andrea Boltho},
  journal={Journal of Economic Issues},
  year={2001},
  volume={35},
  pages={713 - 731}
}

• A. Boltho
• Published 1 September 2001
• Economics
• Journal of Economic Issues

Fifty years ago, France and Italy had two very different economies. Though agriculture still loomed large in both, its weight in total employment was much higher in Italy (45 versus 28 percent in 1950). French income per capita (at purchasing power parity) was at the time some 50 percent above the Italian level, I and its territorial distribution was much less unequal than in Italy, where pre-existing wide regional income gaps between North and South had further opened in the inter-war years. Italy suffered from massive unemployment and underemployment. France, in contrast, was at virtual full employment; its industry enjoyed productivity levels a quarter higher than Italy's (Broadberry 1996); its exports of manufactures accounted for some 8Y2 percent of world trade as against Italy's 3Y2 percent, and so on. Today, many of these differences have either disappeared or greatly diminished-per capita incomes are close and so are levels of productivity, overall unemployment is similar (if at a very high level), and the value of manufactured exports is almost identical. Similarly, consumption standards and ways of life are much more uniform compared with the pronounced differences that prevailed at the end of World War II. This movement from initial diversity to eventual convergence in major economic (and social) indicators is paralleled by a broadly similar movement from diversity to convergence in the nature and stance of economic policies. In the 1950s, for instance, France intervened massively in the workings of the economy. While interventionism was hardly absent in Italy, market forces were, almost certainly, given a freer rein. From the early 1960s to the early 1990s, Italian interventionism, if in fits and starts, tended to increase. French interference began, instead, a gradual retreat, cautious at