After the Three Italies Wealth, Inequality and Industrial Change

by Dunford, Michael; Greco, Lidia

• ISBN13: 9780470761113
• ISBN10: 0470761113
• Edition: 1st
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2008-05-13
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

After the Three Italies develops a new political economy approach to the analysis of comparative regional development and the territorial division of labour and exemplifies it through an up-to-date account of Italian industrial change and regional economic performance.

• Responds to recent theoretical debates in economic geography, involving economists, geographers and planners.
  
• Builds the foundations for a new theoretical approach to regional economic development and the territorial division of labour.
  
• Draws on the results of a recent ESRC funded research project, as well as on a large range of official data sets.
  
• Provides an up-to-date picture of Italy‘s economic performance and of its recent development relative to other European countries and the rest of the world.
  
• Analyses Italy's internal differentiation and its persistent regional inequalities.
  
• Examines the regional impact of the recent evolution of the car, chemicals, steel and clothing industries.
  
• Leads to a new and more complex picture of Italian development.

Author Biography

Michael Dunford is Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Sussex. In 2000 he was elected member of the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences (AcSS). In 1996-2002 he was Editor of Regional Studies. In 2003 he received the Royal Geographical Society Edward Heath Award for geographical research in Europe. He has held Visiting Professorships at the universities of Pavia, Toulouse, Paris I: Panthéon-Sorbonne, Campinas in Brazil, Oslo and Sciences-Po in Paris. His previous publications include Cities and Regions in the New Europe (1992) and Successful European Regions: Northern Ireland Learning from Others (1996).

Lidia Greco is Lecturer in the Sociology of Economics and Labour Processes at the University of Bari, Italy. She previously worked at Trinity College, Dublin, where she carried out two EU-funded research projects. As a consultant, Lidia has worked for the University of Durham and the Sussex European Institute, and more recently for the European Union. She is the author of Industrial Redundancies: A Comparative Analysis of the Chemical and Clothing Industries in the UK and Italy (2002) and co-author of Building the European Research Area: European Socio-Economic Research in Practice (forthcoming).

Table of Contents

List of Figures.

List of Tables.

Series Editors’ Preface.

Preface and Acknowledgements.

1. Introduction: Growth, Inequality and the Territorial Division of Labour.

Areal Differentiation and Development Models.

After the Three Italies.

A New Economic Geography of Uneven Development.

The Structure of the Book.

2. Convergences, Divergence, Regional Economic Performance and the New Economic Geographies.

Analysing Regional Economic Performance.

Convergence or Divergence.

Neo-classical Convergence Models.

Cumulative Causation and Endogenous Growth.

Territorial Divisions of Labour.

Conclusions.

3. Theorising Regional Economic Performance and the Changing Territorial Division of Labour: Value Chains, Industrial Networks, Competition and Governance.

Introduction.

Basic and Non-Basic Industries.

Explaining the Dynamics of Activities Serving Wider Markets.

Enterprises and Their Environment: Establishing the Frontiers/Boundaries of the Firm.

Enterprises and Their Environment: Interfirm Relations.

Modes of Governance and Growth.

Conclusions.

4. Growth and Inequality: the Political Economy of Italian Development.

Italy's Economy in its European and Mediterranean Context.

Official Statistics, Unrecorded Activities and the Measurement of Output.

GDP, net Transfers and Regional Income.

Territorial inequality in Italy at the Turn of the Millennium.

Catching up, Falling Behind, Surging Ahead and Losing Ground: Trends in Italian Regional Development.

Conclusion.

5. Institutional Dynamics and Regional Performance.

Introduction.

The Institutional Configuration and the Characteristics of Italian Capitalism.

Institutional Context and Territorial Development Dynamics.

Crime and Territorial Development.

Changes in the 1990s: The Political Scene.

Changes in the 1990s: The System of Governance.

Changes in the 1990s: Debt Reduction and Privatization.

Changes in the 1990s: Territorial Development Policies.

Concluding Remarks: The Implications of Recent Trends.

6. Italian Regional Evolutions.

Introduction.

Italian Regional Evolutions.

Comparative Regional Development.

Comparative Provincial Development.

Employment, Productivity and Investment.

Economic Specialization, Exports and International Integration.

After the Three Italies: The Origins and Limits of the District Model.

Conclusion.

Appendix 1 The exponential Growth Model.

7. Industrial Change and Regional Development: The Changing Sectoral Profile of Regional Development and the Evolving Regional Profile of Industrial Change.

Introduction.

The Sectoral Profile of Regional Economies.

Sectoral Structures and Uneven Development.

The Changing Geography of Vehicle Manufacturing in Italy and the World.

The Changing Geography of Chemical Manufacturing in Italy and the World.

Conclusion.

8. Globalization, Industrial Restructuring and the Italian Motor Vehicle Industry.

Introduction.

The FIAT Group: Changing Functions in the Value Chain and Changing Chains.

Globalization and Market-seeking Investments.

FIAT in Italy: Technological and Organizational Upgrading and Geographies of Production.

Outsourcing, Redefining Corporate Boundaries and Restructuring the Supply Chain.

Crisis, Markets and Models.

Conclusions.

9. Reconfiguring Industrial Activities and Places: the Italian Chemical Industry.

Introduction.

The Italian Chemical Industry and its Changing Position in the Wider European and World Context.

History and Characteristics of the Italian Chemical Industry.

Trajectories of Restructuring.

Montedison.

The role of SMEs.

Another Aspect of the New International Division of Labour: Foreign Companies in Italy.

Experiences and Regional Impacts of Restructuring: the Disengagement of the Chemical Industry in Puglia.

From Growth Pole to Industrial Cemetery? The Disengagement of the Chemical Industry from Basilicata.

Conclusion.

10. Conclusions and Further Remarks.

Introduction.

Geography as a Spatial Expression of a Social Order.

Geography and Development Models.

Contemporary Perspectives on Industrial Change and Regional Economic Performance.

Theorising Industrial Change and Regional Inequality: Profit Strategies and Value Chain Upgrading.

Areal Differentiation and Uneven Development in Italy: from the North-South Divide to the Three Italies and After.

Economic Decline and the Limits of the District Model.

Industrial and Regional Performance.

Conclusions: Inequalities, Territorial Divisions of Labour and Profit Strategies.

References.

Notes.

Appendices.

Index.