La diffusione del pensiero economico di Keynes in Italia: ipotesi a confronto (The spread of Keynesian economic thought in Italy: some alternative hypothesis)

The historiography on the spread of Keynesian economics in Italy between the Two World Wars moved from the hypotheses formulated by those who are to be considered the ‘forerunners’ of the studies on this subject: Aurelio Macchioro and Giacomo Becattini. After more than three decades, and basing on a review of the primary literature and on the analysis of the evolution in historiography, this ‘critical’ reconsideration of Macchioro’s and Becattini’s arguments aims to goes examine the reasons that made the reception of Keynesian economics so difficult in Italy, underlining the multiple nature of the obstacles – both cultural, theoretical and social – that it met in being accepted by the Italian economists