The territorial gaps in Italy. A Becattinian measure of local development

Drawing inspiration from the lessons of Giacomo Becattini, we examine the differences in development between one place and another through the multidimensional system of social trajectories that move away from or approach these places. More precisely, we measure the distances between places along three dimensions – culture, citizenship goods and economic condition – and compare the absolute distance and the relative distance of the places between the various dimensions. We apply this methodology to Italian regional differences for the years 2015, 2016 and 2017. The results obtained show that, unlike the stereotyped conception of Italian socio-economic development, the map of regional gaps differs from one to the other dimension: for example, a region of the South can bring one of the North closer to culture, another can bring it closer to the economy, and both can stay away from citizenship goods. We also document that some gaps are more serious than others: the average distance of all regions from the «barycentre» Italy for citizenship is 41% greater than the same distance for culture and even 90% greater than that of the economic sphere. Finally, we try to show the policy implications of the approach.