Policies for the Mezzogiorno and the Limitations of "Politics"

Starting from the work by Cannari et al. (2009) which stresses the responsibility of national policies in the lagging performance of Italy’s Mezzogiorno, the paper focuses on the problems of policy coordination, regardless of the different levels of Government bearing responsibility. A distinction is drawn between vertical and horizontal coordination and the obstacles to their effective solutions are considered, including errors in the selection of policy makers and bureaucrats which can, in turn, depend on the concentration of power, and thus on inequality. In the conclusion attention is drawn to the marked inequality characterising the Southern regions of Italy.