The Impact of Regional and National Policies in the Development of the Italian Mezzogiorno

After the Second World War the Southern regions of Italy (The Mezzogiorno) underwent a period of exceptional growth. However, this period ended after the oil crisis and now the Mezzogiorno is the largest backward region within the EU-15. A huge amount of literature is devolved to find the main reasons why Mezzogiorno did not evolve like the rest of the country. In the paper I propose that the implemented policies were essential or critical in influencing the rise and then the decline of the southern economy. The analysis is based on the strict association between the implementation of certain policies and the results in terms of output and employment growth. The main conclusion is that the failure to narrowing the gap between North and South in the last 20 years is attributable to areas that ask primarily the responsibility of national policies and where the backwardness of the South is pronounced, like justice, education and human capital, crime. These areas are largely outside the control of territorial policies. Therefore, even if regional policies are important, the lack of convergence of Mezzogiorno is rather attributable to general policies, particularly those with significant regional effects.