The Rise and Fall of the Italian Economy

The Rise and Fall of the Italian Economy
Author: Carlo Bastasin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2023-09-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1009235346

Carlo Bastasin and Gianni Toniolo provide a much-needed, up-to-date economic history of Italy from unification in 1861 to the present day. They show how, thirty years after unification, Italy began a long phase of convergence with more advanced economies so that by the late twentieth century Italy's per capita income reached the levels of Germany, France and the UK. From the mid-1990s, however, the Italian economy declined first in relative and then absolute terms. The authors describe the intertwined financial and institutional crises that eroded trust in the political system and in the economy at the exact juncture when new technologies and markets transformed the global economy. Longstanding problems of uneven levels of education and obsolete bureaucratic and judicial practices deepened the division between economically vibrant regions and the rest, causing polarization, political instability and rising public debt. Italy's contemporary malaise makes the country a test-case for understanding the implications of protracted declines in productivity and the flattening of GDP growth for the stability of western democracies, resulting in populism, mistrust and political instability.

Economic Policy and the History of Economic Thought

Economic Policy and the History of Economic Thought
Author: Stavros Drakopoulos
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2023-03-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000855392

This book discusses key issues in economic policy in the context of the history of economic thought. Most of the current and past academic controversies in economics are, explicitly or implicitly, centred around the application and form of economic policy. This is particularly evident in the post-WWII period, with the appearance of economic policy as a distinguishable subfield, but important elements of various economic policy issues can be found throughout the history of economic thought. This book discusses various topics in economic policy – such as questions over state spending and taxation, income redistribution, and the role of money – with each chapter focusing on a particular period or major school of economic thought ranging from the ‘prehistory’ of economics up to the present day. Specific chapters of the volume cover the main schools of economic thought from different national and theoretical traditions, incorporating mercantilism, the Physiocratic School, the German Historical School, Marxism, the Austrian School, institutional economics, Keynesian economics, behavioural economics and more. This book will be of great interest to readers of the history of economic policy as well as the history of economic thought, macroeconomics and economic history more broadly.

The Making of the Modern Corporation

The Making of the Modern Corporation
Author: Carlo Taviani
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2022-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000590291

This book traces the origins of a financial institution, the modern corporation, in Genoa and reconstructs its diffusion in England, the Netherlands, and France. At its inception, the Casa di San Giorgio (1407–1805) was entrusted with managing the public debt in Genoa. Over time, it took on powers we now ascribe to banks and states, accruing financial characteristics and fiscal, political, and territorial powers. As one of the earliest central banks, it ruled territories and local populations for almost a century. It controlled strategic Genoese possessions near and far, including the island of Corsica, the city of Famagusta (in Cyprus), and trading posts in Crimea, the Black Sea, the Lunigiana in northern Tuscany, and various towns in Liguria. In the early sixteenth century, in his Florentine Histories (Book VIII, Chapter 29), Niccolò Machiavelli was the first to analyze the relationship between the Casa di San Giorgio’s financial and territorial powers, declaring its possession of territories as the basis of its ascendancy. Later, the founders of some of the earliest corporations, including the Dutch East India Company (1602), the Bank of England (1694), and John Law’s Mississippi Company (1720) in France, referenced the model of the Casa di San Giorgio.

Consequences of Social Transformation for Economic Theory

Consequences of Social Transformation for Economic Theory
Author: Vikas Kumar
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2023-04-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3031277856

This book presents selected papers of the Euro-Asian Symposium on Economic Theory, held by the Institute of Economics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Ekaterinburg, Russia) on June 29-30, 2022. The conference aims to promote research and develop effective solutions to urgent challenges in economic theory in the context of stability and uncertainty. The main theme of the 2022 Conference is the "Viability of Economic Theories". The chaos of the modern world forces us to rethink many theoretical positions. Researchers are trying to overcome the contradictions between theory and empiricism through new models, mechanisms and approaches. The challenges of recent social change have led to an adjustment in the perception, interpretation, and use of many concepts, necessitating an updating of these terms. The problems and contradictions identified in the studies will help to reconcile theoretical approaches with practice. The volume covers topics such as sustainable development issues, economic shocks in the history of economic thought, modern economic concepts of identity, theory of organizations under uncertainty, review of economic theories with the "Corona crisis," models of consumer behavior, business cycles, theory of investment, issues of economic growth and market equilibrium, impact of social factors on the sustainability of the economy, etc. Moveover, the volume presents new solutions for the synthesis of mainstream and political economy ideas. These topics will be of great interest to academics, researchers and practitioners.

Capitalism and Christianity

Capitalism and Christianity
Author: Luigino Bruni
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2023-12-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1003828469

Drawing on debates about the religious nature and origins of contemporary European capitalism, this book argues for a distinction between a Northern/Protestant and a Southern/Catholic spirit of capitalism. The first part of the book explores the history of the relationship between capitalism and Christianity. Going back much further than Weber’s “protestant ethic” arguments, it looks at the early centuries of Christianity from the gospels to Augustine and follows the story through the Middle Ages – with special attention devoted to the role of Monasticism and Franciscanism – to modernity. The second part of the book analyses the origin of the “southern spirit of capitalism: before and after Luther and the Calvinist Reformation. It highlights the key features which demonstrate that the Catholic spirit of capitalism is, in fact, different from the Anglo-Saxon spirit. This book will be of interest to readers in history of economic thought, history of capitalism, economic ethics and religious history.

'Economy' in European History

'Economy' in European History
Author: Luigi Alonzi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2022-02-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 135027335X

Prompted by the 'linguistic turn' of the late 20th century, intellectual and conceptual historians continue to devote a great deal of attention to the study of concepts in history. This innovative and interdisciplinary volume builds on such scholarship by providing a new history of the term 'economy'. Starting from the Greek idea of the law of the household, Luigi Alonzi traces the different meanings assumed by the word 'economy' during the middle ages and early modern era, highlighting the semantic richness of the word and its uses in various political and cultural contexts. Notably, there is a particular focus on the so-called Oeconomica literature, tracking the reception of works by Plato, Aristotle, the 'pseudo' Aristotle and Xenophon in the Italian and France Renaissance. This tradition was incredibly influential in civic humanism and in texts devoted to power and command and thus affected later debates on Natural Law and the development of new scientific disciplines in the 17th and 18th centuries. In exploring this, the analysis of the function of translations in the transmission and transformation of meanings becomes central. 'Economy' in European History shines much-needed light on an important challenge that many historians repeatedly face: the fact that words can, and do, change over time. It will thus be a vital resource for all scholars of early modern and European economic history.