1,721,039 research outputs found
From Railways to Aircraft: Officine Meccaniche Reggiane’s Successful Product Transition in the 1930s
Full text linkIn 1936 Gianni Caproni, one of the biggest aircraft producers in Italy, bought one of the biggest
engineering companies in Emilia Romagna, the Officine Meccaniche Reggiane, and started
manufacturing and exporting some of the topmost fighters ever produced in Italy. Based on
different archival sources this paper would like to shed light on why, despite a national technological
obsolescence in the field a company, which focused on the production of railway
material, was able to come up with the most technologically innovative fighters (the Re. 2000
and successive models) which soon conquered the Italian and foreign markets. The author
would like to indicate the original characteristics which help explain its primacy: the unique
features of the Reggiane, the role of the new owner, risk-taker and forward-looking entrepreneur
Gianni Caproni and in particular the importance of the transmission of knowledge, which in
those autarchic years and in this particular case was reached by attracting human capital from
abroad. The general argumentation of the paper would like to show the importance of deeply
excavating in the company’s history, managerial choices, risk-taking attitudes, and knowledge
transfer in explaining an otherwise almost inexplicable international business success in a such a
competitive sector. The approach is not purely descriptive: the paper analyses the facts and
figures of the Officine Meccaniche Reggiane before and after the Caproni takeover, it evaluates
the company’s innovative production strategy in the new field of aircraft production and offers
new interpretations on its success story in this field
Economic fears of mass migration from southern Italy in early twentieth century America
No full textEconomic fears in the early twentieth century America about Italian immigration united trade unions and white collar workers and were motivated by reasons that ranged from the belief that migrants were disrupting the labour market and were temporary opportunist earners, unwilling to integrate and living in isolated communities, to the idea that southern Italians did not offer sufficient human capital: they were mainly illiterate, and had high dropout rates in schools, and were widely believed to have children with mental disabilities. These American fears were wildly overstated, however. First, Southern Italian migrants had to undergo a two-stage positive selection for literacy, while, secondly only 28.4 per cent of the massive incoming flow of Italians decided to stay; most Italian immigrants chose to return to their country of origin and the minority who remained did not delay long to join in the American melting pot
L' Unione Europea. Una storia economica
No full textQuesta storia economica della Ue delinea nella prima parte gli anni che vanno dal Piano Marshall alla nascita della Cee (1957), un decennio caratterizzato da grandi slanci verso l'unità ma anche da numerosi fallimenti (come la Comunità europea di difesa). Nella seconda parte affronta gli anni della cooperazione monetaria internazionale e il declino del sistema di Bretton Woods, la nascita del sistema monetario europeo, l'unificazione monetaria sancita nel 1992 con il Trattato di Maastricht, il ruolo delle banche centrali dei singoli paesi e della Bce. Viene quindi tracciata l'evoluzione delle politiche settoriali della Ue, dalla riforma della politica agricola comunitaria alla politica di coesione fra stati e regioni europee, alla politica della concorrenza e di sostegno delle Pmi, per concludere con le problematiche relative all'allargamento a nuovi paesi, e alla nuova politica migratoria
L’emigrazione italiana nell’Africa mediterranea 1876-1914
No full textQuesto articolo è un lavoro di sintesi su quanto già noto e abbondantemente studiato sull’emigrazione italiana nell’Africa mediterranea ma offre un contributo originale a livello quantitativo essendo tutti i dati sull’emigrazione frutto di una nuova contabilizzazione che si basa come fonte primaria sull’emigrazione annuale per provincia. Inoltre, questo lavoro affronta il tema con un taglio tipicamente storico economico e cerca di valutare quali furono in primis le motivazioni economiche che spinsero gli italiani ad emigrare in Africa e cosa l’Africa a quel tempo poteva offrire in termini di migliori condizioni di vita e salariali. Indubbiamente per molti anni l’Africa rappresentò un sollievo contingente (in molti casi si trattava di emigrazione temporanea) da una vita di stenti e dalla fame, ma soprattutto l’unica alternativa all’accettazione fatalista della propria sorte dato che le istanze di cambiamento si erano rivelate fallimentari soprattutto al sud. La Tunisia in più offriva l’attrattiva di un fondamentale miglioramento di status: da bracciante giornaliero il contadino meridionale poteva aspirare a divenire un piccolo proprietario terriero: i siciliani approfittarono velocemente e massicciamente di questa chance, come racconta questo articolo
Storia economica delle migrazioni italiane
No full textIl libro studio l'emigrazione italiana dal punto di vista economico, illustrando da un lato le ragioni e gli effetti della creazione di un mercato internazionale del lavoro, dall'altro indagando la dimensione organizzativa in tutti i suoi aspetti. Le approfondite ricerche archivistiche e l'elaborazione dei dati su base provinciale, ne fanno un lavoro altamente innovativo
The ‘Duce hometown effect’ on local industrial development: The case of Forlì
Full text linkThe history of fascist intervention and rescue in support of Italian banks and firms (either through nationalisation or direct aid) in the inter-war years is well known. The case of Forlì adds an important piece of information to the broad literature on state-sponsored development. Benito Mussolini was born in Predappio, a small village in the Apennines in the province of Forlì. And Forlì was meant to become ‘la città del Duce’ (‘the Duce’s hometown’). The case of Forlì offers an original perspective: entrepreneurs who chose Mussolini’s hometown to obtain special concessions, a novel element in the crowded panorama of special relationships between government and industry in Italy. But on the other hand, this article will also underline the unsuitability of big business to local economic characteristics (and post-war challenges) and the return to a traditional growth path centred around the small-firm model specialising in traditional sectors and family-owned, centralised management. State-sponsored business failed and provided no stimulus to local growth: any talk of ‘industrial continuity’ in Forlì requires us to acknowledge that it is based on the steady presence and continuous regeneration of locally grown, small family businesses
From one crisis to another: the European central bank’s role from the great recession to the Ukraine war
Full text linkThe paper examines the changing role of the European Central Bank over the last
15 years and holds that the ECB has gone through a process of learning by doing,
relying on earlier crisis experiences in forming its response to successive crises.
This learning process has enabled it to sustain the euro countries against various
exogenous shocks both within the power of its mandate and beyond it, implementing
novel reforms. We argue, in fact, that crises stimulated institutional innovations such
as the introduction of Eurozone banking supervision and the European Banking
Union. The latter was a particularly ground-breaking idea, not contemplated by the
Treaties, and addressed to exceptional endogenous dynamics. During the last two
emergencies, triggered by the pandemic and the war, the ECB seems finally to have
learned how to manage crises via a synergic use of available tools
Emigranti italiani ed emiliano-romagnoli in Argentina e Stati Uniti. Imprenditorialità e trasmissione dei saperi
No full textIn questo volume gli autori ricostruiscono il caso dell’emigrazione italiana in Argentina e negli Stati Uniti, che storicamente hanno rappresentato le mete più ambite della migrazione transoceanica italiana. I flussi verso questi due paesi, seppur motivati da fattori di spinta e di richiamo similari, ci raccontano però storie molto differenti, sia a livello di cronologia (gli italiani cominciarono prima a emigrare in Argentina), sia a livello di integrazione e trasferimento delle idee, discriminazione ed estraneità. Le divergenze insite nei due percorsi migratori furono dettate in primis dalle differenze economiche, politiche e culturali dei due paesi di destinazione. In entrambi i casi vedremo storie di successo, che premiarono i migranti e la loro tenacia (nonostante l’ambiente in cui si trovassero a interagire fosse molto differente e certamente meno familiare negli Stati Uniti), e vedremo grandi assonanze a livello della formazione di una comunità italiana nei due paesi, con istituzioni simili a protezione dei migranti più deboli e a sostegno della collettività italiana
From one crisis to another: the European central bank’s role from the great recession to the Ukraine war
Full text linkThe paper examines the changing role of the European Central Bank over the last 15 years and holds that the ECB has gone through a process of learning by doing, relying on earlier crisis experiences in forming its response to successive crises. This learning process has enabled it to sustain the euro countries against various exogenous shocks both within the power of its mandate and beyond it, implementing novel reforms. We argue, in fact, that crises stimulated institutional innovations such as the introduction of Eurozone banking supervision and the European Banking Union. The latter was a particularly ground-breaking idea, not contemplated by the Treaties, and addressed to exceptional endogenous dynamics. During the last two emergencies, triggered by the pandemic and the war, the ECB seems finally to have learned how to manage crises via a synergic use of available tools
A provincial level analysis of Italian emigration to Africa in mass migration years. Who left and why
No full textDuring Italy’s mass migration movement (1890-1914), Italians went all over the world, the United States and Argentina being the main destination countries and income differentials being one of the basic push factors. In the case of Italian emigration to Africa, also historical, cultural and geographical reasons made the Mediterranean African countries (in particular Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia) the natural destination shores of Italian labourers, a movement which had started many decades before the Italian state was born (1861). The Mediterranean sea had not only witnessed warfare and strife but grew rich because of pacific interrelations, mutual exchange of goods, ideas, scientific knowledge, workers and, to a lesser scale, professionals (engineers, doctors, accountants etc.). The Italian community in Africa grew steadily and it was often the link with the post-unification immigration fluxes. This article will present a provincial level analysis of Italian emigration to Africa. It will also look at the economic motives that pushed Italians to emigrate to Africa and at the role of migration chains in directing the flows. This paper will concentrate on free migration movements but will also briefly deal with the fascist government assisted or induced migration to the Italian colonial empire
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