LIBRI DI PIERO BINI

This paper explores the activities of five think tanks at work on the Italian economy during the 1970s and 1980s. They are: Cespe (Economic Policy Research Centre) and Csc (the research departement of the Confederation of Italian Industries) in the second half of the 1970s; Ceep (Economic Policy Study Center) from 1973 to 1992; Cer (Research Europe Center) from 1981 to 1992; Isel (Labour Economic Studies Institute) from 1981 to 1985. Based on the experience of these study centres, the paper considers some leading topics in the think tank’s literature, such as 1) the relationship between knowledge and power; 2) the challenging and problematic path between the economic expertise and the aspiration to influence the policy-making. In particular, the study-cases analysed show a variety of nexus between knowledge and policy, in some cases of a conflictual nature, in others of a dialectical nature, and in yet others legitimising one another. As a consequence of this focus on these 5 think tanks, some major issues of the Italian economy of that time are also brought to the attention of the reader: the ways then adopted to escape from inflation; the inability of the ruling powers to address the crisis of public finance and the soaring public debt; and the great uncertainty about the effectiveness of the quantitative parameters of the Maastricht Treaty in providing an appropriate solution for Italy. In general, the paper provides some reflections on the different guises in which economics seeks a place in public discourse.

Between 1969 and the early nineteen-eighties a unique parabola took place in Italy that was both historical and theoretical. We are referring here to the birth, development and decline of a research project that had assumed Sraffa’s book Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities as its basic reference. At the beginning of this debate, the characteristics of Sraffa’s theory as an "open" scheme enabled it to produce a theoretical core having multiple derivations (both Keynesian and Marxian). In this system of scientific synergies a special role was played by the discussion concerning wages as "independent variable". The result was a meta-theoretical concept of wage as a price governed prevalently by social forces and power relations. We have called this complex research programme the "conflict paradigm". Successively the paper considers the reasons which, since the mid-seventies, started to corrode this compound doctrinaire alliance, first of all the intellectual disorientation caused by both the acute expressions of crisis in the second half of nineteen-seventies, and the criticism against the Sraffa’s theory as an "open" scheme, as a factor that deprived the study of economics of the solid anchor of equilibrium analysis.

This volume contains twenty papers presented at the IX AISPE Conference. The conference examined the theory and practice of “economic policy” during the 20th century, focusing on both historical aspects and present experiences. Although already introduced by the mercantilist doctrines and classical theories, during the past century economic policy acquired the full status of a discipline endowed with its own theoretical corpus and a wide range of applications.

L’opera ricostruisce l’evoluzione e la diffusione dell’economia politica nell’Italia liberale attraverso un’analisi delle opere di carattere manualistico prodotte nel periodo. Questo volume raccoglie i saggi dedicati ai principali manuali e trattati di economia politica, dai Principi della economia sociale di Scialoja, al Trattato di Boccardo, all’Economia dei popoli e degli Stati di Lampertico, ai Primi elementi di Cossa, per arrivare ai testi che segnarono la grande stagione del marginalismo in Italia e ad alcuni fortunati manuali di inizio Novecento. Un posto a parte occupa lo studio delle dispense dei corsi universitari di Ferrara e Messedaglia.

Tra il 1953 e il 1968 prende avvio, raggiunge il suo apice nel cosidetto miracolo economico, e poi declina, uno dei periodi di maggiore prosperità della storia economica italiana, paragonabile soltanto, in termini di crescita annuale del reddito, al periodo giolittiano del primo decennio del Novecento. Lo scopo di questo articolo è quello di ricostruire alcune scelte di politica economica effettuate in quel quindicennio che, dal punto di vista politico, vide il passaggio da una formula centrista ad una di centrosinistra e, sotto l’angolazione economico-sociologica, registrò l’avvento in Italia di una economia del benessere e di modelli di consumo sempre più elevati. Al centro della nostra attenzione verranno messi, in particolare, i seguenti temi: 1) la politica monetaria della Banca d’Italia; 2) la politica di sviluppo delle aree arretrate (il Mezzogiorno); 3) la programmazione economica. Per ciascuno di questi temi, è stato adottato il metodo di mettere a confronto l’analisi teorica e i suggerimenti pratici degli economisti con i processi della politica e le decisioni assunte dai governi del tempo. Come finalità conoscitiva di ordine generale, si è cercato di formulare una interpretazione unitaria della vicenda di politica economica dell’Italia in quel quindicennio.