Paradox in the Contemporary Italian Economy

Introduction: A Long Background
The economic history of Italy is longer than that of any other Western economy, extending back nearly three thousand years. Though that enormous sweep of time, the single most dramatic development has been the reversal of relative economic fortunes between the North and the South. In the north, the Etruscan cities (we still use the name, in slightly modified form, as Tuscany) were, to be sure, already prosperous when Rome was a village. But it was Southern Italy and Sicily, with its Greek colonies, the Greater Greece of the ancient world, that..