Thread by @OxfordESH

Tonight's evening seminar, given by Marie Stella Chiaruttini (@univienna) and entitled 'War, Debt and Constitution: Italy's Path to Nation-Building and Central Banking in the Nineteenth Century' is about to begin! #OxfordESH #Twitterstorians #EconHist

...and we are off!

Italian unification had critical north-south dimensions which continues to inform political debate. The Kingdom was born in the north

Northern and southern Italy were and remain economically divergent. There is a new quantitative literature on the regional development of the two economies

This paper examines a critically important section of the credit market — banks of issue

The key questions:

...and a sneak peak of the conclusions:

The sources:

The historical context:

An overview of fiscal policies:

Northerners paid more taxes than their southern neighbours at the time of unification — this made the imposition of the northern fiscal regime a big change for the south

Southern banks ended up acquiring large specie reserves — inefficient

Credit to the private sector in the south was limited. In the north it grew a great deal

Eventually, the post-unification national bank became a big player in the south, but the north still dominated

The national bank competed strongly with native southern banks — causing them to also expand

Did the national bank channel southern savings north, though? Probably not — evidence for credit discrimination scant

Can we speak of a post-unification southern credit revolution? Not really.

To conclude: