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:
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