Fra i grandi paesi europei, l'Italia è quello in cui le differenze territoriali risultano più marcate e persistenti. Il volume ricostruisce l'evoluzione dei divari regionali dall'Unità ai nostri giorni e analizza le politiche pubbliche che, nelle diverse fasi storiche, sono state attuate per colmarli. Dallo studio emergono due interessanti elementi di novità. Innanzi tutto, la definizione e la misura dei divari non riguardano solo il reddito, ma anche lo sviluppo umano e la qualità complessiva della vita. Vengono perciò presentate nuove stime regionali non solo del reddito pro capite ma anche della speranza di vita, dell'istruzione e quindi dell'"indice di sviluppo umano", per il periodo che va dalla fine dell'Ottocento ad oggi. In secondo luogo, viene adottato un approccio comparato che non si limita all'Italia meridionale ma si rivolge anche a quelle aree del Centro-Nord che in alcune fasi sono state oggetto di una legislazione di sostegno, e che spesso si sono rese protagoniste di straordinari percorsi di sviluppo.

REGIONAL DISPARITIES AND PUBLIC POLICIES. A RE-EXAMINATION OF ITALIAN DEVELOPMENT. Italy is probably the European country with the widest and most historically deep-rooted regional disparities, at least (but maybe not only) in economic terms. There is a huge literature dealing with the so-called «questione meridionale» – the social, cultural and economic backwardness of southern Italy – a literature dating back to the end of the nineteenth century. During the very last decades analyses and researches into the remarkable performances of other parts of the country, namely the north-eastern and central regions (Nec), have been flourishing too. We should add that in the second half of the XX century policy makers devoted many efforts to overcome the historical North-South divide, delivering a massive and unparalleled regional policy mostly by way of the so-called «Cassa per il Mezzogiorno», although the results were largely disappointing. This book proposes a broad historical picture of regional disparities in Italy, from 1871 up to 2001. It focuses is not only on income, but also on the human development index (Hdi) and on its two other components (apart from income, longevity and education). With the avail of these new estimates, it revises some of the vast literature dealing with regional disparities in Italy, as well as the public and regional policies introduced in the last century with different results, in the South as well in the Centre-North. By the time of Unification Italy was a profoundly divided country, not only in terms of per capita income, but also – and maybe more – with regard to education and to other compo- nents of human development, which varied greatly among the regions. While income disparities increased until 1951, those in education and longevity followed an opposite trend, so that there was a clear catching-up in terms of human development. This catching-up process continued also during the second half of the twentieth century – particularly in the 1950s, the 1960s and to a lesser extent in the 1970s – when income disparities finally declined, thanks to regional policies as well as to the South-North migration; however, in the last two decades the process almost came to a halt, because of a new widening of the North-South income divide (there was still a catching-up in terms of education, while regional disparities have practically disappeared in terms of longevity). By 2001 Hdi disparities among the Italian macro-areas were still relatively high – al- though significantly reduced – if compared with those among the most developed countries. There is a strong correlation between income and Hdi, not only because income stands as a basic component of Hdi but also because, especially in the long term, it is strictly correlated with another component of Hdi, namely education, as stressed by a vast international literature. However, Italian regional trends seem to confirm that high Hdi leads to long term eco- nomic growth, while the reverse causation is not always true: referring to the international context and to the last decades of the twentieth century, recent analyses have reached similar conclusions.