After the Three Italies develops a new political economy approach to the analysis of comparative regional development and the territorial division of labour and exemplifies it through an up-to-date account of Italian industrial change and regional economic performance.

* Responds to recent theoretical debates in economic geography, involving economists, geographers and planners.

* Builds the foundations for a new theoretical approach to regional economic development and the territorial division of labour.

* Draws on the results of a recent ESRC funded research project, as well as on a large range of official data sets.

* Provides an up-to-date picture of Italy's economic performance and of its recent development relative to other European countries and the rest of the world.

* Analyses Italy's internal differentiation and its persistent regional inequalities.

* Examines the regional impact of the recent evolution of the car, chemicals, steel and clothing industries.

* Leads to a new and more complex picture of Italian development.

Michael Dunford is Professor of Economic Geography at the
University of Sussex. In 2000 he was elected member of the Academy
of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences (AcSS). In 1996-2002
he was Editor of Regional Studies. In 2003 he received the Royal
Geographical Society Edward Heath Award for geographical research
in Europe. He has held Visiting Professorships at the universities
of Pavia, Toulouse, Paris I: Panthéon-Sorbonne, Campinas in
Brazil, Oslo and Sciences-Po in Paris. His previous publications
include Cities and Regions in the New Europe (1992) and
Successful European Regions: Northern Ireland Learning from
Others (1996).

Lidia Greco is Lecturer in the Sociology of Economics and
Labour Processes at the University of Bari, Italy. She previously
worked at Trinity College, Dublin, where she carried out two
EU-funded research projects. As a consultant, Lidia has worked for
the University of Durham and the Sussex European Institute, and
more recently for the European Union. She is the author of
Industrial Redundancies: A Comparative Analysis of the Chemical
and Clothing Industries in the UK and Italy (2002) and
co-author of Building the European Research Area: European
Socio-Economic Research in Practice (forthcoming).

After the Three Italies develops a new political economy approach to the analysis of comparative regional development and the territorial division of labour and exemplifies it through an up-to-date account of Italian industrial change and regional economic performance.

• Responds to recent theoretical debates in economic geography, involving economists, geographers and planners.
• Builds the foundations for a new theoretical approach to regional economic development and the territorial division of labour.
• Draws on the results of a recent ESRC funded research project, as well as on a large range of official data sets.
• Provides an up-to-date picture of Italy's economic performance and of its recent development relative to other European countries and the rest of the world.
• Analyses Italy's internal differentiation and its persistent regional inequalities.
• Examines the regional impact of the recent evolution of the car, chemicals, steel and clothing industries.
• Leads to a new and more complex picture of Italian development.

List of Figures xi

List of Tables xiv

Series Editors' Preface xvii

Preface and Acknowledgements xviii

List of Abbreviations xxiii

1 Introduction: Growth, Inequality and the Territorial Division of Labour 1

Areal differentiation and development models 1

After the Three Italies 8

A new economic geography of uneven development 12

The structure of the book 15

2 Convergence, Divergence, Regional Economic Performance and the New Economic Geographies 17

Analyzing regional economic performance 17

Convergence or divergence 20

Territorial divisions of labour 26

Conclusions 39

3 Theorizing Regional Economic Performance and the Changing Territorial Division of Labour: Value Chains, Industrial Networks, Competition and Governance 41

Introduction 41

Basic and nonbasic industries 42

Explaining the dynamics of activities serving wider markets 43

Enterprises and their environment: establishing the frontiers/boundaries of the firm 50

Enterprises and their environment: interfirm relations 52

Modes of governance and growth 58

Conclusions 61

4 Growth and Inequality: The Political Economy of Italian Development 64

Introduction 64

Italy's economy in its European and Mediterranean context 65

Official statistics, unrecorded activities and the measurement of output 70

GDP, net transfers and regional income 76

Territorial inequality in Italy at the turn of the millennium 80

Catching up, falling behind, surging ahead and losing ground: trends in Italian regional development 87

Conclusions 90

5 Institutional Dynamics and Regional Performance 92

Introduction 92

The institutional configuration and the characteristics of Italian capitalism 93

Institutional context and territorial development dynamics 97

Crime and territorial development 102

Changes in the 1990s: the political scene 104

Changes in the 1990s: the system of governance 107

Changes in the 1990s: debt reduction and privatization 111

Changes in the 1990s: territorial development policies 113

Concluding remarks: the implications of recent trends 124

6 Italian Regional Evolutions 128

Introduction 128

Italian regional evolutions 130

Comparative regional development 140

Comparative provincial development 147

Employment, productivity and investment 149

Economic specialization, exports and international integration 155

After the Three Italies: the origins and limits of the district model 159

Conclusions 169

7 Industrial Change and Regional Development: The Changing Sectoral Profile of Regional Development and the Evolving Regional Profile of Industrial Change 170

Introduction 170

The sectoral profile of regional economies 170

Sectoral structures and uneven development 173

The changing geography of vehicle manufacturing in Italy and the world 187

The changing geography of chemical manufacturing in Italy and the world 200

Conclusions 207

8 Globalization, Industrial Restructuring and the Italian Motor Vehicle Industry 209

Introduction 209

The FIAT Group: changing functions in the value chain and changing chains 210

Globalization and market-seeking investments 216

FIAT in Italy: technological and organizational upgrading and geographies of production 225

Outsourcing, redefining corporate boundaries and restructuring the supply chain 230

Crisis, markets and models 236

Conclusions 242

Afterword 243

9 Reconfiguring Industrial Activities and Places: The Italian Chemical Industry 244

Introduction 244

The Italian chemical industry and its changing position in the wider European and world context 245

History and characteristics of...