Italy's long-term economic performance: GDP estimates from 1300 to 1861

Name: Italy's long-term economic performance: GDP estimates from 1300 to 1861
Published: 2025-09-04
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Giovanni Federico, New York University-Abu Dhabi ; Alessandro Nuvolari, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies–Pisa ; Leonardo Ridolfi, University of Siena; Michelangelo Vasta, University of Siena

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Figures_EcHR.xlsx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet	2.5 MB	09/04/2025 04:10:AM
GDP data.xlsx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet	164.8 KB	09/04/2025 04:12:AM
Readme.pdf	application/pdf	108.9 KB	09/04/2025 04:11:AM

Project Citation:

Federico, Giovanni, Nuvolari, Alessandro , Ridolfi, Leonardo, and Vasta, Michelangelo. Italy’s long-term economic performance: GDP estimates from 1300 to 1861. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-09-04. https://doi.org/10.3886/E237682V1

Project Description

Summary: We present new demand-side estimates of GDP per capita for Italy and its two macro-areas, Centre-North and South, for the pre-industrial period (1328-1861), based on a novel dataset including almost 100.000 observations from 169 different locations. Our estimates confirm the chronology of the “Little Divergence” relative to the Netherlands and England. Italy maintained its leading position relative to the other European countries and was overtaken by France and Germany only in the first half of the nineteenth century. GDP per capita trends differed between Centre-North and South determining a “slow-motion” divergence of the South from the fifteenth century to the political unification.

Funding Sources: Italian Ministry of University - PRIN 2020 project “Economic development in Italy from the Middle Ages to today: a regional perspective” ((Prot. 20207WZ9XH).)

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: GDP per capita; Italy; Little Divergence; Regional growth

Geographic Coverage: Italy

Time Period(s): 1300 – 1861

Collection Date(s): 2022 – 2025

Universe: GDP per capita of Italy and macro regions (regional benchmarks)

Methodology

Data Source: Historical sources: see Online Appendix A

Geographic Unit: Regions

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V1 [2025-09-04]

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