Do development policies for Southern Italy still exist?

Abstract

The study examines "Is there still development policies for the Mezzogiorno?", reconstructing the problem and the main evidence developed in the text. Last but not least, because austerity policies are increasing regional differences, and the South has bad economic trends since 2010 onwards (Viesti 2015a). The target set up at the end of the 1990s to try to ensure additionality (Mezzogiorno rate on total capital expenditure) was abolished by the Berlusconi Government and never restored again. Without prejudice to the brief action of the ministers Barca and Trigilia (2011-2013) the interest of the last executives for the theme is practically non-existent. But this has two significant negative consequences: resources are dispersed over many objectives, obtaining necessarily modest improvements; an imposing actuation commitment is required, which slows down and complicates public action. But also for a significant “political offer”: decision makers, especially at regional level, prefer to fragment interventions to maximise their returns of consent by the beneficiaries. Analogue doubts are allegiance to the publicized “Masterplan”, which is likely to be a mere re-edition of existing programmes and interventions.

Keywords

Half-day; Cohesion policy; Italy; Europe; public policy; infrastructure

JEL codes

R58; R11; R12