Between export-led growth and administrative Keynesianism

• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
• Department of Political and Social Sciences

Join Donato Di Carlo as he presents his recent research at the Political Economy Working Group.

Comparative political economy scholarship struggles to categorise Italy’s model of capitalism, oscillating between a mixed-market economy and a hybrid, stagnant economic system. To delve into the Italian political economy, this seminar employs the analytical framework of growth regimes to scrutinise Italy’s regional economic systems. 

The event underscores Italy's difficulty in being defined as a ‘national growth regime’ due to the contrast between two opposed regional growth regimes: the Northern and Southern regions. The former conforms to a manufacturing-based, export-led growth regime supported by competitiveness-enhancing territorial institutions. The latter conforms to a particular variety of the consumption-led growth regime, characterised by administrative Keynesianism. In this regime, growth and employment rely systematically on the state’s role of employer of last resort, alongside consumption-enhancing social policies, economic forbearance on labour and corporate tax regulations.

In this seminar, Donato Di Carlo discusses the importance of examining regional growth regimes. This is necessary when internal diversity in economic outcomes or productive structures exists across regions within countries, typically larger ones, and especially when subnational governments have the authority to develop significant institutional frameworks and policies supporting regional growth regimes.