No. 5 - Production and Consumption in Post-Unification Italy: New Evidence, New Conjectures

It is widely believed that in the 1880s falling grain prices immiserized the rural world, dragged down the entire economy, and caused massive emigration. This paper argues that the 1880s were actually prosperous; that the fall in the price of imported grain was generally beneficial; and that rising emigration was due to improving opportunities abroad. The decline in consumption registered by the national accounts is due entirely to the notoriously spurious grain-consumption series. The better statistical evidence related to imported foods, textiles, and wages in industry and agriculture points uniformly to cyclically high incomes and consumption, and the anthropometric data show no evidence of widespread hardship. Grain and total food consumption were therefore presumably also above trend. In fact, only landowners appear to have been damaged by the fall in grain prices; but their voice dominates the record.