X - Technological Innovation and Industrial Development post WWIIby Cristiano Antonelli, Federico Barbiellini Amidei, Renato Giannetti, Matteo Gomellini, Sabrina Pastorelli and Mario Pianta

Over the first decades after World War II, the Italian economy grows with an unprecedented intensity and persistence. This volume hosts three essays analyzing from different perspectives the role played by technological change in defining the characteristics and rhythms of the long phase of industrial development. Localized technological innovation fuels a lively total factor productivity growth. The success of the export sector is associated with an incomplete transformation on the international specialization model. The structural limits of the Italian innovative system and the episodic nature of public intervention strategies stand out. The essay shed new light on the historical roots of the virtuous characteristics and the vulnerabilities that still marks the national productive system.