No. 539 - The growth of the Italian economy in the 1990s: technology lag and slowing productivity

The paper presents a growth accounting exercise for the Italian economy over the last twenty years to assess the role of primary inputs and total factor productivity. The exercise was run at both the aggregate and the disaggregated level. For the first time in Italy it used a measure of capital services, disaggregated into several different components. Special attention was paid to the accumulation of ICT capital goods. A productive capital stock database was prepared, disaggregated by asset and sector, and the respective user costs, adjusted for fiscal factors, were calculated. In the period 1981-2001 total factor productivity contributed for less than one fourth to the Italian economic growth, and in the second half of the nineties TFP decelerated significantly. The largest contribution to economic activity was made by capital formation and specifically by assets not directly linked to new technologies, whose contribution was very small. The service sector, in particular transport and communications and financial intermediation, contributed most to the growth of TFP. In financial intermediation sector the role played by ICT capital was very substantial.