Abstract         Translations of Physiocratic works played an important role as a tool for dissemination of Physiocratic ideas in the second half of the eighteenth century. Thus the article opens with a brief survey of translations that appeared in Baden and Sweden, followed by a more detailed study of those that appeared in Italy, specifically in Tuscany and Veneto. It is then demonstrated that Physiocratic works were actively circulated in these translated versions in support of a political objective: that of sustaining a wide-ranging plan for political and economic reform devised by the ruling classes. Finally, the problem of the quality of these translations is addressed. Except for those produced in Veneto, they faithfully reproduced the key concepts elaborated by the School.

Abstract         A substantial portion of the "legacy of Claudio Napoleoni" was effectively disregarded by the authors of the monographic issue devoted to this economist. Furthermore, some of the contributors were overhasty in assuming they could rapidly "get to the bottom of" Martin Heidegger’s thought. In contrast, this article claims that: I) Napoleoni’s encounter with Heideggerian meditation on technology was by no means fortuitous, but rather formed the inevitable outcome of Napoleoni’s critical itinerary; 2), following up on his reflections on Marxian and Sraffian criticism of political economy, Napoleoni clearly emphasised in his Discourse on Political Economy that political economy is finite, and is so in an extremely determinate sense; 3) this recognition by no means implied a rejection of political economy as a science, but does suggest the need for more appropriate localisation of meditation on the origin of the operational object field of political economy.

Abstract         This paper analyses Luigi Einaudi’s contribution to the elaboration and implementation of the exchange policy during the period of post-war reconstruction.
After recalling the proposals put forward by Einaudi during the 1930s concerning the problem of exchange controls, the author dwells on the aspects that shaped Einaudi’s strategy, the definition of Einaudi’s tools and the main measures adopted, the dialectical contrast and exchange of ideas between Einaudi as central banker and the international monetary authorities, and finally, the question of costs and the reactions induced by his measures.
Einaudi recognised that the exchange policy was indeed fully integrated with the more general monetary policy. However, he believed it should have the task of utilising and gradually transforming the system of controls that dated back to the 1930s, arguing that such an approach would lead towards restoration of market relations and an integrated payment system.

Asso, Pier Francesco - Fiorito, Luca, Comparing Economic Cultures: Materials on the spread of Pareto’s writings in the United States (1896-1938), X, 2, 2002, 111-152

Abstract        The author presents a study of the professionalisation of economic science in post-unification Italy, based on a quantitative analysis of the overall scientific production of university professors of Political Economy during the period from 1861 to 1900. After discussing the methodological criteria adopted to identify and select the research framework (economists and economic literature) - indicating how such criteria distinguish this study from others on similar themes - the author presents several figures who illustrate the trend of scientific production and productivity of the roughly 50 academics who were active during the period studied.
In order to analyse the progressive disciplinary and thematic specialisation of these professors, a classification of their production over the 40-year period - amounting to around 2,500 works - is given. A series of tables is also provided, showing a breakdown of economic literature by discipline, the nature and character of the works, their content, and the main themes addressed. The universe of economists is also broken down, taking into account the different periods in which they received their training.
Through analysis of the tables, the validity of some of the historiographic hypotheses on this subject has been verified empirically, leading to an interpretation of the professionalisation of economic science in Italy as a process that began at the end of the 1870s. This confirms the results of previous studies in which the author underlined the special characteristics of the case of Italy compared to other countries.

Barucci, Piero, The Economist in Parliament: Some Reflections, X, 1, 2002, 7-15

Abstract         Becattini's autobiographic interview focuses on his intellectual 'riddles' (rovelli) centred upon the complex interconnections between the economic, psychological, social and cultural aspects of human life. The interview is a broad survey  of Becattini's activities and researches from his post-war studies at Florence University to his most recent contributions on industrial districts. Reflecting on his main theoretical works, Becattini recalls his personal links with Italian and European economists. The context and aims of his historical studies, in particualr his lifelong dialogue with Alfred Marshall, are also discussed. Becattini's involvement in applied research, particularly with the institution of the Tuscan IRPET, whose working benefited from his experience at the NIESR in London, bears witness to the importance of what Keynes called 'intimate and messy acquaintance with the facts'. The text provides a lively picture of some central streams of the evolution of economic and social thought and research in Italy as seen by one of his leading economists (Jel Classification: B200; R110).

Abstract         The historiography of Italian financial studies, although fairly rich, has three limitations: its fragmentary nature (there are few general surveys), its reflexive character (it is often the work of exponents of the tradition itself, or their direct disciples), and hyperspecialisation (focusing almost exclusively on aspects of the history of analysis in the narrow sense). What is argued in this article is that the Italian tradition should be represented in a unified manner as a genuine School, inspired by the cognitive goal of elaborating theories capable, from the very beginning, of building a stable bond between the political or particularistic-coercive, and the economic or universalisable-voluntary aspect, of the financial phenomenon.

Abstract         A State can be defined as economically "sustainable" if, assuming that it endures over time, it contributes to the enlarged social reproduction of scarce means, utilized to achieve variable (individual and collective) ends. Italian economists have traditionally believed that it is crucial for the state administration to be sustainable rather than functional from the point of view of the short-term economic situation. Economists have thus sought to study the process by which a State formulates the goals it intends to pursue, and have attempted to devise ways of evaluating the measures enacted to achieve such goals. This paper focuses mainly on Berardi’s research into the sustainability of the protector-State (or minimal State), Papi’s work dealing with the insurer-State, and the research by Arena and Demaria relating to the modern social State.

Abstract         The author examines the attempts by Giulio Pietranera, undertaken between 1947 and 1956, to proceed towards a rethinking, at one and the same time, of both the labour value and the evolution of capitalism. The assumption of a zero profit rate, and that of the equal technical composition of capital in all industries, constitute the alternative conditions under which goods are exchanged at their individual values.
The first assumption reflects a "subjective" contradiction within the current economic system: on the productive loans market, - as was already recognised by Böhm-Bawerk and Wicksell - entrepreneurs have a negative intertemporal preference rate. However, the real interest rate must be positive in order for capital accumulation to occur. Pietranera shows that only by means of the exchange between capital and wage labour can this paradox be solved, and also argues that during periods of cyclical recession the "original" interest (or net profit) rate tends to zero, thereby leading to the labour theory of value.
The second assumption reflects an "objective" contradiction of capitalism, namely between the phases of static and dynamic competition. Static phases give rise to a smaller discrepancy between dead and live labour among the different industries as compared to phases of dynamic competition - to the point that it makes sense, from a comparative point of view, to claim that under static competition, in broad groups of industries, the technical composition of capital is actually levelled. In this perspective, labour values are seen as the regulatory prices in effect in the phases that have a given technical base, while production prices are interpreted as the regulatory prices during qualitative growth periods. Despite the many potential flaws lurking within the analysis put forward by Pietranera - which the latter did not entirely elude, but for which the present author offers some attempted emendations in the final part of this paper, Pietranera claims that the shift from values to prices is not an algorithm but rather a phenomenon that occurs in the course of a structural capitalist cycle in which even values are a system of regulatory prices. 

Abstract         Claudio Napoleoni’s reflections are characterised by a strong thread of continuity even in the strictly economic field. This is particularly noticeable both as regards the founding role attributed to the theory of value, and also the recurrent attempt to formulate a rigorous theory of capitalist development. The first part of this essay is devoted to charting the different stages of Napoleoni’s theoretical elaboration, dwelling on the different positions he adopted towards the two crucial issues of economic theory that constantly stood at the heart of his inquiry, the theory of value and the theory of development. This examination leads to distinguishing Napoleoni’s work into a "Smithian" phase (1956-1961), a "Ricardian" phase (1962-June 1971), a "Schumpeterian" phase (July 1971-1975) , a "Marcusian" intermezzo (1976-1984) and a "Heideggerian" phase (1985-1988). The second part of the essay suggests several ways in which a renewed attention to the Marxian critique of political economy could take into account Napoleoni’s intellectual heritage. Special emphasis is placed on the question of exploitation, showing why, in a generalised market monetary economy, production, and therefore surplus, should be traced back to regulation of working time as the historic innovation of capitalist modernity.

Abstract         This article presents a preliminary overview of the first elements on the intellectual biography of Piero Sraffa that can be derived from the papers, and above all the correspondence of the Italian economist, held at the Wren Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. There are references to several episodes concerning the young Sraffa before and after his emigration; in addition, his relations with Keynes and Wittgenstein are explored, while that with Gramsci is only summarily mentioned. The concluding part of this work discusses the very first reception of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities in Italy, with searching questions concerning the assessment of propositions reflecting Sraffa’s position vis-à-vis Marxian theory. An examination is also made of Sraffa’s reply, as found in his papers, to the arguments on this issue that appeared in reviews by John Eaton and Claudio Napoleoni.

Abstract         Having noted that, for the convenience of historiography, Cesare Beccaria and Pietro Verri have traditionally been classified within one and the same Lombard or Milanese school, the author enquires whether it is legitimate to forge such a close association between these two great thinkers. Since both resort to the "language of algebra" in their works, the yardstick adopted to compare their output and evaluate the extent to which their economic thought is homogeneous consists of a series of postulates underlying early marginalism. In other words, they are assessed by criteria lying at the root of the current of thought that boasts primacy in the coherent and full-scale use of the "geometric method". The most important of such postulates is the unicity of the law of nature, taken to mean the identity of the rules that govern both the physical and the human world. In the West, from the days of Aristotle onwards, such a question has always been addressed in the form of a comparison between the real and the imaginary. Investigation of the work of the two Milanese thinkers in the light of this question leads to the conclusion that Beccaria, like the early marginalists after him, held a monistic view of the law of nature. Verri, on the other hand, who believed the imaginary to be predominant in the world of man, is shown to have possessed a dualistic conception. Consequently, it is highly misleading to regard them as both belonging to the same school.

Abstract         During the period prior to Unification, eighteenth-century economists were for many years read as an important source of knowledge that would lay the groundwork in building a rich, civilised and powerful Italy. Later, after the waning of Risorgimento fervour and in a profoundly changed scientific context, Enlightenment writers of the second half of the eighteenth century became the object of intense investigations designed to reconstruct the traces of a national tradition. Not infrequently, however, they were also used as a pretext in heated debate on methods.
In the decades between the two world wars study of these eighteenth-century authors was taken up again with renewed vigour, partly because they constituted a natural outlet for the rhetoric of the régime. But on several occasions, in-depth research on these figures showed them to have possessed considerable analytical insight, with hitherto unsuspected philosophical and ethical subtleties and unexpectedly profound sources of inspiration.
Since the second world war, despite the intense revisitation of the eighteenth century by Italian scholars and a rich production addressing the history of economic thought, this subject has been largely overlooked by the majority of specialists. Among historians of economic science only two have devoted a broad-ranging monographic study to these themes, one aiming to demonstrate the classical approach of Italian eighteenth-century economists, and the other describing the parallel developmental path of the science of nature and political economy in Italy.

Abstract         It is well known that the texts of Maffeo Pantaleoni’s Lectures on Political Economy are actually lithograph transcriptions of the lectures he delivered orally to his students, without any professorial intervention designed to officialise their contents. This circumstance has led to a problem of reliability and "authenticity" of the Lectures. The present article was written in order to address this problem.
Research was carried out on 19 different editions of Pantaleoni’s Lectures, covering a length of time ranging from 1896 to 1923 (the corresponding references are listed in the Appendix appearing at the end of the article).
Thanks to numerous elements of objective evidence and other substantial types of testimony (concerning, for instance, the "quality" of the editors of the Lectures, Pantaleoni’s relations with the editors, the utilisation of the Lectures by subsequent economists, and so forth), we have reached the conclusion that the texts in question effectively represent valuable and non secondary documents that can contribute to unified reconstruction of Pantaleoni’s scientific and political persona.
In the final part of the article we adopted a different method to explore the research potential offered by the Pantaleonian Lectures. We thus carried out a close textual analysis of his teachings, seeking to use his ideas as a springboard for in-depth investigation of some sociological and political aspects of his economic thought. It is hoped that this will allow a better understanding of the idea of progress that was the hallmark of the scholar from Macerata.

Abstract         This essay presents the results of preliminary research on unpublished Paretian material held at the National Library of Florence and in the archives of the Barbera publishing house. Discovery of this unpublished material has made it possible to reconstruct the various phases that formed the prolonged build-up to Pareto’s Treatise on General Sociology (1906-1916), by bringing to light several intermediate stages previously unknown to scholars. Analysis focuses in particular on a block of manuscripts that proved to be the draft for a Handbook of Sociology which Pareto worked on during the years 1907-1909 but subsequently abandoned as a consequence of an important methodological shift in his approach to social science - a shift that would eventually lead, in 1916, to the Treatise.

Abstract        This essay, which analyses the dialogue between Giovanni Vailati and Vilfredo Pareto, aims to contribute to knowledge of the close-meshed relations between economists and mathematicians that represented one of the most interesting characteristics of the early stages of Italian marginalism. By sifting through the epistolary material and undertaking a comparative analysis of the works, the author highlights the affinities and distinctions between Pareto and Vailati pertaining to the issues of the theory of choice, analysis of action and use of the deductive-intuitive method. Finally, mention is made of their divergence on the philosophy of economics, which was ultimately to lead to the definitive rift between these two scholars. An interesting point concerns the 1901 "lack of dialogue" on the theory of utility, where Pareto and Vailati touch on the very issues that would lead Hicks and Allen in the 1930s to found the modern theory of the consumer, a theory finally (!) free from any hedonist residue.

Canziani, Arnaldo, Economics, Law and Ethical Universals in Benedetto Croce’s Thought, X, 2, 2002, 75-110

Abstract         The author charts the framework of ideas underlying the economic policies adopted by the governments of the Republic from the immediate post-war period up to the present day. In the early peacetime years there was a strongly felt need to return to an open economy, which explains why the free market approach championed by Einaudi achieved considerable success. But it soon became evident that the new ruling class leaned towards a distorted and instrumental interpretation of the free market: for the latter was now considered as synonymous with totally untrammelled private initiative, beyond the confines of any system of rules that could ensure efficiency, accountability and competition. Starting from the 1950s, state interventionism began to counter this tendency, but did not result in a complete reversal of the general perspective. Rather, what came to prevail were two economic cultures that were basically incompatible with a reformist strategy functional to a collectivist economy, such as was characteristic of the social-communist bloc. Only in the late 1960s was a more organic planning agenda drawn up, designed to reconcile Keynesian policies with reforms that would create a fairer balance between North and South. However, the Centre-Left project lacked effective tools for implementation of such policies, while the aversion of large industries and hesitation by the trade unions led to failure of the majority of the long-term projects. Governments thus steered a wobbly course that dealt with issues on a purely day-by day basis, so that in the 1970s and 80s management of public resources was episodic and instrumental, the reins being tightly held by party "big shots". This in turn led to an increase in the national debt, which is still today the most serious problem awaiting resolution. The final part of the article examines the economic problems facing the Italian State today.

Abstract         The article contains a critical appraisal of the theoretical output of Claudio Napoleoni. The author reviews a number of recent works on this topic, outlining a number of reasons for agreement or dissension. In particular, the author disagrees with claims concerning the interpretation of Napoleoni’s scientific research program, his methodological position and his attitude towards Marxism, marginalism, Keynesianism and "Neo-Ricardianism". One of the central points of this discussion is the question of Napoleoni’s claimed rejection, resumption and definitive abandonment of Marx’s economic conceptions. This leads to a new portrait of this rather unconventional figure of a social scientist.

Abstract         A critical re-examination of the economic theory of Fascist ‘corporativism’ is offered, in order to place this doctrinal approach in a more appropriate setting within the history of Italian economic thought. The ideological, political and economic characteristics of the various trends coexisting within the corporative movement are extensively compared and discussed in the light of the historical conditions of Italy and the theoretical knowledge predominant in the 1930s. Among the interesting innovative aspects of this essay is its rejection of the corporativist claim to have established a direct line of continuity with a significant portion of the earlier Italian tradition of economic thought. This important point has been insufficiently addressed in previous studies on this topic, and still represents a source of uncertainty in more recent historiography.

Abstract         This essay argues that after the publication of Sraffa’s works (1969), the Marxian concept of ‘exploitation’ no longer appears to be economically significant, despite the fact that some recent works have reasserted the significance of this notion by starting out specifically from Sraffa’s constructs. In order to support the non-significance of the above concept, an in-depth analysis is offered of the ‘given quantities of commodities’ contained in the Sraffian constructs. The analysis shows, among other things, that the concept of ‘exploitation’ is a far more complex social phenomenon than its economic aspects would appear to suggest, and that it cannot be captured through simple quantitative relations.

Abstract The relationships between economics and mathematics in the eighteenth century invest an extremely wide range of questions, in that that both these terms, ‘economics’ and ‘mathematics’, cover a larger number of subjects than in today’s practice. Political arithmetic played a central role in this intermediary area: this discipline focused since its beginnings on the study of population and life annuities. At the end of the eighteenth century it was open to a wide range of legal, economic and political topics. Following a preliminary section devoted to the circulation of ideas in Europe on this subject (translations, correspondence, etc.), the paper examines the example of the land register, analysing the reflections that four authors made on it (Forbonnais, Morellet, Vasco, and Condorcet). The paper demonstrates the intensity and variety of the exchanges between French and Italians scholars, engineers and economists. Differences of approach seem to depend more on the overall scientific projects of individual scholars than on supposed ‘national schools of thought’. (Keywords: political arithmetic; eighteenth century; circulation of ideas in Europe. Jel Classification: B110; C100)

Abstract         The aim of this essay is to highlight: 1. The influence of some Austrian School theorists on the political and economic thought of the anarchist and social-libertarian (or individualist) Francesco Saverio Merlino; 2. The relevance of this Austrian influence on Merlino's critique to Marxism, which he considered to be grounded on an unsustainable economic labour theory of value; 3. The explanation of some aspects of the 'fortune' of the Austrian School in Italy. In its final part, this paper highlights the affinity between some aspects of Merlino's theories of knowledge, his classification of 'sensorial data', and his critique to collectivism and to economic planning theory, and Mises's and Hayek's positions (which Merlino did not know). Moreover, this paper will show how Merlino's attempt to melt socialism, ethics and individualism (an attempt which is not agreed with by the author of this paper) is anyway to be preferred to the so-called socialist-liberal or liberal-socialist solution, still linked to the 'classical' economic theory. (Key words: Merlino, Austrian School, Socialism; JEL Classification: B130; B140)

Sommario        L'articolo si propone di rilevare alcuni aspetti di continuità tra la concezione economica di Croce ed alcune idee poste alla base di recenti sviluppi della scienza economica contemporanea di derivazione neoclassica.
Più precisamente, il giovane Croce interprete del modello marxiano, ma già fautore dell'economia pura, viene accostato al recente 'marxismo analitico', con il quale sembra condividere l'impostazione di fondo: l'adesione a un programma scientifico di tipo soggettivistico-neoclassico e, al contempo, l'interesse per la rilevanza sociale delle proposizioni teoriche contenute nel modello marxiano. Risultato di tale impostazione è la riformulazione, ottenuta attraverso il confronto logico tra assetti socio-istituzionali differenti, del concetto marxiano di sfruttamento.
Viene poi rilevato il carattere fondamentalmente moderno dell'obiezione crociana alla legge marxiana della caduta tendenziale del saggio di profitto, risultando essa molto vicina alle critiche di Blaug basate sulla disamina degli effetti del progresso tecnico.
Infine, viene mostrato come sia la concezione crociana di scienza economica sia la definizione di valore economico visto esenzialmente in termini di scelta pratica dell'individuo, colleghino il filosofo napoletano ad alcuni significativi sviluppi della scienza economica neoclassica del Novecento; rispettivamente alla definizione di scienza economica formulata dal Robbins e alla teoria del comportamento del consumatore fondata sulle 'preferenze rivelate'.

Abstract       The relationship between the thinking and work of Sraffa and Keynes is complex and controversial. This paper approaches it initially through an investigation of theri respective interpretations of their predecessors, the classical economists and Marshall. Keynes is argued to have misinterpreted the classicals on Say's Law largely on account of his having accepted Marshall's continuity conception of the relation of classical to neoclassical economics. Sraffa's understanding of classical economics as being rooted in a different conception of value and distribution is opposed to Keynes's view. Yet though the two differed at this fundamental level, an argument can be made for saying they agreed that economic analysis needs to be embedded in social context identified in term of relatively distinct historical periods. This argument is developed in the second half of this paper in term of the philosophical views of Gramsci and Wittgenstein. An important conclusion is that distinct historical periods exhibit interconnected and relatively settled states of affairs across social and economic life. This gives some justification for treating both Sraffa and Keynes in long-period terms, if this frameworks is understood in the language of propensities and average practices.

Abstract         This review surveys the historiographic production of a period stretching roughly over the last quarter of a century. It is a period that has seen the rise of an independent historiography on economic thought, which was preceded by several earlier stages: (1) the nineteenth-century phase of retrospective studies conducted by economists themselves, (2) the prolonged hegemony of ethical-political historiography, and (3) the phase of economic-social historiography that became predominant following the second world war. When assessed in the light of its methodological presuppositions and against the background of the approach favoured in the early 1970s, the achievements of the young field of specialist Italian historiography do not appear fully satisfactory, at least for the period under consideration. With the exception of the study on Cagnazzi, one finds no comprehensive monographic study that includes a broad-ranging historical sweep, nor any critical editions of sources (apart from some investigation of Cuoco). In addition, what material there is has had little impact outside the confines of this field. On the positive side, however, it is worth mentioning the debate on Fuoco, the cataloguing of the Scialoia archives - although these are not yet adequately utilised - and a broadening of the historiographic horizon to encompass the jurist-economists belonging to the 1930-1950 period. But these criticisms notwithstanding, the range of works considered is fairly extensive, and goes beyond specialist production. The survey proceeds chronologically, following the historical evolution of the period.

Abstract        The paper examines the role of the Neapolitan economist Matteo De Augustinis (1799-1845) as a pioneer of the reception of the Smith-and-Say-based new science of political economy in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and more generally in the Italian Peninsula, in the first decades of the nineteenth century. De Augustinis’s Istituzioni di Economia sociale (1837)represent the first systematic manual of liberal political economy published in Italy. The vindication of this argument is developed in three stages. First, the paper rejects the received view of De Augustinis as a mere appendix of the eighteenth-century tradition, by comparing his social economy to Genovesi’s civil economy. According to De Augustinis, who draws on Say, Rossi and Senior, political economy has an experimental, non-normative and non-classificatory character. Second, the paper follows the Neapolitan economist all along his training period and up to the ensuing phase of maturity, after the publication of his first manual. Lastly, an unpublished source – the report of the committee of the Neapolitan Institute for the Encouragement of Arts (1845) charged of examining De Augustinis’s nomination as a member of the Institute – confirms his figure of laissez-faire economists in Bourbon Naples. (Keywords: Matteo De Augustinis; Neapolitan economic thought of the nineteenth century; classical political economy. JEL classification: B120; B310)

Abstract         The aim of this paper is to examine the decisive role played by Piero Sraffa's Turinese (and Italian) training, in the period running from 1916 to 1920. During this period, Sraffa graduated in Law at Turin University under the supervision of Luigi Einaudi, who held the chair of Public Finance and Financial Law.
The Law Faculty - and more generally Turin University - were characterised in those years by the spread of Positivism - a complex of attitudes towards knowledge based on philological rigour, systematic analysis, empirical investigation and verification, and a basic attention to history.
The Faculty of Law, in particular, emerges in the early decades of the twentieth century as an outstanding centre for the training of young intellectuals. The atmosphere that dominates in this Faculty, like in the rest of the Turinese academic milieu, is made up of many elements: a special attention to the social environment outside university. a 'civil' vocation of studies, the will to educate citizens who take an active art in the life of the polis, and not only in the sterile rites of the scholars' community. (Key words: Piero Sraffa; Positivisni; Turin University; Italian economic thought)

Abstract             Far from being a mere, although important, statistical task, the classification of economic activities is a core element of the reflection on national income that was started in England by W. Petty in the second part of the seventeenth century.
The diversification among professional qualifications and the high level of the participation rate were crucial elements for the development of a complete theory of the income generating forces. Such theory was primarily aimed at explaining unemployment and reducing it. In light of this, a special emphasis was placed on the quantitative assessment of the population level, of the number of employees and of their distribution across the type of activities, etc. In the eighteenth century, beside the theoretical investigation, there was a large interest for the empirical analysis of the income generating forces; subsequently, however, the so called political-arithmetic tradition was largely dismissed and a new approach gained momentum. The latter is characterised by a methodology primarily based on deductions that stem from a set of principles or assumptions formulated by the economists. Only in the twentieth century a number of economic transformations paved the way for a resurgence of interest for the role of classification of the economic activities. the paper, however, argues that the way such classification activity is undertaken is rather ‘weak’ from the point of view of explaining the income generating mechanisms. (Key words: Economic activities; Income generating forces; Quantitative economic analysis. Jel classification: B40; J10)

Fausto, Domenicantonio, An outline of the main Italian contributions to the theory of public financea, XI, 1, 2003

Abstract        The time horizon of the main Italian contributions to the theory of public finance ranges from the last two decades of the 19th century to the 1940s. This brief survey presents only their main arguments, stressing their impact on international literature. The following topics are analysed: general theories of public finance; taxation; public debt; State intervention in the economy. Italian economists have studied the problems of public finance in a general context, taking into consideration both taxes and public expenditure. Italian theorists have always been far removed from the classical approach which denies the productivity of public services and have deemed it necessary to take into account the political context in which fiscal structures operate. Their models include the State as a major factor. (Keywords: theory of public finance. Jel Classification: H00, B00)

Abstract         During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, a number of Italian economists cultivated an interest in studies on economics in antiquity, each of them following a different line of enquiry. F. Ferrara denied Greeks and Romans any merit as the founders of political economy. S. Cognetti de Martiis sought in the economic history of Greek and Roman antiquity a confirmation of the historical character of economic laws. In contrast, M. Pantaleoni regarded the economic institutions of classical antiquity as produced by the permanent characters of homo oeconomicus according to the postulates of pure economics. V. Pareto drew on numerous elements from study of Greek and Latin authors to demonstrate his sociological theories. The article examines the joint work carried out by Pareto and E. Ciccotti in establishing the "Collection of Economic History", showing the profoundly different perspectives that distinguished these two scholars.

Abstract        During the 1880s political economy struggled to assume an independent physionomy within socialist culture. The encounter between socialism and science seemed to be mediated almost exclusively through the sociological dimension. For a prolonged period of time political economy was considered as the ideological projection of those whose theories propounded the necessity and naturalness of inequalities.
In those very same years, Italian socialism began to inquire into Marx’s economic theory. The encounter with Capital would prove to be an arduous task, but one which would eventually lead to a different attitude towards the sphere of political economy.
Sociology nevertheless retained its primacy throughout the period under examination, and indeed it would not be an exaggeration to speak of a sociological route to political economy.

Abstract         In the early 1970s, Napoleoni moved towards a conception of Marxism as a theory of modern society founded on the real abstraction of salaried labour, abandoning all Ricardian perspectives. Such an abstraction, it should be noted, did not make reference - as it did in Colletti, whom Napoleoni to a large extent followed - to a generic alienation, but to the twofold separation, both juridical and technical, of the labour force from the labour process. Oscillating between the principle of real abstraction and the evocative aspects of alienation, the overturning of subjectivity, Napoleoni finally abandoned the attempt to conjugate Marxism and science.

Abstract         Claudio Napoleoni was interested in the problems of Italian economy and economic policy for forty years. His writings on this topic are very numerous, disseminated on a long period of time from the reconstruction years until the end of the 1980s; they probably exceed quantitatively those dedicated to the theoretical reflection about capitalism on which the debate was concentrated in the past. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to this important side of Napoleoni’s work, considering all his contributions and trying to specify the main features of his vision of the Italian economy and of its related economic policy proposals. In order to understand the evolution of Napoleoni’s thought on these issues, the analysis focuses on three decades. The paper begins with the description of Napoleoni’s position in the 1960s and goes on examining the changes during the following two decades. The article shows that according to Napoleoni the more crucial and lasting problem of the Italian economy was the existence of an excess of rent (or unearned income). Moreover, there was a close relationship between Napoleoni’s economic policy proposals and his analysis of capitalism, based on the theory of alienation. The simultaneous presence of alienation theory and of traditional economic analysis is the distinguishing feature of Napoleoni’s thought, an this makes his reflections particularly stimulating. (Key words: Claudio Napoleoni, Italian economy, Italian economic policy. Jel classification: B31)

Abstract         The word Hallesint derives from "Les Halles", the Parisian food market erected by V. Baltard in 1853. The ‘Hallesint doctrine’ was the outcome of an Italian school of economic thought (1905-1943) that promoted A. M. Trucco’s (1865-1940) original conceptions concerning the regulation of international production and exchange on the model furnished by the functioning of the Parisian market. In particular, this school of thought defended an ambitious project, which consisted in the creation of a World Chamber of Commerce that should regulate international exchanges (the so called "Universal Hallesint Foundation"), supported by appropriate international stock exchanges, an international money of account (the ‘hallis’) with a fixed exchange rate to national currencies, and safe and readily redeemable financial assets ("Bonds" and "Cheques"). An original feature of this school of thought was the energy its members displayed in attempting to apply their ideas to practice, by instituting a specific financial society and trying to persuade the main Italian economists and policy makers of the period. Their enthusiast and often presumptuous attitude towards the academic world prevented an open debate on their ideas, including those concerning the institution of an organism for the regulation of international trade, and the creation of an international money of account. The present paper aims to give a synthetic account of ‘Hallesint’ ideas on fair and efficient economic relationships. (Key words: Free competition, Monetary policy, World market. Jel Classification: B15)

Giocoli, Nicola, Ferdinando Galiani’s Theory of Interest and the Hypothesis of Bernoulli: a Golden Opportunity Missed?, V, 1, 1997, 7-37

Abstract         This essay examines Ferdinando Galiani’s theory of interest (On Money, Book V, Chap.1) and sets itself two main goals. Firstly, to identify the foundation of interest. The argument put forward here is that Galiani’s line of reasoning contains elements both in favour of a theory of abstinence and in favour of a theory of simple risk aversion. In the latter case, it is doubtful if one can speak of a genuine theory of interest. The second goal is to solve the "mystery" of the identify of the Bernoulli cited by Galiani in the chapter on interest: is he referring to Daniel or Jacques Bernoulli? The question is of relevance for two reasons. In the first place, in order to determine whether Galiani was effectively acquainted with the famous 1738 essay by Daniel Bernoulli, which, as is well known, foreshadowed some of the concepts that would prove fundamental for the modern theory of decision-making in conditions of uncertainty. And in the second place, because there are a number of historians who, believing that Galiani was definitely referring to Daniel Bernoulli but noting that the ideas held by the latter do not appear to be applied in On Money, accuse Galiani of having slowed the evolution of economic theory. In contrast, the present article contends that there are solid grounds, both textual and analytic, for claiming that Galiani’s citation refers not to Daniel but to Jacques Bernoulli. This solution enhances the figure of Galiani as one of the first authors to succeed in applying the basic concepts of probability calculus to problems of economic theory. The article concludes with a few brief observations on the question of the evolution of Galiani’s position with respect to uncertainty and probability in the transition from On Money to the Dialogues on the Corn Trade.

Abstract         Starting from the most recent acquisitions of historiographic criticism, the Author aims to chart the developmental path of Luigi Amoroso from one of his earliest works of wide-ranging analytic content - the Lectures on Mathematical Economics, published in 1921, up to the 1961 work in which the Amoroso surveys his own analytic itinerary. The focal point of this article is the relation between Amoroso and the mechanical analogy contained in his works. It is an analogy that was linked to his program of dynamic generalisation of Paretian equilibrium, which was consummately expressed in his Mechanics, written in 1942. Amoroso re-examined Pareto’s programme, reaching the conclusion that its weakest point lay in the absence of dynamics, while at the same time acknowledging that his master had opened up a path in this direction through useful analytic observations. The essay closes with a recognition of the continuity of Amoroso’s work, which, appropriately modified - with reference to rational mechanics and its theoretical models, such as the elastic physical model - still stands as a valid and interesting work of economic scholarship.

Abstact         The indifferent - if not downright hostile - attitude of the majority of the Italian ruling class towards industry was shared by the intellectuals, who from as early as 1860 began to cherish the myth of a rural Italy to be contrasted with the ugly development of artificial and corrupt urban areas. However, the first reactions towards technological and economic progress were not free from contradictions. For instance, the short story Nunziata (1852) by Giulio Carcano offers an idyllic depiction of the countryside, but ultimately reduces the clash between the opposing ideological demands of Nature (a young country maiden transformed into a spinning-mill worker) and Civilization (a harsh and domineering foreman) into a more traditional conflict of passions, in order to absolve the bourgeoisie from any responsibility in exploitation of the workers.
The democratic intellectual milieu of Milan also displayed considerable hostility towards the capitalist metamorphosis, but proved to be incapable of constructing any concrete political opposition. Thus the novel Paolina (1865) by I.U. Tarchetti contains a number of moralistic admonitions against the imbalance inherent in an affluent society, yet none of these admonitions translated into a project of social reform.
The ideological-cultural project formulated by moderate intellectual circles aimed instead to work towards the moral education of the working classes, in order to increase productivity. Such a stance is found in the novel A Worker’s Wallet (1871), written by Cesare Cantù. The text, which is indicative of the impact of Alessandro Rossi’s industrialist and political-social ideas, portrays Italian industry as closely integrated with rural society, and protected in its most vulnerable part (the working class) by the Catholic Church.

Abstract During 1753 Véron de Forbonnais and Plumard de Dangeul translated two important Spanish economic treatises: Theórica y Práctica de comercio y de marina by Gerónimo de Uztáriz and Restablecimiento de las fábricas y comercio español by Bernardo de Ulloa. Even though Forbonnais and Plumard did not keep to the original text, both translations played an important part in spreading liberal elements among the economic writers gathered around Vincent de Gournay. At the same time, Uztáriz and Ulloa had demonstrated that British economic growth stemmed from the Navigation Act, i. e. from rigid commercial protectionism. In other words, Forbonnais, Plumard and Gournay found in both books a wealth of useful suggestions for French economic policy. (Keywords: Spanish economic thought; French liberal mercantilism; translation of economic books. Jel Classification: B110)

Abstract         The debate among agricultural economists from the early postwar period up to the late 1950s is traced through its development in the Rivista di economia agraria (Journal of Agricultural Economics), founded in 1946. Attention focuses above all on interpretations of the economic and social transformations of Italian agriculture. The article seeks to shed light on the various different aspects of this debate by analyzing economic culture as it evolved in academic circles and gradually spread through the channels of political activity, public opinion and education, ultimately contributing to the rise of certain specific features that played a major role in establishing regulations in the sphere of agriculture. Such features not only include legislation and the role of government, but also encompass social relations, industrial relations, entrpreneurial choices, the manner in which social groups formed, and so forth. The author charts a gradual shift in emphasis within this debate, pointing to the demise of the sharecropping ideal that had been the hallmark of agricultural economy in liberal Italy, and had subsequently been taken over as the core of Fascist ruralism. The sharecropping pattern was replaced by a developmental model based on the working family and on small-sized production units. This model was then enacted with the 1950 Agrarian Reform Law. Subsequently, although a minority of thinkers - headed by M. Rossi Doria - held the somewhat utopian view that small farm should be assisted by a well established system of cooperatively run and state organizations providing technical assistance, the majority - of whom the most represenative figure was G. Medici - eventually authorized a "subsidiarity" vision of the State role that delegated all powers to the farmer-owner, in a general climate of absence of rules, exemptions, and special privileges.

Abstract The corn trade was one of the most important economic and political problems in France in the eighteenth century. In order to provide the subsistence of the population, the Ancien Régime had established a heavy and complicated system of often ineffective rules. From the middle of the century, laissez-faire ideas began to spread until they formed a coherent theoretical and practical corpus: the Physiocracy. Among the critics of this school, a special place should be attributed to Galiani, with his Dialogues sur le commerce des blés. The purpose of this paper is to provide a reader of Galiani's famous book and to show why his contemporaries were able to consider it as a brilliant and incisive attack to Phisiocracy, particularly dangerous for the main ideas defended by ths school of thought. (Keywords: corn trade; Physiocracy; Ferdinando Galiani. Jel Classification: B110)

Abstract         The aim of this article is to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Sraffa with some observations on his unpublished writings, bequeathed together with his correspondence and his many extremely precious books to Trinity College, Cambridge. The article is structured as follows. After am introductory section, section 2 provides a brief survey of Sraffa’s unpublished writings (annotations, lectures, publications). Section 3 gives several examples illustrating Sraffa’s contribution to economic theory. The examples concern: relative prices and income distribution, marginalist theory and the problem of capital, joint production and negative labour-values, his criticism of Keynes’ theory of the liquidity preference. The final section contains some concluding considerations. Given the vast array of unpublished writing, the present article cannot offer an exhaustive discussion of Sraffa’s arguments; rather, it limits itself to touching on some of his reflections and providing hints of the fertility and originality of Sraffa’s thought.

Abstract         Italian economists occupied a leading position in the field of economic theory both at the outset of the twentieth century and after the second world war. The author of this article enquires into the reasons why the generation that was active between the two wars appears to have fallen into oblivion. It is argued here that during that period in question the community of economists was organised around two groups: on the one hand a "bloc" drawing its inspiration from marginalism and the free trade approach, and on the other, expressions of thought that contested such beliefs. Study of the relations between these two blocs offers a satisfactory answer to the question of "scientific oblivion", through analysis of the time lag between periods in which theoretical innovation is generated and periods in which it spreads.

Abstract         The aim of this article is twofold. First, to argue in favour of the hypothesis that two competing projects have coexisted since the beginning of economic science and can also be traced in contemporary analysis, where they appear as monetary production economy versus allocational economy. Second, to suggest that such alternative theoretical constructs are strongly dependent on their underlying conception of the individual.

Maccabelli, Terenzio, Gramsci lettore di Ugo Spirito: Economia pura e corporativismo nei Quaderni del Carcere, VI, 2, 1998, 73-114

Sommario        Lo scritto si propone come ricostruzione delle note di Gramsci dedicate all’economia pura e al corporativismo, mostrando come l’interesse per tali argomenti sia un buona parte mediato dalla lettura dell’opera di Ugo Spirito. Le annotazioni economiche contenute nei Quaderni del carcere perderebbero infatti molto del loro significato se lette al di fuori della polemica, condotta da Spirito a cavallo degli anni trenta, contro la scienza economica, fondamentale nell’offrire a Gramsci stimoli e suggestioni nella stesura delle note economiche.
Al centro della riflessione dei Quaderni si trovano questioni che riguardano tanto lo status scientifico dell’economia pura quanto i tentativi di costruire un sistema alternativo di economia corporativa. Nonostante il giudizio complessivamente negativo sull’opera di Spirito, Gramsci appare condividere la sostanza di alcune questioni sollevate dall’allievo di Gentile. È questo il caso della critica condotta contro l’economia pura pantaleoniana e contro l’ambizioso progetto di farne una scienza totalmente libera dai pregiudizi ideologici. Le divergenze sono invece più radicali per quanto riguarda l’immagine complessiva della scienza economica, dato che Gramsci non si mostra mai convinto della necessità sostenuta da Spirito di porre su nuove fondamenta la scienza dell’economia, arrivando su questo punto ad accettare i rilievi di economisti «puri» o «ortodossi» come Ricci e Jannaccone.

Abstract         Noteworthy within the history of economic thought is a thirty-year period of political economy which, from 1870 onwards, was composed of economic thought bereft of economic analysis and in general lacking any economic theorism. The main opposition in this period was voiced by F. Ferrara - the greatest champion of economic theorism during the 1850s and 1860s. Economic policy (interest in the Social Question and labour legislation, "discovery" of the Southern Question, development of statistic investigation, overtures towards protectionism, etc.) likewise constituted an important issue in the 1870s. In F. Lampertico, V. Cusumano, C.F. Ferraris, L. Luzzatti, L. Cossa, etc. one can detect the influence of what Ferrara ironically called "economic Germanism" or "the Lombard- Venetian approach". The article also examines the theoretical-historiograhic position of L. Cossa, considered the mentor of "Germanism", and of F. Ferrara, assessing the result of the "historical" approach in terms of historiographic awareness of political economy.

Abstract        The paper examines the evolution of Napoleone Colajanni’s thought (1847-1921), starting from the first edition of Il socialismo (1884), a work written in the positivist and historicist intellectual context of the late nineteenth century. Colajanni, in opposition to Cesare Lombroso’s naturalist anthropology and to social Darwinism, insisted on the historical and social factors of backwardness and defended a progressive version of evolutionism. The second edition of Il socialismo (1898), largely adapted, conserved the socialist ethos and the opposition to natural laws. However, it adopted a more eclectic attitude, with an admiration towards the Italian marginalist economists and the adoption of Sorelian arguments. At the close of the century Colajanni was engaged in the management of the Rivista popolare and in a close relationship with Pareto and Pantaleoni. The political proximity between these intellectuals can be explained by their peculiar radicalism, a mixture of populism, interest in social issues, republicanism and opposition to Crispi’s politics. The paper rejects the received view of Colajanni’s ‘conversion’ from free-trade to protectionism at the beginnings of the twentieth century, arguing that Colajanni’s protectionism was a natural evolution of his opposition to market natural laws. The next evolution of Colajanni’s attitude was from populist and anti-governmental radicalism to patriotic radicalism. For this reason, at the beginning of the century Colajanni rediscovered Mazzini’s moral pathos, opposing it to Marxism. Lastly, in 1914 Colajanni favoured the intervention of Italy in WW1.(Keywords: Napoleone Colajanni; Italian economic thought; socialism; protectionism. JEL classification: B140; B310)

Abstract In Della Moneta, images, far from being a rhetorical and ornamental device, are a procedure of experimental verification placed within a scientific framework of analysis. In the background of this procedure lies Galiani’s knowledge of the treatises on money written between the 15^th and the 18^th century and of the controversies of that time, while in the forefront emerges the Neapolitan conjuncture: the importance of agriculture, the production and export of necessaries, the reform of the statute of banks, the recently achieved gold standard, and the discussion on the advantages of the appreciation of coinage. (Keywords: money; monetary history; value; appreciation of coinage; role of images in the scientific process; devices of the art of memory. Jel Classification: B110; B310)

Abstract        This study is concerned with aspects of the hitherto under-researched issue of the extent of the spread of Italian economic thought abroad. Through an empirical enquiry centred on numerous sources (archives, reviews and the literature in general), I have sought to provide an exact description of how Italian economic theories were received in the England of the period between the two world wars. The enquiry focuses on two principal historiographic questions.
(1) Did English economic thought persist in its traditionally insular character, even in the inter-war period?
(2) Which Italian economists were most influential in England, and for what reasons?
The answer to these questions rests on an interpretation, from a single viewpoint, of the two different evolutionary paths of Italian and English economic thought in the “years of high theory”.

Abstract         The Austrian School of economics today enjoys in Italy a considerable reputation. This is, however, the story of a belated success: for a great many years a critical and even hostile attitude had in fact prevailed. The present research goes back to the origins, in the attempt to understand the initial position the Italian economists took with regards to the Austrians. We here examine the most important economics textbooks published in Italy between 1889 and 1910, and depict the way Italian economists presented to their students (and colleagues) the Austrian version of the marginalist revolution. The conclusions suggest a somewhat partial acceptance, as an irreconcilable distance lingers over a crucial aspect of the theory of value. (Key words: Austrian School; Transmission of ideas; Marginalism in Italy; JEL Classification: B130; B190; A220).

Abstract         Radical criticisms have been levelled in various ways against Marx’s economic theory since the latter half of the nineteenth century, at times culminating in fairly substantial "revisions". In Italy, during the period when socialist revisionism was gathering momentum towards the turn of the century, Graziadei, inspired by Lorian themes, set out on his own peculiar theoretical path, producing a fairly large and well-coordinated body of works that would subsequently enable him to set up an original scientific system.
This system availed itself of methodology based on a historical-social critique (defined by Graziadei as "Marxian criticism"). It sought to shape an approach that would not only go beyond classical and Marxist economic thought but would also eventually make it possible to rethink the fundamental acquisitions of early twentieth-century neo-classical thought, whether orthodox or heterodox.
Thus Graziadei’s work offered a reformulation of certain tenets, including the theory of capitalist exploitation of labour and of the consumer, Marshallian analysis of the markets, the function of credit in the monetary circuit of capital, the economic cycle and underconsumption crises. In addition, Graziadei built up a critique of the labour theory of value and its analytical implications (above all the Marxian law of the tendency of the profit rate to fall). He likewise rejected the criterion of decreasing utility as well as the analytical and methodological aspects of marginalist thought, regarding such concepts as arbitrary and unilateral. In his view, they effectively amounted to an apology of the economic and social structure of capitalism.
The article aims to discuss some of the themes dealt with by Graziadei, in order to move towards a more positive reappraisal of an author who does not appear to have benefited from a fortunate historiographic destiny.

Marzano, Ferruccio, On a New Key to the Interpretation of the Main Theoretical Approaches in Modern Economic Thought, IX, 2, 2001, 103-135

Abstract        The Paper presents an interpretation of the main currents in modern and contemporary economic thought whereby they are grouped into two large groups. Whereas in Smith, who was the initiator of modern economic thought, the axiom of the so called homo oeconomicus did not completely cross out the role of value judgements in economic theory, this has been the case with the triumph of the positivist paradigm in marginalist and neoclassical economics. Keynes’s ‘scientific revolution’ brought about the restatement of the need for an approach that would combine theoretical analysis and ethical values. Hence, the Paper suggests that a fruitful way of classifying the different successive theories in economics is that between closed theories and open ones, according to whether they would not allow a proper role for value judgements in economics or else whether they would accept and support such a role. Attention is also brought upon the two main ways in which actions may be judged from a moral point of view: those which take their roots from purely subjective individual choices and those which benefit from taking their roots from objective and universal values. Then, out of the four ‘combinations’ which in principle may be thought of (‘closed economic theories-subjective value options’, ‘closed economic theories-objective value options’, ‘open economic theories-subjective value options’, ‘open economic theories-objective value options’), it can easily understood that the fourth one will recommend itself ‘for acceptance’. In fact, the acceptance of objective and universal values will allow economic choices to became more ‘enriched’ ones, since usually economic choices already are distinctively individualistic choices. (Keywords: Modern and contemporary economic thought; closed and open economic theories; subjective and objective value judgements; consistent and conflicting options. Jel Classification: A11; B00)

Abstract         Antonio Graziadei’s economic oeuvre should be seen against the background of a specific theoretical school of thought within Italian economics, namely one composed of economists who almost all held beliefs close to the early twentieth-century socialist party. The common feature of this approach was its attempt to reconcile some aspects of Marx’s thought with some aspects of marginalism.
In this article the Author examines the way in which Graziadei’s work forms part of this programme, with particular emphasis on Graziadei’s utilisation of Marshallian analytical categories to elaborate an original conception of the functioning of the market and the determination of economic equilibrium. Graziadei built up a theory in which the Marxian problem of exploitation maintained a central position, while the market played a major role in determining the specific conditions of exploitation in the capitalist system.
For these reasons, the Author believes that Graziadei’s work can legitimately be placed not only within the turn of the century debate on the revision of Marxism, but also within the critical enquiry into the various components of neo-classical economic theory that shaped economic debate in the inter-war period.

Abstract         This essay focuses on the early 1970s attempt by Napoleoni, who forged an integration between the category of abstract labor as a real abstraction and a theory of disequilibrium, to incorporate the Marxian labor value into theoretical analysis. Some of the reasons for the failure of this attempt are examined, including a mention of the developments other scholars sought to introduce into this debate. The article concludes that heterodox political economy must reconstruct for itself the object of criticism, on the basis of the current frontiers of debate on economic theory.

Abstract         Before publishing the systematic Principii di Economia Pura, in 1889, Maffeo Pantaleoni offered a series of remarkably interesting theoretical contributions, starting from his graduation thesis, published in 1882. These included the elaboration of an original marginalist theory, which drew on the teachings of F. Ferrara and ran parallel to Pantaleoni’s reflections on the theoretical foundations of public finance and trenchant polemics against socialism. His rejection both of the "extreme and true socialism" of Marx and Lassalle and also of German and Italian "Chair socialism" is of interest because, among other things, it is explicitated through elaboration of refounded historical and statistical scholarship.

Abstract         The author defines, stages and analyses the battle for modernisation undertaken by Pareto and Pantaleoni. From 1887 to 1900 these two economists found allies among Italian socialists in their struggle for a democratic and free market regime. But when, with the rise of Giolitti, debate on such issues as democratic dialectics and social reform began to move towards a convergence between the socialists and the liberal powers that governed Italy at that time, Pareto and Pantaleoni turned their backs on the socialists. They now sought the support of the very social and political forces - previously labelled as antidemocratic and interventionist - against whom they had adopted a bitterly polemical stance during the previous period. While not forswearing their free market propaganda, the two economists now accepted industrial protectionism and, more generally, a certain degree of collectivisation of the economy because they had become aware that such a system could effectively work in favour of market laws. According to the Author, the antidemocratic stance assumed by the two economists cannot be explained by the existence of an illiberal socialist movement in Italy. On the other hand, although the arguments put forward by Pareto and Pantaleoni still bear the hallmark of a nineteenth-century form of free market beliefs, incapable of grasping the problem of the political and social democratisation of the State, they bring to light an intrinsic aspect of market mechanisms that cannot be organically associated with any particular political persuasion.

Sommario        L'autore ha indagato i rapporti tra idealismo crociano e marginalismo pantaleoniano negli anni tra il 1897 e il 1924 mettendo in rilievo come entrambi i sistemi non riescano a risolvere la contraddizione tra ciò che viene considerato "teoria" e ciò che viene considerato "pratica".

Michelini, Luca, Arturo Labriola between Marxism and Marginalism, IX, n. 2, 2001, 33-86

Abstract        The paper offers a contribution to the controversy on Arturo Labriola’s economic thought. It aims to evaluate whether – and to what extent – this economist belongs to the Marxist school or to marginalism. The approach chosen to this effect is different from that adopted in the past by historians of economic thought: Labriola’s theoretical framework is discovered in his theoretical reflections upon socialism. The way in which Labriola deals with the issues of market socialism and planning is examined from this viewpoint. As a consequence, the existence of radical turning points in Labriola’s intellectual evolution can be explained principally by the study of his political thought. (Keywords: Marxism; marginalism; market socialism. Jel Classification: B130; B140; P230)

Abstract        This paper, whose character is more philosophical than historical, argues that Mengerian marginalism was misunderstood from the very beginning in Italy, since it was considered solely as an economic theory, whereas it was actually a theory of human action. In particular, what was misunderstood was the real meaning of both Menger's theory of subjective values and of his methodological innovations. The latter were not properly received in Italy owing to Pantaleoni's interpretation of Menger's Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre (1871), as revealed in Pantaleoni's Principii di economia pura (1889). Pantaleoni's  "hedonistic" interpretation became predominant after the publication of this book, and was even able to vitiate Croce's philosophical evaluation of "Austrian" marginalism, even if the latter could also read Menger's methodological work, i. e. Untersuchungen über dei Methode der Socialwissenschaften (1883). The argument of this paper is supported by a selective textual analysis of Pantaleoni's and Croce's work (Key words: Menger, Pantaleoni, Theory of human action; JEL Classification: B130).

Abstract        The figure of Pasquale Boninsegni (1869-1939) has long been relegated to the unenviable position of the dupe who allowed himself to be ensnared. The present article traces a biographic-intellectual profile of this thinker, highlighting the complex and striking elements of his personal background and his role in spreading intellectual propaganda in favour of Fascism in Lausanne during the 20s and 30s. In addition, the article analyses the relations between Pareto and Boninsegni on the interesting and highly revealing theme of comparative economic systems. Finally, the conclusion suggests that Boninsegni’s strong political commitment had an adverse effect not only on the history of comparative economic systems but also on the thematic and methodological originality of the Lausanne school.

Abstract         A fairly original contribution to the literature on Italian corporativism can be derived from surveying the reception of this school of thought abroad, in particular in a country such as France, where despite the different political set-up prevailing at the time, a tangible body of corporative tradition also subsisted. The very extensive French corporativistic literature of the entre-deux-guerres includes studies on Italian corporativism by Gaëtan Pirou and François Perroux, which were selected for investigation in the present article on account of their organic character and the low-profile attitude adopted by these two authors towards the political dimension of this phenomenon. In a broad-ranging survey of the different economic policies applicable to oligopolistic capitalism, Pirou eventually ruled out the possibility that Italian corporativism could work in favour of the public interest, since its inevitably authoritarian nature would prevent it from taking into due account the multiplicity of important social interests, such as those of workers and consumers. Perroux, on the other hand, while sharing the conception that the authoritarian characteristics of Fascism placed limits on the reforming ability of corporativism, maintained that if corporativism were "democratically "reformulated (i.e. reshaped to enable it to represent all social interests, including those of workers and consumers), it would be capable of solving the fundamental problems of distributive justice and allocational efficiency, a result oligopolistic capitalism had signally failed to achieve. The article closes by recalling the brief debate centring on the positions of these two authors, and suggests that the studies they undertook hint at a vision of Italian corporativism as an economic policy whose main thrust was against the structural crisis of capitalism. A more detailed analysis of the theoretical and practical reasons underlying the failure of this policy appears as one of the most promising avenues of research on corporativism.

Abstract        Luigi Cossa was the main promoter of the wave of studies on the history of Italian economic thought that occurred in Italy in the decades after unification. Following a clear program that provided for chronological, regional and monographic studies, Cossa delegated the writing of individual essays to a number of pupils, funding them and supporting them in their later competitive examinations and in their careers. The Cossa Competitive Examination set up at the Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts of Modena in 1887 is a concrete example of how Cossa sought to fulfil his plans. The essay titles of the competitive examination, and the care taken over the revision of what was presented by competitors like Andrea Balletti and Augusto Graziani, all mark the fact that Cossa considered the contributions produced by his pupils as chapters of a single great historical work. (Keywords: Luigi Cossa; history of Italian economic thought; Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts of Modena; Archive)

Abstract         This essay proposes a reconstruction of the teaching activity undertaken by Piero Sraffa at the Faculty of Law of the University of Perugia in the period between November 1923 and February 1926. The main archive sources utilised for research on this subject were the official records of the Faculty together with other administrative documents that allow a chronological reconstruction of Sraffa’s teaching activity, as well as the official registers of his lectures, which provide information on the content of the courses on Political Economy and Public Finance that Sraffa held during the academic year 1924-25. Through the testimony of one of the students who took the Political Economy examination with Sraffa, it can be determined that Sraffa assigned Marshall’s Principles as the set text for preparation of this examination.

Sommario        La traduzione inedita che presentiamo permette di apprezzare la replica austriaca all’accusa di plagio rivolta da Pantaleoni a Menger ma anche, e soprattutto, di riconsiderare il groviglio di questioni formatosi attorno al problema del rapporto fra i fondatori del marginalismo ed i loro più o meno oscuri predecessori. Purtroppo, se si escludono ritrovamenti fortuiti di nuove e decisive evidenze, non è più possibile né ‘verificare’ né ‘falsificare’ l’imputazione a carico del maestro di Vienna; tuttavia l’analisi ravvicinata della vicenda permette di ricostruire una serie di dettagli, di omissioni, di imprecisioni, di timori reverenziali che, inquadrati nel contesto, acquistano un preciso significato. Il comportamento di tutti e tre i protagonisti, in effetti, tradisce il bisogno di nascondere qualche pezzo di verità; ma anche gli epigoni, invece di accertare i fatti, hanno piuttosto cercato di svelenire il clima creatosi fra una parte della scuola austriaca e la nascente tradizione marginalistica italiana.
Ripercorrendo le varie tappe del difficile rapporto fra Pantaleoni e Menger si comprende il complesso rovello di formazione che travagliò il giovane Maffeo prima della stesura dei Principii e il Maffeo maturo anche dopo. Come notava Loria nel suo necrologio del 1924, «after that date [1889] Pantaleoni wrote no more formal books»: accanto ad avvenimenti di maggior peso, influì anche la replica di Böhm-Bawerk e non sono da sottovalutare le conseguenze dell’addebito a Menger, gli strascichi polemici e le parziali ritrattazioni. Alla fine comunque Pantaleoni avrà la sua rivincita: con l’accusa di plagio aveva toccato un nervo scoperto e battezzando col nome di Gossen due leggi edonistiche ne aveva imposto per sempre la primogenitura.

Abstract This paper examines an interesting episode in the Italian intellectual debate of the eighteenth century: the new edition of Pierre Gassendi’s Opera Omnia promoted by a group of Catholic scholars who were followers of Galileo. In particular, the paper aims to highlight the reasons of their anachronistic interest in Gassendi’s defence of Epicurean philosophy. The analysis of the correspondence exchanged by the editors of Gassendi’s works and of the introductory essays they prepared for the new edition reveals that this initiative was part of the attempts to renovate the Catholic culture made by the more active members of the group, especially Galiani and Bottari. Their endeavour was centred both on a desire to reconcile the Church with modern thinking and on the vindication of Galileo’s methodological legacy. The aspects of Galileo’s thought they stressed were the relationship between mathematics and experience, the similarities with Gassendian and Newtoninan experimentalism, the atomistic interpretation of the world. Gassendi was perceived as a strategic ally in this battle for the renovation of the Church, since he represented an example of the harmony that could subsist between genuine religious faith and libertas philosophandi, obedience to the rules established by the Church and a commitment into atomistic and experimentalist philosophy. (Keywords: Pierre Gassendi; Galilean Cattolicism; Celestino Galiani. Jel Classification: B110)

Abstract         This work is designed to assess the validity of conclusions previously reached in the literature on Sraffa’s treatment of monetary issues. Fresh light can now be shed on these questions by the documents known as the "Sraffa papers" held in the Wren Library of Trinity College, Cambridge and recently made available to scholars. The analysis carried out in this article confirms the results suggested in the economic literature concerning links between Sraffa’s early works on monetary issues and the works of his maturity on the theory of prices and distribution. It also leads to a more complete overview of his positions, his intellectual path and his relations with Keynes, underlining that from the very outset Sraffa’s work assigned a predominant position to the problem of the distribution of income as a conventional phenomenon. The investigation then dwells on the extent to which Sraffa’s later works suggest that the levels of distributive variables could be considered independent of the material conditions of production.

Abstract        The paper provides a biography of the Neapolitan economist Matteo De Augustinis (1799-1845), emphasising both his role as an intellectual, journalist and protagonist of the political life, and his contribution to the history of Italian political economy. After reconstructing the economic and political context of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and particularly that of Naples in the first decades of the nineteenth century, the paper examines more specifically De Augustinis’s interventions in the debate on the redemption of the region of Tavoliere di Puglia and on the reform of public education. Lastly, the paper reconstructs De Augustinis’s role as a journalist up to his intervention in the Congress of Italian Scientists held in Naples in 1845. De Augustinis is portrayed as a consistent liberal in politics and as an equally convinced partisan of laissez-faire in economics. (Keywords: Matteo De Augustinis; Neapolitan economic thought of the nineteenth century; public education. JEL classification: B120; B310)

Abstract         The purpose of this paper is to criticise Gramsci’s notion of "Lorianism", elaborated with a view to discrediting the intellectual figure of Achille Loria. The paper demonstrates the superficiality of Gramsci’s judgment, in that it was too tied up to Labriola’s and Croce’s anti-positivist reaction, and was far from giving a correct historical interpretation of the role of Loria’s economic doctrines in the Italian cultural framework. In opposition to this interpretative line, Loria’s most important theoretical contribution, the well known theory of "free land", is presented as an original interpretation of the dynamics of capitalist development from the point of view of a backward country, which was still far from the industrial take-off, although already belonging to the world market. (Key words: Achille Loria, Italian economists, Marxism, Socialism, Agrarian question. Jel Classification: B14, N53)

Patalano, Rosario, The Science of Money more geometrico demonstrata: Troiano Spinelli’s Riflessioni politiche, X, 2, 2002, 7-42

Abstract        The issue of the stability of money was raised in Italy in the second half of the sixteenth century by Scaruffi and Davanzati. Later, Montanari and other authors argued in favour of it amidst the turbulences of the seventeenth century. But in the eighteenth century this theme emerged out of the narrow ground of experts and became one of the central issues of political debate. In the Neapolitan intellectual milieu this theme gained ground thanks to the link established between it and the Metaphysical Restoration promoted by Giambattista Vico and Paolo Mattia Doria, on the one hand, and with their criticism of the Reason of State, on the other hand. The most strenuous partisan of the stability of monetary values was Carlo Antonio Broggia, whose philosophical views were akin to those of the veteres (Doria and Vico). His Treatise is a sheer defence of the stability of money and a warm refutation of the opposite point of view advocated by François Melon in his works. But the favour granted to monetary stabilisation was not limited to a single intellectual group. It can be found also in the writings of Troiano Spinelli, an aristocrat who did not share the philosophical views of the veteres. Spinelli had been educated in the rationalistic tradition and was familiar with Locke’s and Newton’s works. These influences can be easily detected in his Riflessioni politiche sopra alcuni punti della Scienza della Moneta, in which Spinelli resorted to Euclidean geometry in order to found his defence of monetary stability on a set of principles and axioms. The arguments of the Neapolitan aristocrat on monetary theory and policy are very close to Locke’s. At the time they were expressed, they voiced the fear of the social class to which Spinelli belonged, who was afraid of any intervention that could threaten the stability of money and the social status quo. (Keywords: Troiano Spinelli; Italian economic thought of the eighteenth century; circulation of ideas in Europe; monetary history; monetary policy; appreciation of coinage, inflation in the eighteenth century. Jel Classification: B110; B310; E400; E500)

Abstract         The aim of this work is to examine the contribution of Italian economists to the inter-war monetary debate. Attention focuses in particular on the role of the gold system and the dilemma of internal versus external stability, and also places this investigation in the context of some recent interpretations of the period in question. The article surveys the works of the major authors of the period (including Bachi, Bresciani Turroni, Cabiati, Del Vecchio, Demaria, Einaudi, Fanno, Jannaccone, Porri), pointing out that in the 1920s there was general agreement in the literature that the gold standard system constituted an effective "rule" to counter the governments’ inflationary propensities. However, with the advent of the Great Crisis, the theoretical positions split into opposing camps. Some authors (first and foremost Einaudi, Cabiati, Borgatta) waged a strong battle in defence of the gold parity. One of the hypotheses advanced in this article is that such a tendency should be traced to the persistence of a strong aversion to inflation, and that this persistence was accompanied on the analytical plane by support for Hayek’s theory of the cycle. Meanwhile, other scholars were more concerned with the need for internal stability, and pointed to the deflationary risks inherent in endorsement of the gold system. Finally, attention turns to corporativist literature, showing that this school of thought underwent an abrupt shift in the mid 1930s. from relentless defence of the gold parity of the Lira to support for an expansive monetary policy. The author argues that such a change was due not so much to genuine theoretical reconsideration as rather to a change in orientation of the régime’s economic policy during the years in question.

Abstract         The paper aims at analysing the influence exercised by the Austrian business cycle theory on the Italian economic debate during the Thirties. A first section surveys the models set out by Mises and Hayek and stresses the policy implications of these models in counteracting the proposals advanced during the Twenties by many economists to utilise the monetary policy for stabilising purposes. A second section deals with the reception of the Austrian theory in Italy. To this end the writings of Luigi Einaudi, Attilio Cabiati, Costantino Bresciani Turroni and Marco Fanno are analysed. Einaudi and Cabiati commented very favourably the Austrian contribution; their appraisal, however, was limited to policy aspects: in particular they shared with the Austrians a fierce opposition to any proposal to substitute the gold standard with a countercyclical monetary policy. Bresciani-Turroni, on the contrary, in his writings during the Twenties anticipated some key points of the Austrian model; during the Thirties, however, expressed more critical position. Marco Fanno, whilst sharing with the Austrians some analytical tools, tried to shape an his own theory of business cycles which aimed at synthesising the major theoretical contributions of his time. (Key words: business cycles; Austrian economic thought; Italian economists; JEL Classification: B220; E320).

Abstract         Sraffa works out the notion of "true absolute costs of production" in his unpublished writings. These absolute costs do not depend on the distribution of income, but only on the physical conditions of production. They can be determined through a hypothetical reduction of the aggregate product of the economic system. As Sraffa maintains, this reduction is "obviously identical with the shortening of the working day", with the technical conditions of production and the workers’ subsistence remaining the same.
Sraffa’s line of reasoning is quite similar to Marx’s "counterfactual argument" developed in Capital, Book I, Chapter V, in which it is shown that surplus value originates from surplus labour. In this framework, the paper puts forward some considerations in order to shed new light on the question whether Marx’s theory of surplus labour and surplus value is consistent with Sraffa’s analysis.
Moreover, the paper suggests that Sraffa’s successive statements about the exploitation of labour and the origin of profit can be usefully read in connection with his notion of "true absolute costs of production". (Key words: Sraffa, Marx, Surplus Value. JEL classification: B14, E11)

Abstract         Claudio Napoleoni claimed that the classical economists assigned a secondary, i.e. subordinate, position to consumption, and he argued that this was linked to the difficulties encountered by classical theory vis-à-vis the problem of value and price formation. Giacomo Becattini disputed this analysis, demonstrating instead that some of the great classical thinkers did attribute remarkable importance to consumption, even to unproductive consumption. This article seeks to show firstly that the subordinate position of consumption in classical economists is unrelated to any difficulties inherent in the theory of value and prices, and secondly that Becattini’s objection is valid within an overall view of the classical economists but does not concern the classical analysis of the mechanism of accumulation. The latter analysis fails to propose a convincing model because, similarly to both Napoleoni and Becattini, classical theory assumed that each increase in consumption by the workers should be ranked as unproductive consumption. This precludes it from solving the problem noted by those arguing in favour of the theory of underconsumption, i.e. the problem of the productive investment of the extra-surplus and, connected to this problem, the description of a coherent model of accumulation.

Abstract         The paper reconstructs – in parallel with the chronicle of the monetary, economic and political events of the epoch – the training received by the distinguished international banker Raffaele Mattioli in the 1920s. The paper draws on evidence found in the Rivista bancaria, in Mattioli’s private collection of books on political economy, and in Mattioli’s early working milieus such as the Bocconi University, and the Milan Chamber of Commerce. The anonymous publications identified in the Appendix to this paper reveal the highly international imprint of the economic reflections produced in the entourage of Attilio Cabiati, as well as various innovations introduced especially in monetary theory and the economics of banking. Cabiati emerges from this picture ad an anti-dogmatic and authoritative guide for some emerging economists, who developed among others a clear anti-fascist orientation, like Piero Sraffa, Carlo Rosselli and Raffaele Mattioli himself. (Key words: Raffaele Mattioli, Rivista bancaria, Attilio Cabiati, Monetary economics. Jel classification: B22; B31; E51)

Abstract         This article surveys the main interpretations put forward in Italy concerning "Marx as an economist" between 1883 and 1899. During the period in question, the most significant stances adopted in the Italian debate were those of Achille Loria and Vilfredo Pareto. From the appearance of volume III of Capital to the rise of the "crisis of Marxism", the most notable contributions came from Loria, Graziadei, Croce and Arturo Labriola. Both before and after 1894, the issues most closely examined by readers of Marx were essentially the questions of value and surplus value. The themes underlying volume III of Capital were only summarily considered, with the exception of the question of the tendency of the profit rate to fall, examined by Croce.

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to study the diffusion of Jean-Baptiste Say’s writings in Italy during the first half of the nineteenth century. First, the paper deals with the main translations, presents Say’s followers in Naples and Sicily, and also his opponents in Northern and Southern Italy. The study examines then the subjects of the French-Italian debate: the birth of economics, the question of statistics and the law of markets. These discussions take place particularly in the 1820s, in periodicals such as Biblioteca Italiana and Revue Encyclopédique and whose protagonists are Melchiorre Gioia, Francesco Saverio Salfi and Jean-Baptiste Say. (Keywords: Jean-Baptiste Say, Classical Political Economy, Italian economists. Jel Classification: B110; B120; B310)

Abstract         Debate on forest policy from the unification of Italy up to 1915 is marked by two salient periods: the earlier one culminating in 1877, when the first national law on forest policy was approved, the second in 1910, with the complex set of measures that led to the institution of a modern independent and centralised administrative organ devoted to forest policy. In both cases, economic circles made an active contribution to general discussion, orienting policy choices, in a free market direction in the former case and towards more extensive direct State intervention in the latter. In examining the themes centring around the forest debate, the article dwells on the original contributions by various economists: the authors of the Tuscan school, Ubaldo Peruzzi in particular, Ghino Valenti, Antonio De Viti de Marco, the first authors of forest economy (Felice Francolini, Giuseppe Borio, Vittorio Perona) and the Ministers of Agriculture who held office during the two above-mentioned periods, Salvatore Majorana Calatabiano and Luigi Luzzatti.
Offering a perspective that to some extent revises the prevailing historiographic judgement - which holds that legislation in this field showed a clear-cut evolution and progress towards a more modern forest policy - the Author underlines a chronic disregard for the dramatic requirements of land protection in the highly specific geographic conditions of Italy. Paradoxically, from a theoretical point of view the 1877 "free trade" law, and the approach it embodied, revealed a greater awareness of the possible contrast between purely economic arguments and the need for safeguards than did the "industrialist" conception of forest management that prevailed in 1910-12.

Abstract         Claudio Napoleoni’s thought was consistently characterised by strong tension between a philosophical and a political economy perspective. This relation is analysed here through an analysis of the role played in Napoleoni’s approach by the three economists to whom he devoted greatest attention: Marx, Walras and Sraffa. According to Napoleoni, while Marx and Walras - albeit in different ways and to differing extents - built up their economic theories on the basis of concepts that ultimately make reference to ontological structures (respectively, the concept of labour and that of scarcity), Sraffa represented the most deliberate and rigorous attempt to construct an unfounded economic theory, that is to say, a theory "totally detached from any non-empirical presupposition".

Abstract        Claudio Napoleoni’s relations with the Rivista Trimestrale - which he founded and directed jointly with Franco Rodano, subsequently distancing himself critically and self-critically from this journal - constitute a far from secondary observation point from which to survey the more general theme of "continuity" and "fracture" in the evolution of his thought. This article examines the stages, reasons and consequences of the parting of ways between Napoleoni and Rodano and the decision by the former to turn his back on the journal. At the same time, however, the article also points out several aspects suggesting elements of continuity in Napoleoni’s thought with respect to this "split". In particular, investigation focuses on the last years of Napoleoni’s life, when the now distant experience of the journal gave rise to complex tensions involving attitudes of "re-appropriation" and rejection.

Abstract         This paper examines in what measure the Italian economists of the inter-war period accepted the Austrian theory of the cycle. In order to fulfil this aim, the analytical structure of the Austrian macroeconomic model is reconstructed, with particular reference to Mises and Hayek. Subsequently, the attention is concentrated on some crucial points of the Austrian model in order to verify the opinions of the Italian scholars. In particular, the examine concerns: the changes of money supply as cause of the cycle; the wage fund theory and the marginal theory of distribution; the theory of forced saving; the analysis of the upper turning point of the cycle (with the role played both by the limit to the credit potential of the banks and by the relation between prices of consumption goods and prices of investment goods). The positions of many Italian scholars are examined; among the others: Amoroso, Bresciani-Turroni, Del Vecchio, Demaria, Einaudi, Fanno, Papi and Vito. (Key words: Business cycle; Austrian Theory; Italian economists; JEL Classification: B220; E320; E510).

Abstract         This essay sketches the evolution of historiography on Italian economic thought in the inter-war period, offering a broad overview of writings produced during a crucial moment of this trend of thought. Discussion is divided into sections devoted to the subjects that have long represented the backbone of historiography in this field: general analysis of the period, works on individual economists, the economic theory of corporativism, monetary theory, Marxism in Italy. For each of these sections, the main acquisitions of historiography and the salient moments of scholarly debate are presented, providing appropriate references to the very extensive bibliography for readers seeking additional information. It is worth noting that this bibliography, which is structured into the same divisions as the article itself, offers a significant profile of the array of works published to date on Italian economic thought during the interwar period.

Abstract         Within the analytical framework that characterised Napoleoni’s approach, the anti-capitalist viewpoint of "consumption reform" - championed by the Rivista Trimestrale during the 1960s - rested on a strong basis. On the other hand, from the 1970s onwards the attitude displayed by Napoleoni towards economic policy revealed itself to be increasingly fragile from a theoretical perspective, and effectively became "schizophrenic". Thus while actively putting forward reform proposals, Napoleoni showed a lack of confidence in the ability of economic policy, or even economics itself, to have any relevance to the question of revolution. This essay seeks to explain the origins and limitations of such positions by tracing Napoleoni’s difficulties to the inadequacy of his analysis of capitalism, both in the light of the subsequent experience of history and in that of current economic theory.

Abstract This paper deals mainly with the body of work on interpretations of Risorgimento economic thought, but also explores some facets of historiographic production pertaining to the four northern thinkers examined (Gioia, Romagnosi, Cattaneo and Cavour). Thus historiographic evaluations are shown to have been influenced by the different political and cultural climate within which the historians operated, with the ‘culture-specific’ connotations of historiography being particularly evident during the period of its greatest flowering, the decade from 1956 to 1965. Overall, starting from the contemporary review by Pecchio, two fundamental and to some extent inter-related yardsticks have been adopted to evaluate Risorgimento economists: their greater or lesser analytical acumen (measured against English classical economy) and their degree of understanding of the industrial revolution. In this regard, the author stresses the need to sweep away the Anglocentric bias in order to find new and more appropriate interpretative criteria.

Romani, Roberto, Italian economists confronted by British development in the age of the Risorgimento, 1815-48, X, 2, 2002, 43-74

Abstract         After briefly recalling the prevailing attitude towards classical political economy at Cambridge in the 1920s, together with a word on Sraffa’s knowledge of classical economists at the time he arrived in Cambridge (1927), the article focuses on Sraffa’s reconstruction of political economy, with special reference to his critical edition of Ricardo’s works. Emphasis is placed on the role assigned to this reconstruction in the cultural project of the "Sraffian revolution", a role that was intended to shift economic theory back onto the track laid out by the classical economists, abandoning the marginalist approach that predominates today.

Abstract         The author undertakes a textual analysis of the references to demand inherent in Sraffa’s main works (1925, 1926, 1960), and analyses a letter to Asimakopulos dated 11 July 1971, partially published by the latter. The argument put forward in this essay is that Sraffa did not hold the opinion that demand was unimportant: rather, he believed that demand based on preferences (utility) did not constitute a solid base on which to build a theory of value and distribution. More specifically, it is the observer who selects the hypotheses necessary to grasp the nature of the object under observation, and this selection is carried out in relation not only to the properties of the object observed but also to the observer’s own aptitudes. Demand plays an important role in Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, even though Sraffa, driven by his own research strategy, maintained (almost) total silence on this point.

Abstract The aim of this paper is to show how much André Morellet (1727-1819) was involved in the spreading of the Italian economic thought in France during the second half of the eighteenth century. The first section of the paper deals with Morellet’s strategy of translation and with his translations of Italian works, the best known of which isCesare Beccaria’s Dei delitti e delle pene. Section 2 examines Morellet’s attempt to translate Galiani’s Della Moneta, an interesting event since French economists were very little interested in translating Italian economic work at that time. Although Galiani’s French translation was attributed to Morellet, it was never published; however the study of Morellet’s manuscripts reveals that this translation did exist, at least in parts. (Keywords: André Morellet; Ferdinando Galiani; Italian economic thought. Jel Classification: B110; B310)

Abstract         A historiographic tradition on economic thought in Sicily pertaining to the period in question arose and became consolidated during the second half of the 19th. century. It is linked to themes that formed part of the liberal and free market debate of the Risorgimento era, a debate which, the article argues, also constituted the context in which the late eighteenth century conflict between Sicily and Naples should be read. In this interpretation, the history of economic thought in Sicily is characterised by the gradual advancement of the principle of freedom and the spread of Smithian thought, followed later by that of J.-B. Say. The interpretative framework of this historiographic tradition, which has a strongly ideological slant, focuses closely on certain economists: P. Balsamo, N. Palmeri, I. Sanfilippo, F. Ferrara, while others are neglected. Foremost among the latter are V.E. Sergio and S. Scuderi, who do not fit the proposed model. In addition, the traditional framework is unable to provide a balanced reconstruction of the political economy debate of the time. The present essay offers a rapid survey of the most recent contributions to the history of economic thought in Sicily, reaching the conclusion that although much work has been done (especially over the last thirty years), often achieving significant results, a new and more satisfactory interpretative grid has not yet been worked out.

Abstract         This essay seeks to reconstruct the logic underlying the scientific research carried out by the young Sraffa, as it emerges from an analysis of his 1926-26 articles. Several interesting points can be highlighted. Strictly speaking, Sraffa’s critique of the Marshallian theory of value is not a critique based on logic as an end in itself, for Sraffa’s aim was not to highlight the existence of some non sequitur within the Marshallian theoretical construct. Rather, he sought to demonstrate that once the Marshallian model was reconstructed according to the canons of logical coherence, its empirical thrust was considerably more restricted than was generally admitted. On the other hand, Sraffa’s analysis was grounded on significantly different methodological criteria as compared to those adopted by Marshallian economists. The Marshallians, who argued that the conclusions of economic theory are endowed with the same truth status and generality as the premises of the theory itself, claimed that empirical research has no other goal than that of verifying the scope of application of theory, on a case by case basis. Sraffa, by contrast, adopts an "aggressive" methodology: verification of the extension of the empirical domain in which the conclusions of the theory hold - after ironing out any creases in the internal logic of the latter - constitutes the crucial test for accepting or rejecting the theory itself.

Abstract        The papers of Piero Sraffa are a unique reflection of his life, his thought and his other intellectual interests. The papers concerning his work in the academic sphere form a remarkable exposition of the development of Sraffa's thought, from the early articles written in Italy, through the ground-breaking 1926 article, the lectures in Cambridge and the rebuttal of Hayek to the Ricardo Edition, Production of Commodities and beyond. The painstaking reworking of ideas make the interrelationship between the papers extremely important, adding value in terms of context and dating in the development of Sraffa's thought. The purpose of this article is threefold. Firstly to give some idea of the history of the papers sinsce Sraffa's death, secondly to act as a simple precis of the materials that a researcher will find when consulting the papers at Trinity College, and thirdly to show the methodology used in their cataloguing.

Abstract The influence of the Italian economists on J.-B. Say and the constant interest he revealed for their writings up to the end of his life can be detected by the frequent quotations he drew from them in the "Discours Préliminaire" of the Traité, in the Cours Complet and in several unpublished manuscripts. The relationship between J.-B. Say and Italy deserves to be underlined because most of the works dealing with Say’s economic thought attribute his formulation of the utility theory of value to the influence of either E. Bonnot de Condillac (1715-1780), or Turgot (1766). However, this paper argues that the origin of Say’s theory of value can be traced to the author he quotes at the beginning of the first edition of the Traité (1803), a reference that can be found throughout the reditions and additions to this work. This author is Pietro Verri. Say, who had be educated by two Italian teachers, and successively read the collection of the main Italian economists published by Pietro Custodi, was prone to give the Italian economists an important place in the history of political economy (Keywords: Utility theory of value, Jean-Baptiste Say, Pietro Verri, Ferdinando Galiani. Jel Classification: B110; B120)

Abstract         The recent rediscovery of the Memoirs, presented by Scuderi in 1808 to get the chair of Economy at the University of Catania, and of many presidential lectures given at the Economic Society of Catania, provides an occasion for reflecting on the one hand on the history of the Catania Chair of Economy and on the changes intervened between its foundation in the eighteenth century and its developments in the nineteenth century, and, on the other hand, on the transformation of the economic discipline into a ‘civil’ economy, i. e. a genuine science of society destined to provide the state with the messages of economic reason, and with theoretical and practical support to economic policy.
Scuderi, a typical transition economist between eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century economic culture, and between late-mercantilist protectionism and laissez-faire economic policy, tried to bring together in his work the typical schemes of Genovesi’s political economy and more updated visions, in the light of the changes in the international background and of the diffusion of new theories. (Keywords: Salvatore Scuderi, Late mercantilism, Civil economy. Jel Classification: A13, B15, B31)

Vagliasindi, Pietro A., The theory of public debt in the Italian tradition. Two possible neutrality theorems, XI, 1, 2003

Abstract        This work considers the Italian contribution to the theory of public debt and the taxation of its interest at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. This is a very interesting period since Italian economists examine the economic aspect of the State policies in a general equilibrium set-up with a careful welfare analysis, taking into account the difficulties of measurement and applied research. A new review of the Italian approach is motivated by the growing literature on the Ricardian equivalence and by new policy recommendations, related to the exemption of interests on public debt from taxation, at times derived from Einaudi’s theory of the “transfer-payment” in the public balance sheet. We start from the origin of public debt contributions in 1850 considering the contribution of Ferrara and Messedaglia, subsequently extended by the work of Ricca Salerno (1879), Loria (1884), Pantaleoni (1891), De Viti de Marco (1893) and critically reviewed by the work of Griziotti (1917), Borgatta (1918) and Einaudi (1913). After providing an overview of the Italian tradition of public finance, we show how Pantaleoni and De Viti correctly identify the theoretical assumptions behind the Ricardian equivalence between public debt and taxation, highlighting their points of strength and weakness. In particular, De Viti argues in favour of the use of public debt versus taxation, anticipates recent public choice models and theoretical and empirical contributions raising concerns on the credibility of the State’s commitment and the non monetary risks associated to the public debt. Moreover, De Viti examines the implication of the taxation of public debt interest, in contrast to Einaudi and the current students believing to the theory of the irrelevance or a negative influence of the tax rate on the interest of public debt. His comprehensive model provides strong support to policy recommendations in favour of taxing the interest of public debt, including it in a comprehensive income tax.(Keywords: Public Debt; Ricardian equivalence; Italian Public Finance Tradition. Jel Classification: B1, E62, H31)

Towards a Unified Interpretation of Ferdinando Galiani’s Thought on Economic Policy

Abstract 

According to most scholars, the Galiani of Della Moneta and the Galiani of Dialogues sur le commerce des bleds present a considerable contrast: whereas the former was a great example of pre-classic political economy, the latter regressed to mercantilist positions. However, does a “Galiani Problem” really exists? The purpose of the present paper is to raise doubts about this interpretation and to demonstrate that both the above-mentioned writings share the very same theory of economic policy: when the safety of the State is threatened by exceptional events, the policy maker has to try to rule economy by applying special measures.

Keywords: Ferdinando Galiani; Italian economic thought of the eighteenth century; theory of economic policy; reason of State. JEL Classification: B11, B31

The Debate on the Theory of Expectation in Italy (1960-1990)

Abstract

This paper aims at offering a host of Italian economists’ contributions on adaptive and rational expectations, published between 1960 and 1990, distinguished according to two different criteria: a) a first criterion considers the two kinds of expectations from the epistemological point of view, concluding that the theoretical differences between Monetarism and New Classical Macroeconomics (NMC) depend on different approaches to the calculation of expectations; b) according to the second criterion, both adaptive expectation and rational expectation are ad hoc hypotheses, employed respectively by Monetarists and by the NMC School in order to restore the primacy of the Walrasian general economic equilibrium approach over Keynesian economics on the explanation of the economic system and of its cycles. According to this interpretation, the rational expectation could be considered as a hypothesis constructed with a view to supporting the theoretical conclusions of the Monetarist School both in the short period and in the long one. Key words: Adaptive expectation, rational expectation, Italian economists. JEL Classification: B29, D84

Bientinesi

The spread of the comparative costs theorem coincided in Italy with that of marginalist theories. They both deeply changed the analysis of custom duties. From a theoretical point of view, custom duties were an economic nonsense. From a practical standpoint, revenue duties could be allowed, as they did not fill the comparative costs gap. Therefore, new Italian trade policy starting with the 1887 tariff was completely rejected. The intransigent attitude of Italian economists was softened in the following years. This shift was partially due to political reasons, but more significantly to the theoretical developments which stressed in those years the importance of economic dynamics and the role of sociological elements in the taxation genesis. During the fascist period, the analysis of custom duties was influenced by two major changes. First, the reduced role of custom duties as the main device to control foreign trade. Second, the political and economic constraints which forced the Fascist regime to a progressive closing of the home market. These elements emphasized the differences between neoclassical and corporative economists. (Keywords: tariff question, public finance, theory of international trade; JEL Classification: B13)