Banks, firms and economic culture: Economists and research centres in Interwar Italy

Abstract

In the interwar years, Italy experimented a strong growth of applied economic research. The foundation of research centers can be read and placed in a much wider international trend that emerged during the Great War. In this essay, we offer a map of the most important research centers, exploring the extensive web of relationships between the academia and the productive world. We then focus on a set of case studies, selected for their relevance. Section 2 is devoted to the banking sector, with reference to four important cases (Banca Commerciale Italiana, Banca d’Italia, Associazione Bancaria Italiana and Banco di Sicilia); section 3 to the industrial sector (IRI, Finsider, Ansaldo, Edison, Montecatini and Fiat). Our intent is, first, to understand what role economists played in the establishment and growth of these research centers. A second objective is to show what functions research centers performed in relation to their general strategies and operative tasks. A third is to reconstruct their main achievements in the rise of economic culture and in the shaping of technical innovations and institutional reforms.