ABSTRACT
The performance of Italian agriculture in the nineteenth and in the first half of the twentieth century does not enjoy a good reputation among historians.1
Indeed, according to the standard data from national accounts, total output and productivity grew slowly from 1861, the year of the unification of the country (and the starting year of the series), to the 1950s, with the possible exception of the twenty years before the First World War, the so-called boom giolittiano, from the name of the Italian prime minister. This poor performance lowered the aggregate growth rate and is believed to have hampered the structural transformation of the Italian economy.
