ABSTRACT
This chapter is largely based on the results of collective research on ‘The Economists in the Italian Parliament, 1861-1922’, supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research for the years 2000-2002. This research has examined both the activities of the most eminent economists who became members of parliament in the period extending from the political unification of the country to the rise of the fascist regime, 1 and the main economic debates that marked the life of this institution, reflecting the dramatic problems that arose in an age of transition from an agriculturally-based country to an industrial society. 2 In another paper 3 we have attempted a quantitative analysis of the activities of the most numerous and significant subset of parliamentary economists, the thirty members who taught political economy or other economic subjects in the universities and in the new schools of advanced economic studies that were created after 1868. The aim of the cited quantitative analysis was to highlight the social and professional identity of the economists involved in politics, and to bring to light some characteristics of their political activity that help to understand how they viewed their intellectual activity and their scientific mission. The present study, in contrast, adopts a more qualitative approach. It examines the participation of a broader group of economists in parliamentary activities, focusing on their role in debates and in law making, their contribution to policy making, and the role that political economy had in parliamentary debates.
