ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests the idea that a return to the model of a dual economy may help economists and economic historians to a clearer understanding of the growth of the Italian economy in the first 50 years after the country's political unification and the role played by migrations. Some essential features of the Italian economy in the second half of the nineteenth century can be captured by the model of a dual economy developed by W. A. Lewis. The key assumptions of that model are first, a backward or agricultural sector with surplus labour relative to land, the only other input, second a modern or industrial sector with an unlimited supply of labour and where capital is accumulated and third, wages at subsistence levels in both sectors. In a dual economy, accumulation of capital in the industrial sector is the third source of growth besides technological change in the industrial and agricultural sectors.
