ABSTRACT
Postwar Italy inherited from fascism a highly regulated private sector and large State stakes in agriculture, manufacturing, utilities and banking. Rather than being privatized, public organizations and State enterprises came to be seen as a tool for economic development. In other words, since the second postwar period, the State has become both an actor (the so-called Entrepreneurial State) and a regulator of the social and economic system, with the purpose of ensuring collective wellbeing and an orderly development of the economy (Anselmi, 1990; Borgonovi, 1996).
