ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the contribution to the heated debate on Italian economic stagnation triggered by Luciano Gallino's work, which opened the way to an interesting dispute. The broad discussion achieve any consensus, neither on the variables that indicated the Italian economic decline nor on the causes that generated. The main conclusions are that: the Italian economic stagnation is largely self-inflicted; it mainly depends on the attempt to generate economic growth by means of wage moderation. In the first case, this occurred because Italian unions began to dramatically lose their political power from the 1980s. The lack of industrial policies amplified the problem of the poor macroeconomic performance, since Italian firms – mainly small-sized and non-innovating – were incapable of staying competitive on the global scene. Net exports did not compensate for the decline of public spending, private investment and consumption.
