Industrial Policy and Artisan Firms in Italy, 1945-1981

This paper shows that after the Second World War the Italian state carried out an artisanship policy (that is, for the
smallest firms) of an extent that was unparalleled in Europe. This policy was based on the provision, on the one hand, of
lower tax and employers’ contributions and welfare benefits at reduced premiums and, on the other hand, of
‘substitutive factors’: soft loans, services and promotional initiatives by state agencies. Such an artisan policy played a
twofold role: partly ‘defensive’, protecting a segment of marginal firms, and partly ‘proactive’, prompting
modernisation and innovation of more promising firms. The latter were clustered especially in the industrial district of
the centre and north-easte of the country, whose development turned out to be boosted to a significant extent by state
intervention