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The economic impact of legislation and litigation on growth: a historical analysis of Italy from its unification to World War II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2017

GIUSEPPE DI VITA ,
FABIO DI VITA  and
GIANLUCA CAFISO
GIUSEPPE DI VITA*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Business, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
FABIO DI VITA*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Business, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
GIANLUCA CAFISO*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Business, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
*
*Email: gdivita@lex.unict.it
**Email: f.divita@unict.it
***Email: gcafiso@unict.it
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Abstract

This paper aims to evaluate the impact of Italy's unification on its economic growth from 1861 to the outbreak of World War II. This historical analysis attempts to prove that the process of legislative harmonization intrinsic to the unification had a positive effect on Italy's GDP because legislative uniformity facilitates economic transactions. Moreover a uniform and more effective legislation would have caused less litigation and therefore favoured economic growth, thanks to smoother relations between economic agents.

Type
Symposium on the Empirics of Judicial Institutions
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 121 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2017 

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