State-owned enterprises in the Italian corporate network, 1972-1983

An extensive and pervasive presence of state-owned enterprises represented a substantial peculiarity of Italian capitalism for a long time, from the 1930s to the end of the 20th century. Historiography stressed the relevance of state-owned enterprises for the development of capital-intensive industries but also argued that they might in some way have curbe dthe growth of the private sector of the economy. Recent research gave a detailed map of the extension of the major Italian state-owned groups. However, their links with private companies and, more generally, their role in the Italian corporate network remain largely unexplored. This paper explores this subject by using the interlocking directorates technique. In particular, this paper assesses Chiesi's thesis according to which in the mid-1970s the Italian corporate newtork was marked by the presence of two centres, one state-owned and the other private, which were clearly distinct one from the other. The analysis is based on the database Imita.db - which contains data on more than 300,000 Italian joint-stock companies - and focuses on the years 1972 and 1983. For both benchmark years the paper presents several indicators of network analysis and a prosopographic research. The paper argues that - contrary to the results obtained by Chiesi using a different sample - in 1972 the Italian corporate network was very cohesive and characterized by the presence of one large centre, comprising both the major private and state-owned companies. However, in 1983 a substantial change had occurred. The cohesion of the system had sharply decreased and state-owned enterprises had disappeared from its centre. Now the structure of the Italian corporate network seemed more in line with Chiesi's argument, with the presence of two distinct centres: one larger and private and the other smaller and state-owned, clearly disconnected one from the other.