Institutions, politics and the corporate economy

The aim of this paper is analyse the impact of laws and institutions more in general in shaping the features of Italian capitalism. The paper starts with a snapshot of the Italian productive system in 2011 by looking at firms size, field of activity, ownership, and the structure of governance in a comparative perspective. The picture is than re-proposed for 1961 and 1911. On the basis of this information the paper looks at the following elements: 1) Continuity and changes over time;2) The impact of the features of the Italian capitalism on the country international competitiveness; 3) The non-institutional causes of continuity and change, for example the structure and dimension of the market; 4) The role of the state and, more in general, the impact of political elements in the incentives towards given governance structures or dimensions of firms; 5) The function plaid by rules and regulation in the areas of finance, labour, and firms governance.