ABSTRACT

Italy was unified in 1861. As part of the process of nation-building, a mandatory free-of-charge primary school system was established. Whereas the new school system greatly contributed to the modernization of the country, its initial design did not considerably reduce regional disparities in human capital, with Southern regions lagging behind. The paper studies the effects of the heterogeneous territorial diffusion of literacy during the post-unification period (1871–1911) on economic outcomes of Italian provinces 100 years later. We exploit the exogenous variations in the territorial spread in literacy rates arising from the gradual building and expansion of the railway network across provinces. We find evidence that provinces with a higher territorial diffusion of literacy in the post-unification period today have higher income per capita, lower unemployment and greater educational attainment.

摘要

意大利于 1861 年统一。作为国家建设过程的一部分，建立了强制性的免费小学制度。尽管新的学校系统为国家的现代化做出了巨大贡献，但其最初的设计并没有显着缩小人力资本的地区差异，南部地区落后。本文研究了统一后时期（1871-1911 年）不同地域的识字率分布对 100 年后意大利各省经济成果的影响。我们利用跨省铁路网络的逐步建设和扩展所引起的识字率地域分布的外生变化。我们发现证据表明，在统一后时期，识字率较高的省份如今的人均收入较高，