Culture of "trust" and regional development : an empirical analysis of Third Italy

Abstract

The industrial rise of the Third Italy has been characterised by the growth of dynamic networks of flexible, strongly related, small and medium-sized firms in craft-based industries (such as clothing and ceramics) in a number of specialised industrial districts.The rise of such a type of industrial development may be described as an endogenous growth process that necessitated several preconditions.It has often been mentioned that the particular social structure in the Third Italy (in terms of common values and norms, etc.) provided a basis on which this particular form of industrial development could emerge.In fact, this social-cultural dimension has been linked to relations of "trust" or "social capital" which not only stimulated interaction and co-ordination between the local actors but also enhanced the flexibility of the local production systems in many respects.We present a long-term spatial analysis of Italy, which aims to explain the industrial rise of the Third Italy region in the post-war period.It attempts to assess empirically the impact of the socio-cultural dimension during its initial stage of development in the 1950s.A statistical analysis has been carried out to determine if a culture of co-operation could be held responsible for the particular form of industrial development in the Third Italy area in the 1950s.We focus attention on the extent to which the industrial rise of the Third Italy area was a rather accidental event that could also have occurred in other regions such as the First Italy (the industrial heartland of the North) and the Second Italy (the backward South).The main results of the analysis point out that the Third Italy area was a distinct but not an unique area with respect to this social-cultural dimension in the early 1950s.The culture of trust variables, however, showed no significant impact on regional growth in small-scale traditional-artisanal industries in Italy during the period 1951-1981.However, when leaving out the three regions of the First Italy, a local culture of co-operation and trust turned into a significant relationship to industrial growth on the regional level in Italy.This outcome suggests that a local culture of co-operation and trust may have been responsible for this particular type of industrial development in the Third Italy area, in contrast to the South of Italy.

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