The first privatisation: selling SOEs and privatising public monopolies in Fascist Italy (1922-1925)

Italy's first Fascist government applied a large-scale privatisation policy between 1922 and 1925. The government privatised the State monopoly of match sale, eliminated the State monopoly on life insurances, sold most of the State-owned telephone networks and services to private firms, reprivatised the largest metal machinery producer, and awarded concessions to private firms to build and operate motorways. These interventions represent one of the earliest and most decisive privatisation episodes in the Western world. While ideological considerations may have had a certain influence, privatisation was used mainly as a political tool to build confidence among industrialists and to increase support for the government and the Partito Nazionale Fascista. Privatisation also contributed to balancing the budget, which was the core objective of Fascist economic policy in its first phase. Copyright The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.