Financing Industrialization in Italy, 1894–1914: The Partial Transformation of a Late-Comer

Italy's rapid industrial growth, which began in the mid-1890's, was preceded and accompanied by important developments in her financial institutions, including in particular the establishment of several industrial credit banks on the German model. The role of such banks in French and German industrial growth before 1914 has been the subject of considerable study. It is the purpose of this article to examine the effects of these banks on the rate and direction of Italian development between 1894 and 1914, and to consider the relation between their near-monopoly of industrial credit and the emergence of concentration of ownership and control in the new and rapidly growing sectors of the industrial structure.