Welfare State Services as Collective Goods for Economic Development: Italian Anomalies

The essay analyzes social investment strategies in Italy at the regional level. Italy is increasingly characterized by the presence of two welfare systems, one (in the Centre-North) in which social investment strategies integrate traditional welfare schemes and support local economic development, the other (in the South) in which the shortcomings of the traditional welfare state are matched by poor development in social investment strategies. In no other Western European country is the relationship between the level of local economic development and the diffusion of social investment strategies so marked.