Demography and Productivity in the Italian Manufacturing Industry: Yesterday and Today

Population ageing and lack of productivity growth characterize most western countries. We focus on Italy and investigate whether the availability of a young population represents a determinant of manufacturing productivity growth. We follow a historical comparative analysis and provide evidence of the strength of this relation in the past (1861-1911) and today (1961-2011). To account for the sizeable regional heterogeneity characterizing historically the country we use data disaggregated at the provincial level. Our analysis suggests that the availability of a young population represents indeed one of the determinant of manufacturing productivity growth. The strength of the relation was higher in the past than today, but ageing is still nevertheless a factor that cannot be neglected from a policy perspective.