Mezzogiorno and Regional Policies

In this paper I examine the Italian regional policies launched in the second half of the 1990s. In evaluating the discrepancy between targets and results I argue that the failure of regional policies is a facet of the more general failure of Italian economic policies in the last fifteen years. Two main aspects are highlighted: the effectiveness of regional policies has been affected by national legal rules that have had different effects across regions; the effectiveness of regional policies has been diminished also by attributing importance to regional governments as control centres of public intervention.Mezzogiorno, Southern Italy, Regional policies, Regional development, Cohesion, Regional convergence