The Italian coal shortage: the price of import and distribution, 1861–1911

This paper estimates a measure of coal price for all NUTS3 Italian provinces between 1861 and 1911. Italy was a latecomer country and its late industrialization was characterized by the absence of coal in a time when the steam engine powered factory work. The new variable accounts for the main input factor of manufacturing production during that period in which the Italian economy registered a long-term growth of GDP and an increase in its industrial activity. The measure allows to speculate on the importance of coal for Italian industrialization and on the origins of the North–South divide.