Sixty years of Europe

Over the last 60 years, the structure of the economy has changed dramatically. In 1960, agriculture contributed about 10 percent to the value added of the founding countries, and almost 15 percent in Italy. The weight of industry - including constructions - was over 40 percent (37 percent in Italy) >read more and that of services just under half of the total. In 2016, agriculture's contribution fell to 1.3 percent (to 2.1 percent in Italy) and that of services rose to almost three-quarters of the total value added.

In the decades following the founding of the European Community, economic growth was impetuous in all founding countries: in 2007 the purchasing power per capita was 4.5 >read more times the level of 1960 in Italy, and about 4 times in the whole of founding countries. In 2008, the crisis interrupted this long expanding cycle until the moderate recovery of the last two years.

For decades, consumer prices in Italy have increased more than the aggregate of the founding countries. Until the adoption of the euro in 1999, rises in domestic prices were offset by periodic depreciation of the lira. This allowed to recover price competitiveness compared to other European countries, but >read more contributed to raise the premium in terms of interest rates that debtors - including the State - pay for uncertainty about the future value of bonds. In recent years there has been a greater discipline, although characterized by wage compression and sales margins.

The ratio of public debt to gross domestic product in Italy, which had begun to increase in the 1970s, accelerated in the following decade, resulting in a steady gap with the other >read more founding countries. The adjustment introduced during the 1990s led to a reduction in the debt ratio to Gdp. The crisis, however, caused a further worsening.

Until the mid-1980s, research and development (R&D) expenditure grew rapidly in all founding countries. Between 1963 and 1985 its share of Gdp rose from 1.5 to 2.1 percent in the Eu-6 group and from 0.6 to 1.1 percent in Italy. Over the next twenty years >read more , the trend followed that of Gdp. The incidence recovered in recent years, although characterized by a fall in activity, particularly in Italy. In our country, the incidence of R&D spending continues to be well below the European average (in 2015, 1.3 percent of Gdp vs. 2.0 percent in the whole of Eu). In terms of R&D personnel, the gap is smaller and continues to go down. In Italy, the number of people employed in the R&D sector has also risen during the crisis, and in 2015 they accounted for about 1.5 percent of total employees.