Balance-sheet of the first year of the E.R.P. in Italy

Abstract

The article sums up the fundamental data relating to the implementation of the ERP in Italy, pointing out the differences with developments in other countries, the characteristic features and the significance of the help received, the formation and utilisation of the Counterpart Lira Fund. The general comments with which the author accompanies his survey sum up what may be called a communis opinio, which is that the ERP has been and is of basic importance for Italian productive activities, but that it can hardly suffice to remedy within 1953 the very serious disequilibrium of the Italian economy caused by the exceptional and chronic unemployment. Italy must therefore insist on the need of fuller international cooperation and of a joint international effort aiming at facilitating mass emigration. Perhaps ERP itself has not given in the first year of its application all the results that might have been secured. This is due to the obstacles and delays in its application, caused partly by procedural hindrances and partly by credit stringency on the Italian market which often makes uneasy the absorption of the grants for domestic concerns.

JEL: E24, E65