• labour productivity
• italian economic history

The aim of this work is to understand the performance of the Italian manufacturing industry from the end of XIX century to the eve of WWII in comparison with the United Kingdom and the United States. In order to do so, a benchmark for 1937 including 30 different sectors has been constructed, using the methodology by Rostas (1948), which is based on a comparison of physical output per worker. Finally, the same benchmark has been retropolated till 1890 using labour productivity time series, so as to better analyse the evolution of labour productivity in the manufacturing sector in the period 1890-1940.