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This paper is the first product of an ongoing research on the determinants and the role of entrepreneurship in Italian economic development. Its primary aim is the creation of a data-set of Italian entrepreneurs for the period encompassed between the Unification of the Kingdom (1861) and the end of the XXth century. The main source of the research is a collection of 390 entrepreneurial biographies, prepared for an ongoing Dictionary of Italian Entrepreneurs. The first part of the paper presents a descriptive analysis of the main peculiarities of the country’s entrepreneurship on the basis of a few standard variables traditionally used in economic analysis. The second one refines the descriptive approach through a methodology – Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Cluster Analysis – usual by now in standard statistics, yet not very familiar to scholars in economic and/or business history. This has allowed us to single out a few entrepreneurial typologies of the history of Italian capitalism which partly confirm the “traditional” features already emphasized by historiography; such as the prominence of northern entrepreneurs, the strong relations both with own and partner’s families, the almost total absence of female entrepreneurs and an essentially middle-class rooted entrepreneurship. However a few novel interesting aspects emerge, the most surprising being the good level of formal education of the sample: a neat majority (60%) has a medium/high degree and almost one third an university degree.

Toninelli, P.M., & Vasta, M. (2009). Italian Entrepreneurship: Conjectures And Evidence From A Historical Perspective [Working paper del dipartimento].

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