Privatization, tax breaks, and bank rescues inflated financial share prices in interwar Italy

Evidence

Th e renewed favorable environment for investment is visible in the remarkable growth of share prices. In Britain these prices increased by 63 percent from 1923 to 1928. In Italy the index of stock and dividend yield too made an astounding recovery aft er a bad setback during the red biennium. Indeed, as we know from chapter 7, privatization, tax breaks, and bank rescues provided “excellent profi t opportunities for fi nancial intermediaries” (Toniolo 1995, 300- 302). It guaranteed a total yield of stocks and dividends that almost tripled over the course of the decade. From 1923 to the end of the decade, the new publicly traded companies increased their value by almost 40 percent. Th is rise indicates how austerity created favorable conditions for the Italian fi nancial world (see Siciliano 2001, fi gure 1. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1731

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Italian Fascists privatized on a large scale before neoliberalism existed — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1937; Austerity served as proof of creditworthiness to international finance for the Fascist regime — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1435; Fascist Italy copied British sinking-fund methods to finance austerity — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1714

Broader Connections

• Italian Fascists privatized on a large scale before neoliberalism existed #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1937
• Austerity served as proof of creditworthiness to international finance for the Fascist regime #corroborates (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1435
• Fascist Italy copied British sinking-fund methods to finance austerity #expands (0.70) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1714