Wages, Productivity and Working Time in Italy 1300-1913

On the basis of published and unpublished data, this article presents a series of wage rates and wages in Central-Northern Italy from the end of the thirteenth century until 1913. The series is among the longest available. The movement of wage rates is explained against the background of the changes in average and marginal labour productivity and working time over six centuries. The analysis results in a very long-term profile of the Italian economy, which declined from the late Middle Ages, became stable after 1820, and then grew from the 1880s.