Antonio Serra’s Development Economics: Mercantilism, Backwardness, Dependence

Titolo Rivista HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY
Autori/Curatori Cosimo Perrotta
Anno di pubblicazione 2013 Fascicolo 2013/2 Lingua Inglese
Numero pagine 15 P. 5-19 Dimensione file 62 KB
DOI 10.3280/SPE2013-002001
Il DOI è il codice a barre della proprietà intellettuale: per saperne di più clicca qui

Qui sotto puoi vedere in anteprima la prima pagina di questo articolo.

Se questo articolo ti interessa, lo puoi acquistare (e scaricare in formato pdf) seguendo le facili indicazioni per acquistare il download credit. Acquista Download Credits per scaricare questo Articolo in formato PDF

Anteprima articolo

FrancoAngeli è membro della Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA)associazione indipendente e non profit per facilitare (attraverso i servizi tecnologici implementati da CrossRef.org) l’accesso degli studiosi ai contenuti digitali nelle pubblicazioni professionali e scientifiche

Antonio Serra wrote in 1613 an outstanding analysis, on the economy of the Reign of Naples, which is still very little known out of Italy; where he is largely recognized as the founder of the "Southern question". This article proposes a larger view of Serra’s pioneering achievements, by putting him in the context of the mercantilist approach for development, and of the general analyses both of backwardness and dependence. We try to show that mercantilism was in fact committed to the increase in production, not to the increase in gold (as the enduring bias wants). In this sense Serra was fully a mercantilist. He was the first to analyze the general features of economic backwardness: lack of manufactures, absence of a stable government which encourages export, investments and trade; lack of entrepreneurial occasions; poorness of trade. Serra also - together with the Spanish mercantilists - introduced for the first time the analysis of dependence, i.e. of the process that makes a backward economy dependent on - and blocked by - the prevailing interests of stronger economies. Apart from a few authors, this was to be rediscovered only in the 1960s by the economics of development.

Keywords:Serra, mercantilism, development, dependence, backwardness

Jel codes:B11, B31, O10

  1. Alacevich M. (2012). La svolta del Sud e la modernizzazione a metà. In Perrotta and Sunna (eds.)(2012): 160-82.
  2. Álvarez Osorio y Redín M. (1686a). Discurso universal de las causas que ofenden la monarquía .... In Campomanes (ed.)(1775): 311-432.
  3. Álvarez Osorio y Redín M. (1686b) Extensión política y económica. In Campomanes (ed.)(1775): 7-206.
  4. Álvarez Osorio y Redín M. (1687) El Zelador general. In Campomanes (ed.)(1775): 207-310.
  5. Arias G. (1923). Il pensiero economico di Antonio Serra, Politica, II-III: 129-46.
  6. Botero G. (1589). Della Ragion di Stato, Torino, UTET, 1948.
  7. Botero G. (1618; posthumous). Delle relazioni universali. Parte Seconda, Venezia, A. Vecchi.
  8. Campomanes P. (ed.)(1775). Apéndice a la educación popular, 4 vols., Madrid, Sancha, 1775-77, vol. I.
  9. Cannan E. (1929). A Review of Economic Theory, London, King.
  10. Cellorigo Gonzáles de - M. (1600). Memorial de la política necesaria …, Valladolid, Bostillo.
  11. Cipolla C.M. (1952). Il declino economico dell’Italia. In Cipolla (1989): 85-104.
  12. Cipolla C.M. (1973). Le professioni nel lungo andare. In Cipolla (1989): 263-77.
  13. Cipolla C.M. (1989). Le tre rivoluzioni e altri saggi, Bologna, Il Mulino.
  14. Colapietra R. (ed.)(1973). Problemi monetari negli scrittori napoletani del Seicento, Roma, Accad. dei Lincei.
  15. Croce B. (1925). Storia del Regno di Napoli, Bari, Laterza, 1972.
  16. De Rosa L. (1965). Antonio Serra e i suoi critici, Clio, 1: 115-36, also republished in Economisti meridionali, Napoli, Istituto Italiano Studi Filosofici, 1995.
  17. De Santis M.A. (1605a). Discorso intorno agli effetti che fa il cambio in Regno. In Colapietra (1973): 110-41.
  18. De Santis M.A. (1605b). Secondo discorso intorno agli effetti che fa il cambio in Regno. In Colapietra (1973): 143-62.
  19. De Viti De Marco A. (1891). Le teorie economiche di Antonio Serra. Reprinted in Saggi di economia e finanza, Roma, Giornale degli Economisti: 3-58.
  20. Eden F.M. (1797). The State of the Poor. A History of the Labour Classes in England ..., London, J. Davies, 3 vols.
  21. Einaudi L. (1938). Una disputa a torto dimenticata tra autarcisti e liberisti, Rivista di storia economica. Reprinted in L. Einaudi, Saggi bibliografici e storici intorno alle dottrine economiche, Roma, Ed. di Storia e Letteratura, 1953: 117-51.
  22. Fanfani A. (1938). Storia delle dottrine economiche dall’antichità al XIX secolo, 4^ ed., Milano-Messina, Principato, 1955.
  23. Fernández Navarrete P. (1621). Conservación de monarqías y discursos políticos ..., Madrid, Atlas, 1947.
  24. Fusco A.M. (1981). Antonio Serra: un mercantilista?, Annali della Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Torino, vol. 15 (1981).
  25. Galiani F. (1780). Note (Notes) to the 2nd ed. of his Della moneta, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1963: 306-46.
  26. Hales J. (1549). A Discourse of the Common Weal of This Realm of England, Cambridge, CUP, 1893, ed. by E. Lamond.
  27. Laffemas B. (1597). Règlement general pour dresser les manufactures en ce royaume…,Paris, C. de Monstroeil.
  28. Laffemas B. (1602). Comme l’on doit permettre la liberté du transport de l’or et de l’argent hors du royaume, Paris, Pautonnier.
  29. List F. (1841-44). The National System of Political Economy, London, Longmans & Green, 1885.
  30. Lyson y Viedma M. (1622). Discursos y apuntamientos, no publisher, Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid: R/13174.
  31. Malynes G. (1603). England’s View in the Unmasking of Two Paradoxes [of Malestroit] ..., reprint, New York, Arno, 1972.
  32. Malynes G. (1622). The Maintenance of Free Trade, reprint, New York, Kelley, 1971.
  33. Malynes G. (1623). The Center of the Circle of Commerce, ..., reprint, Clifton NJ, Kelley, 1973.
  34. McCulloch J.R. (ed.)(1856). A Select Collection of Early English Tracts on Commerce, London, Political Economy Club.
  35. Misselden E. (1622). Free Trade, or The Means to Make Trade Flourish..., reprint, New York, Kelley, 1971.
  36. Misselden E. (1623). The Circle of Commerce, or The Balance of Trade, reprint, New York, Kelley, 1971.
  37. Moncada S. (1619). Restauración política de España, Madrid, Inst. de Estudios Fiscales, 1974.
  38. Montchrétien A. (1615). Traité de l’économie politique, Paris, Plon & Nourrit, 1889.
  39. Mosca M. (2005). De Viti de Marco, Historian of Economic Analysis, European Journal of History of Economic Thought, 2: 241-59.
  40. Mun T. (1621). A Discourse of Trade from England unto the East-Indies. In McCulloch (ed.)(1856): 1-47.
  41. Mun T. (1623). England’s Treasure by Foreign Trade, in McCulloch (ed.)(1856): 115-209.
  42. Nuccio O. (1965). Antonio Serra, Appendix 1. In Serra, Breve trattato…, ed. by Custodi (1803), Parte antica 1, reprint: Oscar Nuccio, ed., Roma, Bizzarri, 1965: i-lxxxi.
  43. Ortiz L. (1558). Memorial a Felipe II, in Anales de Economia, XVII, 63, Enero 1957, ed. by Manuel Fernandez Álvarez: 117-200.
  44. Pecchio G. (1829). Storia dell’economia pubblica in Italia, 2nd ed. Lugano, tip. Ruggia, 1832.
  45. Perrotta C. (1988). Produzione e lavoro produttivo nel mercantilismo e nell’illuminismo, Galatina, Congedo.
  46. Perrotta C. (2004). Consumption as an Investment. I, London-New York, Routledge.
  47. Perrotta C. and C. Sunna (eds.)(2012). L’arretratezza del Mezzogiorno. Le idee, l’economia, la storia, Milano, Bruno Mondadori.
  48. Petino A. (1958). Saggi sulle origini del pensiero meridionalistico, Catania, Ist. di Storia econ., Univ. di Catania.
  49. Reinert S.A. (2011). Introduction to the English translation of Serra (1613): 1-85, plus “Critical Bibliography”: 87-93.
  50. Roncaglia A. (ed.)(1995). Alle origini del pensiero economico in Italia, Bologna, Il Mulino.
  51. Roncaglia A. (1999). Antonio Serra, Rivista Italiana degli Economisti, 3: 421-37.
  52. Rosselli A. (1995). Antonio Serra e la teoria dei cambi. In Roncaglia (ed.)(1995): 37-58.
  53. Schumpeter J.A. [1949]. History of Economic Analysis, New York, Oxford University Press, 1954, pb reprint 1986.
  54. Serra A. (1613). Breve trattato delle cause che possono far abbondare li regni d’oro e d’argento dove non son miniere, con applicazione al Regno di Napoli/ A Short Treatise on the Causes that Can Make Kingdoms Abound in Gold and Silver even in the Absence of Mines, parallel texts (in the cover: A Short Treatise on the Wealth and Poverty of Nations), ed. by S.A. Reinert, English trans. by J. Hunt, London-New York-Delhi, Anthem Press, 2011.
  55. Spada A. (2012) Cambiamento e continuità nel senso civico. In Perrotta and Sunna (eds.)(2012): 183-209.
  56. Starkey T. (1529-32). A Dialogue between Pole and Lupset, ed. by T.F. Mayer, London, Royal Historical Society and University College, 1989. Statutes collected in 1543, no place, no publisher (Goldsmiths Library).
  57. Tudor Economic Documents (1924), ed. by R. Tawney and E. Power, London etc., Longmans & Green, 3 vols.
  58. Vilar P. (1962). Los primitivos españoles del pensamiento económico. ‘Cuantitativismo’ y ‘bullionismo’, trans. from French, in his Crecimiento y desarrollo, Barcelona, Ariel, 1964.
  59. Viñas y Mey C. (1970). Notas sobre primeras materias, capitalismo industrial y inflación en Castilla durante el siglo XVI, Anuario de Historia Económica y Social, Madrid, Univ. de Madrid, 1970.
  60. Wheeler J. (1601). A Treatise of Commerce, reprint, New York, Columbia University Press, 1931.
  61. Zagari E. (1995). Moneta e sviluppo nel ‘Breve trattato’ di Antonio Serra. In Roncaglia (ed.)(1995): 15-36.

  • Political economy revisited: structures and objectives at the systemic level Ivano Cardinale, Roberto Scazzieri, in Economia Politica /2024 pp.153
    DOI: 10.1007/s40888-024-00331-4
  • Antonio Serra and the Economics of Good Government Cosimo Perrotta, pp.214 (ISBN:978-1-349-71199-4)

Cosimo Perrotta, Antonio Serra’s Development Economics: Mercantilism, Backwardness, Dependence in "HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY" 2/2013, pp 5-19, DOI: 10.3280/SPE2013-002001