Crédit agricole, financements publics et emploi des capitaux en Italie

Abstract

Agricultural credit in Italy has been regulated since 1928 by a specific Act. Such legislation is still the basis of the agricultural financing system, notwithstanding the numerous critics on it. The article briefly describes the forms of application of this Act illustrating, among other things, the interventions in favour of agriculture both from Italian government and from the E.C. The analysis goes on looking at the evolution of investments in the Italian agriculture and then the ratio between agricultural gross output and medium and long-run investments. The results show a reduction of such a ratio since 1979, like in other countries. The trend can be explained as the result of the negative evolution of agricultural prices as regards inflation and the consequence of a rationalization process of the way of investing capitals in agriculture.