Investigating Regional Disparities in Italy’s Well-Being Since Unification (1871–2011)

The paper investigates the wellbeing development of Italian regions since 1871. To
this aim we use 4 aggregating methods (arithmetic mean, geometric mean, Leontief
production functions, adjustedMazziotta and Pareto index) to summarize 22 indicators
over 6 domains of wellbeing from amultidimensional perspective; this approach allows
us to assess differences arising from the adopted aggregation method. Over the 140
years under investigation and selected sub-periods we study σ-, γ - and β- convergence
and we shed newlight on the relative performance and historical development of Italian
regions, with convergence occurring only in selected domains.