Abstract

In December 2019, scholars belonging to various disciplines – economic history, history of education and economics – met at the University of Rome Tor Vergata for a two-day meeting on the theme Education and economic development: an interdisciplinary workshop on the history of education in Italy. The year 2019 marked the 50 th anniversary of the publication of Carlo M. Cipolla’s Literacy and Development in the West (1969), a pioneering contribution that stimulated the debate on the interdependence between education, human capital and economic development. The present special issue on Literacy and Development aims at favouring a reduction of the gap between disciplines that, despite relying on different methodologies and perspectives, often deal with similar research questions.