Abstract

The paper raises the issue - largely neglected in the literature - of the economic repercussions of brigandage in the Southern regions of the Italian peninsula during the decade which followed the political unification of the country. New estimates of the victims of the long, merciless conflict between the army of the Kingdom of Italy and the bandits are presented, based on a large sample of secondary sources. The final hypothesis, to be tested with additional data, is that the damages suffered by Southern agriculture were heavy, ceteris paribus, widening the gap in income per head of the Southern population vis à vis that of the rest of Italy.