Abstract

The paper offers new viewpoints in the history of financial relations between Italy and the United States from the post-World War I era to the post-World War II era. WWII did not break longstanding institutional-personal ties in the high-banking circles in the two countries considered. At centre stage here is the banker W.W. Aldrich, chairman of Chase Bank. Notably, his relationship with Italian economist Alberto Beneduce foreshadows the one between the president of the World Bank, Eugene Robert Black (former vice-president of Chase), and the governor of the Bank of Italy, Donato Menichella (former director general of Beneduce's Iri-Institute for Industrial Reconstruction). Two men from Chase: Aldrich and Black. Two men from Iri: Beneduce and Menichella. Archival sources here include Aldrich Papers culled from Baker Library at Harvard Business School. Much remains to be done in US archives for the study of the economic history of Italy.