Editing Economy of Italy (section)

=== Post-war economic miracle ===
{{Main|Italian economic miracle}}
[[File:1962 Fiat 500 -- 2012 DC 2.JPG|thumbnail|The [[Fiat 500]], launched in 1957, is considered a symbol of Italy's postwar economic miracle.<ref>{{cite news |last=Tagliabue |first=John |date=11 August 2007 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/11/business/worldbusiness/11fiat.html |title=Italian Pride Is Revived in a Tiny Fiat |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=8 February 2015 }}</ref>]]
[[File:Olivetti Programma 101 - Museo scienza e tecnologia Milano.jpg|thumbnail|[[Programma 101]], developed in 1965 by [[Olivetti]] is considered one of the first [[Programmable calculator|programmable calculators]] ever and was an economic success internationally.<ref>{{Cite web
 | title= 2008/107/1 Computer, Programma 101, and documents (3), plastic / metal / paper / electronic components, hardware architect Pier Giorgio Perotto, designed by Mario Bellini, made by Olivetti, Italy, 1965–1971
 | website= www.powerhousemuseum.com
 | language= en
 | url= http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=378406
 | access-date= 2016-03-20
}}
</ref><ref name=CyberHeroes>
{{cite web
 | title= Cyber Heroes: Camillo Olivetti
 | publisher= Hive Mind
 | url= http://wvegter.hivemind.net/abacus/CyberHeroes/Olivetti.htm
 | access-date= 2010-11-07
}}
</ref>]]

After the end of World War II, Italy was in rubble and occupied by foreign armies, a condition that worsened the chronic development gap among the more advanced European economies. However, the new geopolitical logic of the [[Cold War]] made possible that the former enemy Italy, a hinge country between Western Europe and the [[Mediterranean]], and now a new, fragile democracy threatened by the [[NATO]] occupation forces, the proximity of the [[Iron Curtain]] and the presence of a strong [[Italian Communist Party|Communist party]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Hogan |first=Michael J.| title=The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952 |url=https://archive.org/details/marshallplanamer00hoga_388 |url-access=limited |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=1987 | location=[[Cambridge]] | pages=[https://archive.org/details/marshallplanamer00hoga_388/page/n57 44]–45 |isbn=978-0-521-37840-6}}</ref> was considered by the United States as an important ally for the [[Free World]], and received under the [[Marshall Plan]] over US$1.2&nbsp;billion from 1947 to 1951.

The end of aid through the Plan could have stopped the recovery but it coincided with a crucial point in the [[Korean War]] whose demand for metal and manufactured products was a further stimulus of Italian industrial production. In addition, the creation in 1957 of the [[European Common Market]], with Italy as a founding member, provided more investment and eased exports.<ref name="CraftsToniolo">{{cite book| last1=Crafts |first1=Nicholas |last2=Toniolo |first2=Gianni |title=Economic Growth in Europe Since 1945| url=https://archive.org/details/economicgrowtheu1945craf_729 | url-access=limited | publisher = [[Cambridge University Press]]| year=  1996| location =[[Cambridge]] | page=[https://archive.org/details/economicgrowtheu1945craf_729/page/n452 428]| isbn = 978-0-521-49627-8}}</ref>

These favourable developments, combined with the presence of a large labour force, laid the foundation for spectacular economic growth that lasted almost uninterrupted until the "[[Hot Autumn]]'s" massive strikes and social unrest of 1969–70, which then combined with the later [[1973 oil crisis]] and put an abrupt end to the prolonged boom. It has been calculated that the Italian economy experienced an average rate of growth of GDP of 5.8% per year between 1951 and 1963, and 5% per year between 1964 and 1973.<ref name="CraftsToniolo"/> Italian rates of growth were second only, but very close, to the [[West Germany|West German]] rates, in Europe, and among the [[OEEC]] countries only Japan had been doing better.<ref>{{cite book| last=Di Nolfo |first=Ennio | title = Power in Europe? Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, and the Origins of the EEC, 1952–57| publisher=[[Walter de Gruyter]]| year=1992| location=[[Berlin]]| page=198| isbn=978-3-11-012158-2}}</ref>