ISSN 2282-6483 Cooperative Movement and Prosperity across Italian Regions Michele Costa Flavio Delbono Francesco Linguiti Quaderni - Working Paper DSE N°1161 Cooperative Movement and Prosperity across Italian Regions Michele Costaa) Flavio Delbonoa) Francesco Linguitib) a) Department of Economics, University of Bologna, P.za Scaravilli 2, 40126, Bologna, Italy (
[email protected];
[email protected]) b) Area Studi, Legacoop, Via Guattani 9, 00161 Rome, Italy (
[email protected]) Abstract Our main objective is exploring the association between widespread prosperity and the presence of the cooperative movement at the regional level in Italy between 2010 and 2019. We summarize the widespread prosperity through an index originally proposed by Sen (1976) and we then perform a panel regression showing that there is a positive and significant association between such an index and the presence of the cooperative movement as captured by the relative size of cooperative employees. We also detect that the cooperative movement contributes to the regional prosperity more through its employment than in terms of the added value it generates. Moreover, the size of the cooperative presence significantly concurs to explain some large differentials among Italian regions. JEL Codes: I31, J54 Keywords: social cohesion, regional well-being, income inequality, resilience ° We thank Giovanni Angelini, Elena Bontempi, Daniele Brusha, Guido Caselli, Giuseppe Cavaliere, Luca De Angelis, Luca Fanelli, Marco Mira d’Ercole, Sergio Pastorello, Stefano Zamagni, Vera Zamagni and participants in seminars held in (or run from) Bologna (Muec, Vancity, St. Mary University) for comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies. 1 NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY Starting from the very fuzzy notion of “social cohesion”, we recognize that the “well- being” dimension is needed to establish a multidimensional index of social cohesion.