The Italian Manufacturing Sector During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Some Lessons for a “New Industrial Policy

This paper analyzes the Italian manufacturing sector before and during the Covid19 pandemic crisis. We analyze the behavior of Italian manufacturing sectors before the crisis, according to their competitiveness - the ISCO indicator, elaborated by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) - and their technological content, jointly elaborated by Eurostat and OECD. We observe the reaction from different sectors during the crisis and suggest to a adopt, as industrial policy, a mix of the “new horizontal approach", proposed by ISTAT, and differentiated vertical interventions for groups of sectors identified according to their technological content.