The Legacy of History or the Outcome of Reforms? Primary Education and Literacy in Liberal Italy (1871 – 1911)

This paper shows how historical institutions, inherited from pre-unification regional states, cast a long shadow on the evolution of literacy across the provinces of Liberal Italy (1871-1911). Although increasing local inputs into public primary schooling were associated with higher literacy, pre-unification schooling is found to be a crucial predictor of literacy in the period under study. New provincial estimates of school efficiency based on Data Envelopment Analysis suggest that pre-unification education and parental literacy were also important determinants of the success in converting schooling into literacy.