The rise of 'many Mezzogiorni': an empirical assessment of the internal differentiation of Italian southern regions

The aim of this paper is to provide, using various socio-economic indicators, some empirical evidence of the increasing differentiation which has characterized one of the most studied peripheries of the European Union, namely the Italian Mezzogiorno. The analysis is carried out at province level (NUTS 3) for the period 1985-98. Our results seem to support a growing differentiation of the paths of development within the Italian South that has occurred in parallel with the intensification of the EU integration process, producing an area of ‘many Mezzogiorni’.This means that the use of traditional indicators, such as gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, may not be entirely appropriate and, in some cases, may even be misleading for assessing regional backwardness and vulnerability in a bid to achieve greater socioeconomic cohesion within the EU.