Cassa per il Mezzogiorno

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Cassa per il Mezzogiorno (English: Case of the South) is an effort pushed by the government of Italy to stimulate economic growth and development. It was established in 1950 and provides public works and infrastructure such as roads, bridges, etc. It also provides credit subsidies and tax advantages to promote investments.

It focuses mostly on rural areas and projects, and it has been helping bring Southern Italy into the modern world, though there is evidence that some of the money was squandered due to poor management by the government. Historian Denis Mack Smith noted in the 1960s that about a third of the money was squandered. Steel mills and such were promised but never built, and many dams never connected or irrigated as intended.

The government-led industry that was created is cheap, but a lack of skilled labour has led to a drop in southern unemployment. Italian jounalist, Luigi Barzini also noted that funds are usually given to major Italian companies to build large scale highly automated manufacturing plants, requiring huge amounts of money to build and needing minimal staffing due to the automated nature of the plants. Most of the profits would return to companies based elsewhere in Italy with little benefit to the local economy.

Cassa per il Mezzogiorno resulted in a mass migration of about two million people in the late 1950s and early 1960s out of Mezzogiorno and into northern Italy and other countries. This left a social gap in the south, with most of the seniors, women, and children left behind.