The Cassa del Mezzogiorno (English: Register or Fund for the South) was a public effort by the government of Italy to stimulate economic growth and development in the less developed southern regions of Italy. It was established in 1950 primarily to construct public works and infrastructure (roads, bridges, hydroelectric and irrigation) projects, and to provide credit subsidies and tax advantages to promote investments. It was dissolved in 1984, although its mandate was maintained by successive, less centralized institutions.
It focused mostly on rural areas and many say that it assisted Southern Italy to enter the modern world, although there is evidence that some of the funds were squandered due to poor financial management by the government. Historian Denis Mack Smith noted, in the 1960s, that about a third of the money was squandered. Steel mills and other projects were promised but never built, and many irrigation projects and dams were never completed as intended.
The government-led industry that was created was marginal, but the need for skilled labour led to a drop in southern unemployment. Italian journalist Luigi Barzini also noted that funds were 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.
The Cassa per il Mezzogiorno resulted in a mass migration of about two million people in the late 1950s and early 1960s out of Southern Italy 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.