of the city party federations in naples and casarte. south of italy, and more precisely, naples was george's hometown. he was born there and lived with his mother and father. studied at universityf his native places did not give him peace. actually, that's his theme. university of naples in 1947, speaks for itself, the insufficient industrial development of the south after the unification of italy and the special law of 1904 for naples. from 1953, for more than 40 years, napolitana represented naples in the chamber of deputies of the italian parliament. is there such a legend in the world about, let’s say, irreconcilable contradictions between the north and the south of italy, between northerners and southerners, that this contradiction runs through everything, you are a native southerner, a neapolitan, of course , the south is near and dear to you, after all , how true is this legend, how strong are these contradictions between northerners and southerners, what they are, to what extent northern italians generally differ from southern ones, there is a difference, but these are not anthropological differences, these are historical. and naturally, historically it turned out that

and father, studied at the university, the fate of his native place did not give him peace, in fact, the topic of his thesis at the faculty of law of the university of naplesaks for itself, insufficient industrial development. unification of italy ; special law of 1904 for naples. from 1953, for more than 40 years, napolitana represented naples in the chamber of deputies of the italian parliament. is there such a legend in the world about, let’s say, irreconcilable contradictions between the north and the south of italy, between northerners and southerners, that through everything, you are a native southerner, a neapolitan, of course, the south is near and dear to you, after all , how true is this legend, how strong are these contradictions between northerners and southerners, what are they, to what extent northern italians differ from southern italians, there is a difference , but these are not anthropological differences, these are historical, economic, and naturally, historically it turned out that some positive traits were more developed in the north and in the center. for example, history greatly influenced the growth of civil consciousness, a sense o

our next guest, claudio cosa joins us, he's an associate professor economic policy at the university of naples in italy. claudio cosa, welcome to economic divide, so the economy in italy is reported to shrink unexpectedly. we're looking at the second half of 2023 which we're in right now, um, and it's even said that there's going to... be a sharper production drop compared to the other euro zone economies uh, which brings about the natural question, why is italy underperforming when it comes to his pears? well, in my opinion, we have always ups and downs, so in general we have a european crisis that is now, mean since at least over the last 15 years, so last year it seemed that italy was better performing as compared to to other industrial economies in in europe, this year and this quarter it seems the the opposite, so for instance we have other large industrial countries that have been facing problems or stagnation, think about germany that is zero, but also poland had decrease this year, while for instance, france and spain were better performing, but maybe last year there was a problem with