Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Alberto Baffigi
Author-Email:
Author-Workplace-Name: Banca d'Italia
Title: Rodolfo Benini e la semiologia economica nell'Italia post-unitaria 
(Rodolfo Benini and economic semiology in post-unification Italy)
Abstract: Italian statistics in the decades following political unification (1861) developed along two main strands.
An institutionally based statistics was promoted, with surveys and monographies, by the Statistical
Division, at the Ministry of Agriculture Industry and Commerce. The other statistics was mainly
academic and it can be considered as a science of economic signs, a systematic method to interpret
economic symptoms with the aim to make economic diagnoses and forecasts. Historians of Italian
statistics generally overlooked this second strand of studies. It was the so called economic semiology,
which burgeoned in Europe, since the mid-eighties in the nineteenth century. Rodolfo Benini was one
of the leading international scholars within this discipline. This paper focuses on Benini’s contributions
in this field. He pioneered economic semiology with interesting applications which were strictly
welded with his civic engagement aimed at promoting a more rigorous and systematic public statistics
Classification-JEL: B19, B41, C43, C53
Keywords: storia della statistica; Rodolfo Benini; semiologia economica 
(history of statistics; Rodolfo Benini; economic semiology)
Journal: Il Pensiero Economico Italiano
Pages: 67-88 
Volume: 16
Issue: 1
Year: 2008
File-URL: https://www.libraweb.net/articoli.php?chiave=200806301&rivista=63
Handle: RePEc:pei:journl:v:16:y:2008:1:5:p:67-88