{{Short description|Italian economist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2021}} {{family name hatnote|Sylos Labini|lang=Italian}}
{{Infobox economist | image = PSL Catania 1961.jpg | caption = Photograph of Labini | name = Paolo Sylos Labini | birth_date = {{Birth date|1920|10|30|df=y}} | birth_place = [[Rome]], Kingdom of Italy | death_date = {{Death date and age|2005|12|07|1920|10|30|df=y}} | death_place = [[Rome]], [[Italy]] | field = [[Economics]] | alma_mater = [[Sapienza]] | influences = [[Joseph Schumpeter]], [[Adam Smith]] | contributions = [[Oligopoly]] }}
'''Paolo Sylos Labini''' (30 October 1920 – 7 December 2005) was an Italian [[economics|economist]] and political advisor in post-[[World War II]] [[Italy]]. He was a professor at the [[Sapienza University of Rome]] and member of the [[Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei]].<ref name="ronc1">{{cite journal|last=Roncaglia|first=Alessandro|title=Paolo Sylos Labini, 1920-2005|journal=BNL Quarterly Review|volume=59|issue=236|date=2006}}</ref><ref name=ronc2>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Roncaglia|first=Alessandro|date=2021|title=Sylos Labini, Paolo (1920–2005)|encyclopedia=The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|location=London|editor-last1=Vernengo|editor-first1=M.|editor-last2=Caldentey|editor-first2=E.P.|editor-last3=Rosser Jr.|editor-first3=B.J.|doi=10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_3131-2}}</ref> His theoretical contributions covered [[oligopoly]], the relation between [[innovation]] and [[market structure]], [[inflation]], and socioeconomic evolution.<ref name="ilsole24ore">{{cite news |last=Bocciarelli|first=Rossella|date=8 December 2005|title=È morto Paolo Sylos Labini|work=Il Sole 24 Ore}}</ref><ref name="rancan">{{cite journal|last=Rancan|first=Antonella|title=The origin of the Sylos postulate: Modigliani's and Sylos Labini's contributions to oligopoly theory|journal=Journal of the History of Economic Thought|volume=37|issue=3|date=2015}}</ref><ref name="scherer">{{cite journal|last=Scherer|first=Frederic M.|title=On Paolo Sylos-Labini|journal=Economia e politica industriale|volume=2|date=2006}}</ref><ref name="halevi">{{cite encyclopedia|first=Joseph|last=Halevi|editor-first1=Ferdinando|editor-last1=Meacci|title=Paolo Sylos Labini|encyclopedia=Italian Economists of the 20th Century|location=Northampton|publisher=Edward Elgar|date=1998}}</ref> His work often contained a strong historical dimension, in common with [[Classical economics]].<ref name="porta">{{cite journal|first=Pier Luigi|last=Porta|title=Paolo Sylos Labini as a historian of economics|journal=Revue d'économie industrielle|volume=118|date=2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Corsi|first=M.|date=2007|title=Thinking of Sylos Labini (or Sylos Labini's Thinking)|journal=Review of Political Economy|volume=19|issue=4}}</ref>
==Life== Paolo Sylos Labini was born in Rome, to an [[Apulia]] family, on 30 October 1920.<ref name="ronc2"/><ref name="francesco"/> He graduated from [[Sapienza University of Rome]] in the Faculty of Law in July 1942 with a thesis on the economic consequences of innovations.<ref name="corsi06">{{cite journal|last=Corsi|first=Marcella|date=2006-12-01|title=In memory of Paolo Sylos Labini (1920 – 2005)|journal=The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought|volume=13|issue=4|pages=607–611|doi=10.1080/09672560601040760|s2cid=153339172 |issn=0967-2567|doi-access=free}}</ref> His advisor was Guglielmo Masci, then [[Giuseppe Ugo Papi]] following Masci's death in 1941. Graduating during [[World War II]], Sylos Labini was called up for conscription and assigned to Civita Castellana, then Florence.<ref name="petrini"/> This ended following the [[Badoglio Proclamation]], after which he joined the [[Italian resistance movement]]. He found employment at the library of the Ministry of Agriculture, where he had also worked before the war. He later became an assistant for [[:it:Alberto Breglia|Alberto Breglia]], a professor of political economy at Sapienza University of Rome, with whom he collaborated on several works assembled from lecture notes.<ref name=ronc2 /> He was receptive to Breglia's constant focus on development (''sviluppo''), which remained a central theme in his work.<ref>{{cite book|first=Alberto|last=Breglia|title=Reddito sociale|editor-first=Paolo|editor-last=Sylos Labini|location=Roma|publisher=Edizioni dell'Ateneo}}</ref> During this time, Sylos Labini also published on Italian economic conditions.<ref name="biblio">{{cite journal|last1=Di Falco|first1=E.|last2=Sanfilippo|first2=E.|date=2007|title=Una bibliografia degli scritti di Paolo Sylos Labini|journal=Economia & Lavoro|volume=41|issue=3}}</ref>
Sylos Labini's interest in innovation, and the sense of inadequacy of Italian economics at that time,<ref name="petrini"/> led him to continue his studies in the [[United States]] with [[Joseph Schumpeter]]. Encouraged by Breglia (and discouraged from staying in Italy by Papi<ref name="ronc1"/>), he traveled to the United States in September 1948 as an early [[Fulbright Program|Fulbright scholar]]. He was first sent to [[Chicago]], staying there only three months, where he met [[Franco Modigliani]]. He then traveled to [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] to study with Schumpeter at [[Harvard University]].<ref name="corsi06"/> Sylos Labini not only engaged with Schumpeter's theories of [[business cycles]] but, in his own words, "learned a lot from him. Mainly that economics cannot be separated from sociology, even though the two disciplines should be kept distinct."<ref name="petrini"/> While at Harvard, he also met [[John Kenneth Galbraith]] and [[Gaetano Salvemini]], the latter of whom he would occasionally assist in a secretarial capacity.<ref name="petrini">{{cite book|first=Paolo|last=Sylos Labini|title=Un paese a civiltà limitata|date=2001|editor-first=R.|editor-last=Petrini|publisher=Laterza|location=Roma-Bari}}</ref> In 1949 he traveled to [[Cambridge]], where he was supervised by [[Dennis Robertson (economist)|Dennis Robertson]], and became friends with [[Piero Sraffa]], [[Nicholas Kaldor]], and [[Joan Robinson]]. Afterwards, he returned to Italy. He visited the United States again with [[Giuseppe Guarino (politician)|Giuseppe Guarino]] in 1955 to study the American [[oil]] situation, sent by then Prime Minister [[Antonio Segni]].<ref name="ronc2"/> That year, he began to think about themes that later appeared in ''Oligopoly and Technical Progress.''<ref name="petrini"/>
Sylos Labini [[habilitation|qualified as a lecturer]] in political economy in 1954.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dspace.unitus.it/bitstream/2067/634/1/Intervento-Corsi.pdf|first=Marcella|last=Corsi|access-date=2025-12-21|title=Intervento di Marcella Corsi}}</ref> In 1955, he became an assistant professor of political economy at the Faculty of Economics of the [[University of Sassari]]. He moved to the [[University of Catania]] in 1957, then to the [[University of Bologna]] in 1960, before returning to Sapienza University in October 1962, where he taught principles of political economy at the Faculty of Statistical, Demographic, and Actuarial Sciences until his retirement in 1995. Between 1971 and 1972, he worked to establish the [[University of Calabria]] with [[Beniamino Andreatta]].<ref name='francesco' />
Paolo Sylos Labini married Marinella Azzone in 1960.<ref name="petrini"/> They had two sons: Stefano (born 1961), a geologist at [[ENEA (Italy)|ENEA]], and Francesco (born 1966), a physicist and Research Director of the Enrico Fermi Research Center.
He died on 7 December 2005 at the Clinica Villa Carla, in Rome.<ref>{{cite news|title=E' morto l'economista Sylos Labini|work=Corriere della Sera|date=2005-12-07}}</ref>
==Economic Theory== [[File:Oligopolio_e_progresso_tecnico_by_Paolo_Sylos_Labini_-_cover.jpg|thumb|Cover of the Italian edition of "Oligopoly and technical progress"]] Sylos Labini's main contribution came in 1956, with ''Oligopoly and Technical Progress''.<ref name="halevi"/><ref name="rothschild">{{cite journal|last=Rothschild|first=K. W.|title=Moving targets: the multifarious world of Paolo Sylos Labini|journal=Cambridge Journal of Economics|volume=19|issue=4|date=1995}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|first=Frederic M.|last=Scherer|date=2006|journal=Economia e politica industriale|volume=2|editor-first1=Franco|editor-last1=Angeli|title=On Paolo Sylos Labini}}</ref> Oligopoly describes the general case of competitive market, whose limiting cases are [[perfect competition]] and [[monopoly]]. In agreement with [[Nicholas Kaldor]], Sylos Labini found that oligopoly is additionally the most common situation in reality, and that its theory represented an advance in understanding [[imperfect competition]]. Sylos Labini expanded the theory's "dynamic" character (away from, for example, [[kinked demand]] curves), and formulated the resulting connections between [[microeconomic]] and [[macroeconomic]] effects.<ref name="oligopoly">{{cite book|last=Sylos Labini|first=Paolo|date=1956|title=Oligopolio e progresso tecnico|location=Milano|publisher=Giuffrè}}</ref> The book was published around the same time as [[Joe Bain]]'s ''Barriers to New Competition''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bain|first=J.|date=1956|title=Barriers to New Competition|location=Cambridge|publisher=Harvard University Press}}</ref> The two works were grouped together in an article by [[Franco Modigliani]],<ref name="modig">{{cite journal|first=Franco|last=Modigliani|title=New Developments on the Oligopoly Front|journal=Journal of Political Economy|year=1958|volume=66|issue=3}}</ref> which caused them to become accepted as part of mainstream theory on non-competitive market forms.
For microeconomists, the work had major implications for [[barriers to entry]], extending the analysis of the role of technology beyond [[economies of scale]] to include, among other factors, the flexibility in price setting by oligopolistic firms. This line of inquiry led to his formalization of [[limit price|exclusion prices]]. ''Oligopoly'' also formed the basis for "Sylos' postulate": that all firms' production stays constant in response to the entry of new firms, with existing firms therefore allowing prices to fall.<ref name="modig"/><ref name="osborne">{{cite journal|first=Dale K.|last=Osborne|title=The Role of Entry in Oligopoly Theory|journal=Journal of Political Economy|date=1964|volume=72|issue=4}}</ref> Despite the name, Sylos Labini considered the postulate to be an original invention of Modigliani.<ref name="rancan"/>
''Oligopoly'' further identified explanations for unemployment and inflation based on market structure. He identified a historical change from Schumpeter's innovator-centric business cycle, concluding that high concentration in industry had disproportionately allowed existing firms exclusive hold on new technologies, countering competitive mechanisms that would otherwise drive prices down. The reabsorption of those unemployed due to new technologies is also slowed. In addition to the new role of technology, Sylos Labini identified wage pressure, rising prices of imported raw materials like oil, and speculation as contributors to inflation.<ref name="rothschild"/> The work also began investigations into topics such as stagnation and income distribution, later developed in works such as ''The Forces of Economic Growth and Decline''. For example, his dynamic analysis of the [[Great Depression]] produced conclusions different from the standard [[Monetarist]] or [[John Maynard Keynes|Keynesian]] views: {{blockquote|text=I maintain, in contraposition to the thesis of Keynes, that the Wall Street crash, which came at the end of a true frenzy of speculation and created some important preconditions for the depression, should be attributed instead to three "objective" reciprocally interacting factors: the extraordinary changes in the distribution of income, the effects of certain great innovations, and deep-rooted changes in the market structure manifest in the spread and the strengthening of oligopolies and monopolies.<ref>{{cite book|first=Paolo|last=Sylos Labini|date=1984|title=The Forces of Economic Growth and Decline|location=Cambridge|publisher=MIT Press}}</ref>}} Similar arguments led to his theory of an "optimum rate of profit" that emerged when considering the effect of wage increases on effective demand.<ref name="halevi"/>
Sylos Labini's methodology did not adhere to any one school.<ref name="corsi07"/> [[Paul Samuelson]] offered, in Sylos Labini's Festschrift, "Economists around the world, from [[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge]] to [[Cambridge]] and [[Osaka]] to [[Omaha]], admire you for a lifetime of Schumpeterian innovation, Keynesian brilliance, Ricardian rigor, and Smithian realism."<ref>{{cite book|editor-last1=Biasco|editor-first1=S.|editor-last2=Roncaglia|editor-first2=A.|editor-last3=Salvati|editor-first3=M.|date=1993|title=Market and Institutions in Economi Development. Essays in Honour of Paolo Sylos Labini}}</ref> In particular, Sylos Labini was never comfortable limiting economics to [[Neoclassical economics|Neoclassical]] equilibrium finding. His body of work therefore included titles such as ''Underdevelopment: A Strategy for Reform'', in which he sought to identify the main, variegated drivers of inequality between the richest and poorest nations, while also describing the failure of "mainstream economics" to address such problems.<ref>{{cite book|title=Sottosviluppo. Una strategia di riforme|publisher=Laterza|location=Roma-Bari|last=Sylos Labini|first=Paolo}}</ref> He also made important policy-directed contributions, including guidelines for Italy's nascent [[petroleum]] industry in the 1950s, an econometric model of the Italian economy in 1967, and a series of works on wages, productivity, and inflation, published between 1965 and 1975, which incorporated the results of his econometric analyses.
==Civic Engagement== Sylos Labini maintained a lifelong commitment to improving conditions in Italy through political involvement, and held that it was in fact the goal of the economist to promote civil development.<ref name="corsi07">{{cite journal|last=Corsi|first=Marcella|title=Il mestiere dell'economista secondo Paolo Sylos Labini|journal=Economia & Lavoro|volume=3|date=2007}}</ref> He wrote of himself, in his 1974 ''Saggio sulle classi sociali'' (''Essay on Social Classes''), "The author considers himself, politically, an honest reformist – honest in the sense that he not only believes in but, with his very modest means, works for reforms, especially those reforms that can help clear the ground of all those legally controllable obstacles that hinder the development of the working class."<ref name="classi">{{cite book|first=Paolo|last=Sylos Labini|title=Saggio sulle classi sociali|publisher=Laterza|location=Roma-Bari|date=1974}}</ref>
In 1949, at age 29, he contributed to the Work Plan proposed by [[Giuseppe Di Vittorio]], a plan for the economic and social reconstruction of Italy.<ref name="ilsole24ore"/> He wrote articles in [[Piero Calamandrei]]'s ''[[Il Ponte]]'' and [[Mario Pannunzio]]'s ''[[Il Mondo (magazine)|Il Mondo]]'' on a range of economic issues.<ref name="petrini"/> Among these was a 1954 ''Il Mondo'' article on [[child labor]] in Campania: an early example of research into the [[Southern Italy|Mezzogiorno]] region and [[underdevelopment]]. Later work would include testimony to the Parliamentary Committee of enquiry into the Sicilian mafia in 1965, also published in l'Astrolabio,<ref>{{cite journal|last=Sylos Labini|first=Paolo|title=Le radici della mafia|date=1965|journal=l'Astrolabio|volume=3|issue=16}}</ref> as well as the collection ''Problemi dell'economia siciliana'', containing fieldwork-based analyses of differences between eastern and western Sicily.<ref>{{cite book|title=Problemi dell'economia siciliana|publisher=Feltrinelli|location=Milano|editor-first1=Paolo|editor-last1=Sylos Labini|date=1966}}</ref><ref name="ronc1"/> In 1955, at the request of [[Antonio Segni]], he undertook a study of the petroleum industry to inform Italian law regulating oil extraction.<ref name="petrini"/> From 1962 to 1964, he was a member of the National Commission for Economic Planning, during the first center-left government under [[Amintore Fanfani]]. With [[:it:Giorgio Fuà|Giorgio Fuà]], he presented a report arguing that planning, even before being an economic issue, was an institutional problem to be addressed with the help of jurists and scholars in political and sociological disciplines. From 1964 to 1974, he was a member of the Technical-Scientific Council of the Ministry of the Budget, where he worked on the first econometric model of the Italian economy.<ref name="francesco"/><ref name="ronc1"/> His public resignation in 1974 was in response to the appointment of [[Salvatore Lima]] as Under-Secretary of the Budget, and more generally corruption, the connection between the mafia and politics, and Italy's degenerating party system.<ref name="petrini"/> He criticized the [[1968 movement in Italy|1968 protests]] in a controversial article for ''l'Astrolabio'';<ref>{{cite journal|first=Paolo|last=Sylos Labini|title=Università: la campana critica|journal=l'Astrolabio|volume=6|issue=9}}</ref> he later reflected, "They seemed like mad sheep, headed towards the precipice: they were creating the conditions to be exploited in the worst possible way."<ref name="petrini"/> His widely-read ''Essay on Social Classes'' was critical of the [[Marxism|Marxist]] rhetoric then in use in politics, and argued that the proletariat, rather than trending towards majority, was in fact in numerical decline.<ref name="classi"/> In the 1980s, he contributed in [[la Repubblica]] to discussions surrounding inflation, wage indexation, and the role of unions, contemporary with Modigliani and [[:it:Ezio Tarantelli|Ezio Tarantelli]]. He was a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. In 1998, he co-signed "An economists' Manifesto on unemployment in the European Union."<ref>{{cite journal|first1=F.|last1=Modigliani|first2=J.-P.|last2=Fitoussi|first3=B.|last3=Moro|first4=D.|last4=Snower|first5=R.|last5=Solow|first6=A.|last6=Steinherr|first7=P.|last7=Sylos Labini|date=1998|title=An economists' Manifesto on unemployment in the European Union|journal=Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review|volume=51|issue=206}}</ref><ref name="corsi06"/> In his final years, he was active in various political organizations and was a vocal opponent of [[Silvio Berlusconi]].<ref name="ronc2"/><ref name="francesco">{{cite book|editor-first1=Francesco|editor-last1=Sylos Labini|title=Paolo Sylos Labini: Economista e Cittadino|location=Roma|publisher=Sapienza Università Editrice|isbn=978-88-98533-60-2|date=2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|date=2006|title=Ahi serva Italia: Un appello ai miei concittadini|first=Paolo|last=Sylos Labini|editor-first1=R.|editor-last1=Petrini|publisher=Laterza|location=Roma-Bari}}</ref>
==Selected works== * ''Oligopoly and Technical Progress'' / ''Oligopolio e progresso tecnico'' (1956) * ''Problemi dell'economia siciliana'' (1966) * ''Problemi dello sviluppo economico'' (1970) * ''Trade Unions, Inflation and Productivity'' / ''Sindacati, inflazione e produttività'' (1972) * ''Saggio sulle classi sociali'' (1974) * ''Il sottosviluppo e l'economia contemporanea'' (1983) * ''The Forces of Economic Growth and Decline'' / ''Le forze dello sviluppo e del declino'' (1984) * ''Le classi sociali negli anni '80 Roma-Bari'' (1986) * ''Nuove tecnologie e disoccupazione'' (1989) * ''Elementi di dinamica economica'' (1992) * ''Economic Growth and Business Cycles: Prices and the Process of Cyclical Development'' / ''Progresso tecnico e sviluppo ciclico'' (1993) * ''Underdevelopment: A Strategy for Reform'' / ''Sottosviluppo. una strategia di riforme'' (2000) * ''Ahi serva Italia: Un appello ai miei concittadini'' (2006)
== References == {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{wikiquote|it:Paolo Sylos Labini}} * [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Paolo_Sylos_Labini Wikimedia Commons] * [https://dspace.unitus.it/handle/2067/163 UnitusOpen] - Paolo Sylos Labini's digitized works, hosted by [[Tuscia University]] * [https://www.syloslabini.info/online/ Web site of the Paolo Sylos Labini Association]. * [https://www.liberliber.it/online/autori/autori-s/paolo-sylos-labini/ Opere di Paolo Sylos Labini], on [[:it:Liber Liber|Liber Liber]]. * [https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL5687539A/Paolo_Sylos_Labini Opere di Paolo Sylos Labini], on [[Open Library]], [[Internet Archive]]. * [https://www.persee.fr/authority/51018 Pubblicazioni di Paolo Sylos Labini], on [[Persée (web portal)|Persée]], Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation. * [https://www.radioradicale.it/soggetti/122033/paolo-sylos-labini Registrazioni di Paolo Sylos Labini], on [https://www.radioradicale.it/ RadioRadicale.it], [[Radio Radicale]]. * [https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/paolo-sylos-labini Paolo Sylos Labini], in [https://www.treccani.it/ Treccani.it] – Enciclopedie on line, [[Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana]]. * [https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/paolo-sylos-labini_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/ Paolo Sylos Labini], in [[Enciclopedia Italiana]], [[Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana]]. * [https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/paolo-sylos-labini_(Dizionario-Biografico) Paolo Sylos Labini], in [[Dizionario biografico degli italiani]], [[Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana]].
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sylos Labini, Paolo}} [[Category:1920 births]] [[Category:2005 deaths]] [[Category:Italian economists]]