*  *  Savings and investment  Half a century ago, when Italy was moving towards prosperity, it was the parsimony of its population that financed economic growth.
Right up to the mid-1970s, while expenditure on investment amounted to 26 per cent of gross national disposable income, private saving exceeded 30 per cent, with more than two-thirds of it due to households; their thrift was encouraged and upheld as a social virtue.