Growth and changes in economic structure: a straightforward statistical approach with an application to the Italian economy.

The paper presented here, part of my PhD dissertation written under Professor Brian Reddaway's guidance, is offered as an example of his approach to applied economics as well as a tribute to his legacy. The scope of this paper is to suggest an operational approach to the analysis of growth, an approach that allows us to grasp immediately the most important changes that might occur in the structure of an economy. This procedure is applied to the Italian economy over the period of its most rapid growth (1960-79) to see whether some of the most important results established in the literature on modern economic growth are confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]