Amazon.com description: Product Description: In recent decades, the Italian "phenomenon" has often come under close scrutiny as specialists of the field attempted to understand the workings of an economic system perceived as being somewhat strange: foreign commentators in particular incessantly wavered between forewarnings of inevitable crises and decline, and resounding praise of unexpected and surprising success. However, harsh and one-sided value judgements must be avoided if the Italian system is to be truly understood. In reality, the apparent political instability coexists alongside the stability of government, international alliances and internal affairs in other Western democracies, and better epitomized in the Japanese experience. This book contains five essays by Italian economists who give an analysis of the "new miracle" of the 1980s - the wide and deep industrial restructuring process which gave new impulse to Italy's economic growth - and the 1990s "nightmare" - the explosion of both government deficit and debt, and the difficulties of running a recovery path toward the Maastricht parameters to meet the deadlines of the European unification process.