Larger firms capture two-thirds of Italy's recovery contracts
Medium-sized and large firms won over two-thirds of corporate contract value under Italy's National Recovery and Resilience Plan in 2022-25, Bank of Italy research finds. Construction accounted for 50.8 percent of that value.
Two channels favor different sectors
Bank of Italy researchers Alfredo Bardozzetti, Enza Maltese, Anna Laura Mancini and Daniel Mele map transfers and procurement under Italy's €194.4 billion recovery plan.
Observed direct grants total €45.5 billion, including €18.8 billion for businesses; approximately 31,000 corporations received €12.1 billion.
Manufacturing captured 41.3 percent of corporate transfers and services 34.5 percent.
For 2022-25, tenders totaled €117.1 billion, with awards identified for €101.5 billion; approximately 24,000 corporations won €96.9 billion across nearly 156,000 contracts.
Large firms alone captured 45.0 percent of corporate contract value.
Construction received €49.2 billion, against €35.6 billion for services and €11.1 billion for manufacturing.
Southern demand reaches northern suppliers
Northern firms received 63.4 percent of corporate transfers and 55.8 percent of corporate contract value.
Relative to regional value added, transfer intensity was similar in the North and South, while procurement intensity was highest in central Italy.
Southern authorities accounted for about half of territorially managed procurement value.
Excluding national players, southern firms won 69.9 percent of local recovery-plan public works value in 2022-25, against 85.6 percent in 2018-19; for goods and services, their share fell from 26.0 to 3.5 percent.
Headquarters are not the destination
The authors stress that contractor headquarters do not identify the full territorial effects of investment.
Subcontracting is unobserved, and beneficiary data exclude much of Transition 4.0 and some financial instruments.
The descriptive evidence cannot establish the plan's causal effects on firms or regions.
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