Orizzonti ristretti o fragilità strutturali? I banchieri privati nell’estremo Ponente ligure (1861-1915)

Narrowed Horizons or Structural Fragility? Private Bankers in Western Liguria (1861-1915) This paper examines the role played by private bankers in the western area of the Liguria region between Italian Unification and the First World War. It was a peripheral context, with a limited presence of industrial plants; therefore it was the development of international elite tourism, especially in Sanremo, which drove a structural change in the local economy. These characteristics influenced the evolution of the credit sector, which had to rely essentially on private bankers, arising mainly from the local bourgeoisie, while savings banks and popular banks were lacking, and joint-stock banks experienced poor success. This paper aims at verifying whether the structural weakness of these financial intermediaries was the result of their limited entrepreneurial ability or was linked to the economic structure of this area.