Italian Big Government

The figure from The Economist showes that the number of official cars on the streets in Italy is 6 times as much as in the average European country. The figure doesn't seem to reflect the terrible state of the Italian economy. In 2009, Italy's public debt grew up to 115.3 percent of the GDP. Given the worrying state of public finance, Italy's one of the riskiest countries in the Euroarea. It is a country of an enormous contrast between the developed North and the agrarian South. The country also has one of the largest shadow economies and widespread corruption perceptions in the developed world. Because of reginal income per capita disparity, Italy is a country of significant differences in youth and adult unemployment across the country. According to the OECD, Italy has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the EU (26.3 percent). In the last year, youth unemployment rate in Italy grew by 5 percentage points. The proportion of youth in employment is 20 percentage points below the OECD average.

Source: The Economist