The Italian Manufacturing Sector During the Covid Pandemic: Some Lessons for a "New Industrial Policy"

This paper analyzes the Italian manufacturing sector before and during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis.We analyze the behavior of Italian manufacturing sectors before the crisis, according to their competitiveness - the ISCO indicator, elaborated by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) - and their technological
content, jointly elaborated by Eurostat and OECD.We observe the reaction from different sectors during the crisis and suggest to a adopt, as industrial policy, a mix of the “new horizontal approach", proposed by ISTAT, and differentiated vertical interventions for groups of sectors identified according to their technological
content.