Making a Discipline: Economic Policy in Italy before Keynes

The paper concerns with the appearance in Italy of economic policy as discipline, before the leading contribution of Keynes. We will try to show that the economic policy idea as conceived by Italian economists evolved independently from pure economics analysis or, better, it grew because the discourse on economic policy was progressively excluded from pure and applied economics. This exclusion occurred as the debate, firstly on economic art and then economic policy, gradually shifted from trade policy to state intervention in trade policy, and then to state intervention for economic growth and well-being.