From Lira to the Single Currency: the Euro's transitional costs and its unexpected side effects. The Italian case.

Abstract

T hroughout this thesis I tried to show the numerous aspects of the introduction of the single currency and its impact on Italian society. We started by considering the pre-changeover phase, pointing out the genuine enthusiasm and trust in future perspectives of the Euro as an innovative tool able to contribute in building a more and more unified Europe, that was pretty widespread among Italians. Unfortunately, after this initial positive attitude, the successive four years have been characterized by an increasing mistrust and discomfort. This happened because of the combination of several relevant factors: psychological, political and partially also economic. We analyzed that the Italian population has faced an unexpected amount of psychological difficulties in dealing with the single currency; to clarify the wide range of different attitudes it has been useful approaching this theme following various levels of analysis, as shown in the first three chapters. The considerations built up on these areas of interest have been developed according to my personal re-elaboration of information and data collected by the official survey department of the European Commission, and the so- called Euro Barometer, that during the last four years has carried out a remarkable monitoring work to studying and understanding...