But Ferrari and Laborghini are very popular in US. As Gucci shoes. Italian and French dress designers are the best in the world. Japan, Taiwan, Israel can suggest nothing in dress design. There is one japanese Haute couture company Issey Miyake but the designers are french there.
Sure, and those are some pricy commodities per unit – but it's still a matter of niche markets, and very limited volumes. It is pretty consistent with Italy being good at certain kinds of almost artisanal quaility products, and small enterprises, but it's hardly a way towards a continued prosperous future as a whole.
Ferrari and Lamborghini compined sell a tiny fraction of vehicles that any Japanese or Korean car manufacturer sold in the US prior to 2000. A tiny fraction of American consumers purchased clothing made in Italy. Dress designers can only account for miniscule amount of workers. The path to Italian prosperity never was going to come from having the best fashion designers in the world.
Not really because tourism brings low wage jobs such has, maids wait staff , food service, prostitution,taxi drivers( since we can't go past 2000) hospitality, tour guides , retail none of which pay very well. Often those jobs historically go to illegal workers . Yes tourism does bring in tax revenue and I remember circa 1969 the actor Robert Wagner reminding folks in Southern California to be nice to tourists as they were an important part of the Southern California economy.
Well we have to stick to pre 2000. Then we have to look at Italian clothing exports up to 2000 vs other countries.
In 1998 I have bought Italian swimming trunks in Rome. Not Versace, but very good quality and design.
That's great but my point is clothing exports from Italy have been steadily decreasing for decades. The challenge that many nations face is how to provide high wage jobs in an economy undergoing deindustrialization. Goverment's can't really tax low wage jobs such has workers involved in tourism.
Yes but the challenge is to maintain and expand a national economy that provides enough wealth for the citizenry plus generate sufficient tax revenue. Agricultural exports are just a small part of that equation. It's quite a challenge to maintain a sucessful economy.
