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This paper investigates the Italian debate on municipalization between the 1880s and the 1920s and is divided into two parts. The first deals with the emergence of the municipalization in the late nineteenth century as a component in the birth of the Social State. The second part concerns the analytical tools elaborated by some leading Italian economists in the first three decades of the twentieth century, when municipalization was the expression of an entire lifecycle, with an early expanding stage (until World War I) and a later stage (under Fascism) of prevalent stagnation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After briefly reconstructing the debate in Italy during the period of the marginalist revolution on the correct methodology for the history of economic thought, the article examines De Viti de Marco's position. A historical essay of his (De Viti 1891) on Antonio Serra (1613), becomes the first object of our critical enquiry. As with other studies of De Viti de Marco, from it emerges the adoption of an analytical and retrospective approach. Through comparison with the essays of the other historians of economic thought of his age, the originality of the method applied by De Viti de Marco in his historical contribution can be seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]