G. Toniolo, The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy since Unification According to G. Toniolo The years of 2000-2011 were technically a lost decade, with total GDP in 2011 a mere 1.1 higher than it had been ten years earlier, and still 5 percent lower than it was in 2007 (in the previous major depression, the 1929 GDP level was reached again in 1935) For a country that was the second largest industrial producer in the euro area, especially serious was the weakness of the manufacturing sector, p.27, 2000.

E. Felice and G. Vecchi, Italy's Modern Economic Growth, pp.1861-2011