Following a comment I made on r/HistoryWhatIf, I've been reading up a bit on the economy of the early Kingdom of Italy, but I'm not very knowledgeable on this period so maybe r/AskHistorians can help.
As I understand, at Unification in 1866/1871 the young Italian state was quite a backwards place compared to the rest of western Europe. Normally that would mean they would profit from the catch-up effect, but as I understand that wasn't really the case until decades later. What were the reasons for this?
While more can be added, I addressed Italy's resource and economic challenges in their attempts to modernize over here.