How Italy became a submerging economy

IVREA: Economic decline takes many shapes. In the northern Italian town of Ivrea, it looks like the abandoned, overgrown tennis courts where the employees of electronics giant Olivetti SpA once played.

In the 1980s, Ivrea was a European version of Silicon Valley. Of the 50,000 people employed by Olivetti, half worked in the town, enjoying generous salaries and plush corporate recreation facilities.