Italian family". Despite these achievements, socio-economic inequalities continued to pervade Italy by the early Eighties. In 1983, it was estimated that over 18% of the population of the South lived below the official poverty line, compared with 6.9% of the population of the North and Centre. 1980s: economic recession and reforms under Bettino Craxi The economic recession went on into the mid-1980s until a set of reforms led to the independence of the Bank of Italy and a big reduction of the indexation of wages that strongly reduced inflation rates, from 20.6% in 1980 to 4.7% in 1987. The new macroeconomic and political stability resulted in a second, export-led "economic miracle", based on small and medium-sized enterprises, producing clothing, leather products, shoes, furniture, textiles, jewelry, and machine tools. As a result of this rapid expansion, in 1987 Italy overtook the UK's economy (an event known as il sorpasso), becoming the fourth richest nation in the world, after the US, Japan and West Germany. The Milan stock exchange increased its market capitalization more than fivefold in the space of a few years. Meanwhile, the PSI, which was at an all-time low, squeezed in the pincer of the historic compromise attempt between the two major parties, called on the new secretary Bettino Craxi to revive his fortunes, whose political rise represented a factor of innovation in the system of First Republic, now unable to give adequate responses to the changes taking place in Italian society. In the 1980s, for the first time since 1945, two governments were led by non-Christian Democrat Premiers: Republican Giovanni Spadolini and Socialist Bettino Craxi. The DC remained, however, the main force supporting the government. With the end of the Years of Lead, the PCI gradually increased their votes under the leadership of Enrico Berlinguer. The Socialist Party (PSI), led by Bettino Craxi, became more and more critical of the Communists and of the Soviet Union; Craxi himself pushed in favour of US President Ronald Reagan's positioning of Pershing II missiles in Italy, a move the Communists hotly contested. As the Socialist Party moved to more moderate positions, the ranks of the PCI increased in numbers, and the Communist Party surpassed the Christian Democracy (DC) in the European election of 1984, barely two days after Berlinguer's death, that likely drew sympathy in the population. Huge crowds attended Berlinguer's funeral. That was to be the only time the Christian