Exploring Capitalism(s) Elina De Simone Department of Economic Studies “ Salvatore Vinci” University of Naples Parthenope elina.desimone@uniparthnope.it Salvatore Ercolano, Department of Social Sciences University of Naples l’Orientale sercolano@unior.it Giuseppe Lucio Gaeta Department of Social Sciences University of Naples l’Orientale glgaeta@unior.it Abstract During recent years several reasons, and in particular the emergence of the financial crisis, led many scholars, from different research fields, to focus their studies on capitalism, debating its definition, determinants and evolution along time. Recent contributions highlight that little attention has been devoted, in traditional analysis, to the importance of State capacities to raise revenue and to support markets in economic development. Actually, far for providing a unique answer to the role of the State in capitalist societies, several Public finance contributions emphasized the complexity of relations among institutional actors in modern economies. Following this approach, this paper explores some aspects of the complex structure of modern capitalisms; by means of a multivariate approach we propose countries’ characterizations looking at the existing relations between the State and the civil societies/ private economic agents. Keywords: Capitalism, State Capacity, Government Performance, Public Sector, Multivariate Analysis JELCODES: P10, H11 Very preliminary and incomplete. Please, do not quote without permission