Q:

creating new column with second header's string value

I have the following dataframe with two headers.  I would need to create a new column with the string value of my second header (Industrial dataset)
Region           Industrial production                                                          
Italia           5669   
Nord-ovest       1046   
Piemonte         447 

my final output needs to be:
Industrial production   Region  Industrial production
Industrial production   Italia                   5669
Industrial production   Nord-ovest               1046
Industrial production   Piemonte                  447

A:

In pandas you cannot have two columns with the exact same name, if you try to create another column named Industrial production it will overwrite the existent one: 
In [2]: df
Out[2]: 
       Region  Industrial production
0      Italia                   5669
1  Nord-ovest                   1046
2    Piemonte                    447

In [3]: second = df.columns[1]

In [4]: second
Out[4]: 'Industrial production'

In [5]: df[second] = second

In [6]: df
Out[6]: 
       Region  Industrial production
0      Italia  Industrial production
1  Nord-ovest  Industrial production
2    Piemonte  Industrial production

You need to give this new column a different name, for example Industrial production2.  Then you can create it as follows: 
In [2]: df
Out[2]: 
       Region  Industrial production
0      Italia                   5669
1  Nord-ovest                   1046
2    Piemonte                    447

In [3]: second = df.columns[1]

In [3]: df[second + "2" ] = second

In [4]: df
Out[4]: 
       Region  Industrial production Industrial production2
0      Italia                   5669  Industrial production
1  Nord-ovest                   1046  Industrial production
2    Piemonte                    447  Industrial production

As an alternative, you can use df.assign, as follows: 
In [3]: df
Out[3]: 
       Region  Industrial production
0      Italia                   5669
1  Nord-ovest                   1046
2    Piemonte                    447

In [4]: df = df.assign(**{df.columns[1] + "2": df.columns[1]})

In [5]: df
Out[5]: 
       Region  Industrial production Industrial production2
0      Italia                   5669  Industrial production
1  Nord-ovest                   1046  Industrial production
2    Piemonte                    447  Industrial production

