#Diogenedixit
Kabul, Beijing, and the Geopolitics of the Ecological Transition
Afghanistan is a land of treasure. Recently, the international press, and it appears, the new Taliban government as well, have been anxiously following the fate of the Bactrian treasure, discovered in the north of Afghanistan shortly before the Soviet invasion of 1979. In six tombs that can be dated from the first century BCE to the first century CE, archeologists led by Viktor Sarianidi found more than 20,000 artifacts, including gold amorettos, dolphins, divinities, and dragons studded with turquoise, cornel, and lapis lazuli, but also rings, coins, weapons, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and ...
Evergrande: The Chinese Version of Lehman Brothers?
Does Evergrande risk becoming the Chinese version of Lehman Brothers? It's a legitimate question, that for weeks has been the focus of attention of financial analysts and the pages of the largest newspapers. There is certainly the fear that the collapse of a company this size could have repercussions on the entire Chinese financial system, but for the authorities in Beijing, it seems more important not to betray the promise to teach a lesson to the debt-laden behemoths in the country. So those who expected a state rescue have been disappointed, but that doesn't mean that "Chinese characteristics" ...
The Renaissance of Sustainable Real Estate (with Patient Capital)
The real estate market is no longer a static element of the global economy, thanks to the combination of new factors linked to supply and demand, including interest rates, inflation, private real estate, and urban regeneration. In this article, we will shed light on some of the most important factors of the real estate market as tools for social attractiveness, as well as its intangible assets and its role as an agent for culture and social inclusion, concluding with a comment on the sustainability of real estate as an element that attracts patient capital. Unconventional monetary policy and interest ...
ECB: The New Route Between Hawks and Doves
Last July, the president of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde announced a strategy review of ECB monetary policy. There was great anticipation of what the new inflation target would be. The expectations were understandable: explicitly stating the inflation target, as we will see later, is the key to monetary policy, representing the main tool to orient expectations. The importance of the link between the inflation target and management of expectations is an issue on which hawks and doves can generally agree. But things change when we question the quantitative formulation of that target. It ...
The Revolution Comes Lying Down
“If you can’t get up and you refuse to kneel, all you can do is lie flat.” It sounds like the slogan of a non-violent revolution, and it may be just that; at least in China. It all began with a post online last April: “Lying flat means justice.”[1] The author is Luo Huazhong, a young man who left his alienating factory job at 26 years of age to travel around by bicycle, and after returning to his home town, decided to share his new lifestyle: reduce consumption to the minimum and enjoy the little things, work only as much as necessary to earn what he needs to eat and have clothes, and ...
The SPAC Market: the Cases of the United States and Italy
SPACs (Special Purpose Acquisition Companies) are financial instruments created almost twenty years ago in the United States. Economia&Management dealt with these types of companies back in 2017 and 2018,[1] assessing the situation in the US and Italy; in the latter, SPACs emerged in 2011 not structured based on specific regulations or laws, but through a combination of legal forms allowed for other types of financial companies. When we speak of SPACs, we always need to refer to the regulation based on which each has been constructed. Despite having the same goals, different jurisdictions can ...
Brexit and the City
In Italy, we cut red ribbons at Christmas when we open gifts. Across the Channel, cutting red ribbons is an obsession that dominates public debate, reaching a fever pitch when the European Union is involved. Naturally, we’re not talking about the ribbons used for holidays, but of “red tape,” the term used in the United Kingdom to refer to an apparently infinite series of bureaucratic procedures that prevent the animal spirits of the market from giving free play to their creative instincts. The use of the term red tape comes from the fact that in the past, legal documentation was in fact ...
Sustainability in Water Companies: The Case of ACEA ATO2
Sustainability is one of the largest challenges that every company has to face in order to evolve towards an economic system that is able to combine protection of the environment, social and economic development. Water service managers are defined as "sustainable by vocation," since their fundamental mission is to guarantee present and future generations access to water services, a primary good for survival, ensuring the protection of the quality and quantity of water resources. They integrate the environmental dimension with economic development and the ethical-social dimension to simultaneously ...
Interest Rates, Inflation, and Central Banks: Words Matter
Since last spring, the spotlight has been on the dynamic of interest rates, and on the effect they can have on the risk of inflation. Everything began last May, when the data relating to consumer price growth in the United States showed the largest increase since 2008. It was a sign of an economy with exuberant aggregate demand, that is reflected in both real and nominal economic growth. So it is normal for interest rates on US government bonds to have risen, along with the dollar exchange rate. From that time, the crucial question has been to understand how temporary this phenomenon of price ...
A 100-Year March
On July 1, the birth of the Chinese Communist Party will be celebrated with great fanfare. It is a date of convenience, because Party cells certain already existed before that July of 1921, while historically the first Congress was held only on July 23. But Mao Zedong did not remember the exact date, so he decided otherwise in 1941. A hundred years later, the skyline of the main cities will be lit with the Party colors, the army will parade, and there will be demonstrations and celebrations everywhere, because as recently stressed by current president Xi Jinping, it will be an occasion to "educate ...