Focus Africa

2023-04-18 Donato Masciandaro

Swedish Lessons for the ECB

A good central bank is one that is understood; if it is also credible, it becomes excellent. A bad central bank is one that must be interpreted; if it also creates macroeconomic damage, it becomes terrible. From this point of view, in February the ECB took a step forward, unfortunately taking two steps back in March. Let's start with February. How to judge what the ECB did and said, also through the words of President Lagarde? Economic analysis allows us to make the question more precise: what have we understood about the reaction function of the ECB? The concept of a reaction function is what ...

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2023-03-28 Cecilia Attanasio Ghezzi

The Old Face of the New China

On March 13 the so-called “two sessions,” or “lianghiui,” were closed in Beijing: the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress that take place almost simultaneously. Like each year, approximately five thousand delegates met for about a week to discuss and ratify the direction that the world’s second-largest economy will take and who will be the state leaders who manage it. Their role is the closest thing to our parliament, but when they meet the decisions are already made, and the exercise mostly resembles a public ritual. Indeed, everything ...

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Il lavoro bancario in Italia, dal 1990 a oggi

2023-03-21 Roberto Ruozi

Bank Employment in Italy: the Prospects for the Future

On January 23 of this year, the Financial Times published a long article by O. Walter and K. Martin, who discussed some considerations shared during the recent Davos Forum regarding the prospects for employment in banks, with specific reference to the situation in the U.S., but also to that of some European banks. The central point of the article concerns the fact that the main American banks – among which Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of New York Mellon are cited – and some large European banks, citing UBS and Credit Suisse (the protagonists of global economic news in recent weeks, ...

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2023-03-17 Gianmarco Ottaviano

The Role of the State in the New Phase of Globalization

In the period after the Second World War, the design of global markets was executed based on a strong trust in the ability for self-regulation under the auspices of multilateral international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. The idea was that globalization could produce benefits in terms of economic development and wellbeing for all of the countries in the world. This did happen in large part, in the sense that a series of indicators of poverty and exclusion, especially in developing countries, showed improvement in part thanks ...

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2023-02-15 Donato Masciandaro

The Fed Floats between Wall Street and the White House

The beginning of 2023 has seen the Federal Reserve continue to pursue rate rises, but at a slower pace. The Fed perseveres in its policy of “getting by”: decisions are made meeting by meeting, and the only goal seems to be to avoid mistakes, floating between the desires of the financial markets, that believe inflation “has fallen,” and those of the Biden administration, that claims it is “still high.” Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues are pursuing the same policy inaugurated last year, that does not entail any transparency on the future path of interest rates, thus not allowing ...

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2023-02-01 Cecilia Attanasio Ghezzi

China Surrenders to Covid

Draconian measures such as lockdowns, quarantines, tests, and electronic health codes disappeared without warning or a plan to prepare the immense countryside – where the population is older and there is a chronic lack of hospitals, doctors, and medicines – for the health crisis they would have to face.[1] Among other things, the decision was made in the middle of winter when the virus spreads more rapidly, and with the mass travel foreseen for the Lunar New Year holidays, that this year fell on January 22. It is impossible to avoid asking what the cost in human life will be. On January 13, ...

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2023-01-25 Fabrizio Perretti

The China That Is Also a Part of Us

An argument exists that we should never write about China, because historically it is a country where the system always exists with what can change it, and by the time we describe it, it has already changed. Yet much has been written about China, and the numerous descriptions oscillate between two extremes: that based on the misunderstanding of China being far away, “mysterious,” incomprehensible, and inexplicable; and on the other hand, that of a China that is close, that we can interpret with the categories and logics familiar to us, and where “we ourselves are also Chinese in our own ...

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2023-01-23 Gianmarco Ottaviano

Reglobalization: From the Supremacy of Economics to that of Politics?

Starting from the time of the Second World War, precisely to counter some of the causes of the conflict – as well as to stem some of its consequences – an international, diplomatic, and political movement arose aimed at achieving integration of the markets in various countries; integration that was global and multilateral, meaning that it would leave nobody out. This, for two reasons: first of all, with the aim of stability, i.e. to avoid the creation of opposing blocs; and secondly, for reasons of inclusiveness, to prevent a situation in which large industrialized countries would reach agreements ...

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2023-01-23 Andrea Beltratti, Alessia Bezzecchi

The PNRR and Finance for Sustainability

Sustainability and policy-making. The Brundtland Report of 1987 reminded all of us that we do not inherit the planet from our parents, but we borrow it from our children, introducing a definition of sustainability that is still relevant today. Some progress has been made, especially if we consider the results in light of the concurrent increase by 60 percent of the overall population, from 5 to 8 billion people. European economic policy has chosen to give great weight to the goal of sustainability, potentially placing the production sector in a position of competitive disadvantage compared to ...

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2023-01-19 Andrea Beltratti, Alessia Bezzecchi

Il PNRR e la finanza per la sostenibilità

Sostenibilità e policy-making. Il Brundtland Report nel 1987 ricordava a tutti noi che il pianeta non si eredita dai genitori, ma si prende a prestito dai figli, introducendo una definizione di sostenibilità ancora oggi attuale. Qualche progresso è stato fatto, specie se valutiamo i risultati alla luce del concomitante aumento del 60 per cento della popolazione complessiva, da 5 a 8 miliardi. La politica economica europea ha scelto di dare un grande peso all’obiettivo di sostenibilità, ponendo potenzialmente il settore produttivo in posizione di svantaggio competitivo rispetto al resto del ...

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