Archive
What GDP for culture
On October 7, the results of two studies were published that deal with the issue of the relationship between cultural heritage and wealth generation: the second edition of the Cultural and Creative cities monitor, published by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Union, that compares 190 cities in 30 European countries,[1] and the Boston Consulting Group study on autonomous national museums, their results and their impact in the first years of their institution after the Franceschini of 2014.[2] The essential message that reached public opinion from the two studies is that state museums ...
Italian Excellence in food & beverage: How to Build Wonder
Andrea Illy writes: "I immediately recognized that providing the best coffee nature can offer us is not a profession like others, but an idea that includes many professions. An entire conception of the world that contains the marvelous places where the plants grow and the beans are harvested, the elegant cafes and sophisticated conversations between intellectuals; movies, art, designer coffee-cups and production without defects. This idea would change my life." In this description, we perceive the essence of Italian excellence, know-how without abandoning beauty, the good that is married to the ...
How to Exploit Data in the Post-Digital Era?
The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently estimated that by the end of 2020, the amount of stored data will reach the volume of 44 zettabytes, which means a quantity of bytes forty times greater than the number of stars in the universe. In the world of big data and digitalization, imaginative references such as that of the WEF on the trend in data growth have now become the norm. Research centers, vendors, and the publishing world compete in using analogies and exponential metrics to present the issue of data explosion. Since we now recognize the fact that we are facing an unstoppable trend of ...
The Report Cards for Draghi and the Euro
With the change at the helm of the European Central Bank (ECB) from Mario Draghi to Christine Lagarde, can we try to issue grades on the relationship between monetary policy, the euro, and the Italian economy? Such an exercise is a subject to be handled very prudently. In fact, no direct relationship exists between monetary instruments and the relevant macroeconomic effects. Rather, there is a chain of relationships, of which monetary policy can be one of the first links, while macroeconomic results are the last link. The challenge for a central banker is to understand under what conditions the ...
China: A 70-year-long March
A military parade will mark the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. On October 1, in Tiananmen Square, the communist leadership will delight in showing the world the progress made since Mao Zedong declared the birth of the New China: from a poor agricultural society to a global economic power in less than a century. Those who were around when the People's Republic was founded cannot fail to remember the food-rationing cards, the hunger, and the crude political purges that reached their apex during the decade of the Cultural Revolution. And then the 1980s, when the economic reforms ...
The CFO: A Technical Figure, or not?
In the preparation of this article, thanks are due to Dott. Francesco Masironi for his patient work collecting information during the initial phases of the research. In response to the question “What counts more, perception or facts?” the marketing world has a rather precise and clear answer, that aims in a single direction, with almost no ambiguity: while facts are important, the ability to make them perceptible in a "correct" and convenient manner is probably even more important. An example? Some years ago, one of the most famous violinists in the world repeated a superb musical execution ...
Watch Out for Libra
Since Facebook announced that in 2020 it will launch a new currency to transmit monetary values globally, there have been many comments with decisive positive or negative conclusions. The Libra phenomenon – the name of the new currency – has in fact sparked great interest, but the judgments expressed to this point cannot be considered definitive, since many of its aspects are not certain yet, including because many of the technical, financial, and technological problems are still being addressed, and because we don’t know what position the oversight authorities will take. In truth, the authorities ...
The Tariff War
“When a country like the United States is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win.” These were the words with which U.S. President Donald Trump announced the “trade war” (with the imposition of tariffs) between the United States and the rest of the world on March 2, 2018, on Twitter. The reference was to the deficit between American exports and imports, that in absolute terms has never been less than 400 billion dollars in the past decade, and in 2018, touched the record level of 600 billion. This ...
Libra Glitters But Is Not Gold
Not all that glitters is gold. The old popular maxim provides the first comment that can be offered in response to Facebook’s announcement that it wants to issue its own digital currency, called Libra. If we assess the announcement from the standpoint of collective well-being, we must ask if this innovation meets the requirements that a currency must have to improve the allocation of goods and services. The response, based on the information available, is negative. The announcement that there could be a new currency in circulation spontaneously begs the question: do we need it? In order to answer, ...
RE-flexibility, RE-generation, RE-modeling
The world of real estate is wrongly considered a “petrified forest,” to borrow a term used thirty years ago to describe the situation of the Italian banks. Many top managers think that in the coming years real estate will be the sector with the lowest intensity of business transformation. The question of the degree transformation of the sector in coming years is very important for economic growth, given the many implications of real estate for the daily life of businesses and people. Yet if we look at the sector from a bottom-up standpoint, the image that emerges is very different than that ...