Opinions & Interviews

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 ...

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 ...

Public Procurement as a Driver of Economic Growth

In the coming months, Italy will begin to benefit from a considerable volume of resources, in the context of both the Next Generation EU and the new cohesion policy pushed by Prime Minister Mario Draghi. This is an opportunity that the country and its public administration have the duty to exploit productively, to sustain the society and the economy. Using these resources well implies not only selecting priorities and making plans, but also using purchasing tools and logics differently, an area that has always been considered a "minefield" by most of the personnel in the PA. In recent years, purchases ...

Towards an Advanced Approach to Enterprise Risk Management

A recent position paper published by the Italian Association of Financial Industry Risk Managers (AIFIRM) in collaboration with PwC demonstrates the presence of an evolved best practice on the subject of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) in non-financial companies,[1] i.e. of a best practice strictly integrated with ESG policies (environmental, social, and governance factors), with the purpose and performance of businesses. However, unfortunately, the indicators on the spread of that best practice are not comforting, and not only in Italy, to tell the truth.[2] The spread certainly depends on the ...

Old and New Challenges for Italian Banks

The pandemic which has tormented us for over a year has also disrupted economic and financial activity, triggering a crisis that it will not be easy to overcome rapidly. Here I would like to attempt to describe some of the consequences of the virus on banks, with particular reference to Italian banks. To this end, it is useful to recall the problems our banks were dealing with before the outbreak of the pandemic, that were the following: low or even negative interest rates; very high credit risk accompanied by the incomplete definition of the formal and substantial treatment of NPLs; excessively ...

For a Sustainable Capitalism

The year 2020 was disruptive for businesses, that are rethinking their role in social and other terms, and considering their activities from the standpoint of greater sustainability. Studies on "business finalism," understood as a process of continuous searching, definition, and redefinition of the meaning of individual, organizational, entrepreneurial, social, and institutional roles of business, trace back to Adam Smith. After having studied social and moral philosophy, as economics was not yet an academic discipline, Smith wrote An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations ...

A Question of Management

We are facing the worst period of the pandemic. This is the view of experts in various fields of medicine, and is stressed by many authoritative political representatives. We knew that this period would come, but as beforehand, we found ourselves unprepared. Not on all fronts, certainly; for example, masks and other personal protective equipment are now widely available. But many things have certainly not functioned properly: the tracing system based on the Immuni app, the long lines for tests, the local transportation systems in many regions, and so on. Why is this? There are various reasons, ...

The Value of Made in Italy Fashion Production in the Time of Covid-19

Covid-19 has provoked a general slowdown of the fashion industry and a drastic reduction of international trade, creating great difficulties for global manufacturing supply chains. New paradigms of consumption have emerged that require a change in the system, currently dominated by fast fashion and low-cost products. Great attention is now given to elements such as sustainability, the duration of products over time, and geographic proximity to the area of production. This break with the past can represent an opportunity for Made in Italy production, that has always been attentive to the environment, ...

An Overview of the Wirecard Case

The bankruptcy of Wirecard last summer wreaked havoc in the German financial system. Its unexpected explosion regarded a very large fintech listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and surprised the world above all due to its causes: a colossal fraud that entailed the disappearance of billions of euros from the company's coffers. The reactions of the financial world, creditors, shareholders, stock market and oversight authorities, as well as the political world, were immediate and harsh. As can easily be imagined, a little of everything was said, with varying degrees of relevance. Several months ...

Enterprise-work: equal dignity and common planning

A discussion with Maurizio Landini

In the conflict between capital and labor, in recent years the latter seems to have been the loser. This is a consequence of attacks that came not only from capital, but also from politics, on both the right and in some cases the left as well. Do you agree with this analysis? We can say that in recent years the idea that has won, or prevailed, is that the market should be free and not have any social constraints. This has led to considerable job insecurity, that I believe is the largest problem to be faced. Job insecurity causes real harm to human dignity, and is an element that breaks down social ...