Opinions & Interviews

Best Workplaces for Women, too?

What makes a workplace "the best place" to perform a profession? Many elements certainly regard various subjective variables (age, the contingent situation, or future aspirations), that make people more or less sensitive to specific aspects (financial stability, career prospects, or also proximity to one's family). While the historic Maslow pyramid reminds us that it is necessary and a priority to satisfy basic needs, the studies on the issue and the most recent organizational experiments insist on intangible and relational elements. According to Ariely, for example, it is essential for the associates ...

Passion and Business in Publishing

A discussion with Carlo De Benedetti

Before talking about your new publishing venture, I would like to ask you some questions about your previous experience. You have been present in the publishing world since the 1980s. In these thirty years you have seen the evolution of the Italian publishing sector and the decline of the press, due first to television and then internet. This decline took place both internationally and naturally also in Italy. In this scenario, what position di Repubblica occupy? And what were the positive and negative aspects of your experience as the publisher of that newspaper? The most negative experience ...

The Choices to Make between the Real Economy and the Banking Sector

In the considerable confusion that reigns concerning economics and finance since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, various types of measures have been proposed, discussed, and adopted. Those aiming to rescue banks, but also the real economy, are particularly important. These two phenomena are in fact strictly correlated, although the connection is not always clear, and they require different measures to be adopted following precise time sequences. The fundamental problem is knowing whether it is proper to rescue the banks first, and then the real economy, or whether it is better to first ...

Forecasting in Times of Uncertainty: It Can Be Done

The Covid-19 emergency has caused a strong change in the business models of companies in many sectors. For some of them it has simply been an accelerator, for others something absolutely new. It is inevitable that, faced with this path of evolution, control systems, that have the goal of supporting decision-making processes and orienting management behavior, cannot be left out of this change. In particular, in a context characterized by a high level of discontinuity with respect to the past and by high levels of uncertainty, above all traditional tools for forecasting results and setting goals ...

Italian Banks Face the Text of COVID-19

What impact will COVID-19 have on Italian banks? This is the most frequent question in financial circles in these weeks. Today, there is no answer yet. It will take some time. A question we can ask, though, is: what is the condition of Italian banks today compared to the time of the previous crisis, that of 2008? We can answer this question. And actually, this is a first and necessary step to take in order to answer the initial question. We will divide our response into two parts. In the first part, we will analyze what Italian banks have done in terms of: improvement of asset quality, measures ...

Per aspera ad astra: l’Italia e il Covid-19

The current crisis is an unprecedented global challenge in terms of its health, economic, social, and geopolitical impact. As we write, more than 4 billion people in over 100 countries are still living in some sort of lockdown. Each country has chosen its own strategy, adopting a variety of measures in an attempt to fight an unparalleled menace. Political decisions regarding population containment and border closures undeniably play an important role in the match against this epidemic. Specific features of different healthcare systems appear to greatly impact each country’s capacity to face ...

From Sustainable Digital Technologies to CDR

The importance of sustainability has received increasing attention in recent years. The international debate on this issue (environment, shipping, food, the wellbeing of human beings and animals, energy consumption, the waste of food and resources in general, and so on) has inevitably regarded the ICT/digital sector as well. Years ago, there was talk of "green ICT" with particular reference to the energy consumption and CO2 production by ICT systems, especially of large computing centers of public and private companies and large multinational corporations. To give just a few examples, various ...

European Aid to Businesses: an Overview

The health crisis is now being followed by the economic crisis. In its April outlook the International Monetary Fund forecasts a 9.1 percent drop in Italian GDP for 2020, followed by +4.8 percent growth in 2021. The recently approved DEF foresees a drop of 8 percent, followed by 4.7 growth in 2021. Apart from forecasts - whose reliability is relative, since it is still not possible to fully assess not only the economic consequences, but also the real prospects for recovery, that will inevitably be conditioned by the course of the epidemic - it is clear that the coming months will be very complicated, ...

The Future of Our Banking System

The health side of the coronavirus drama seems to be moving towards a solution, although the timeframe is still not certain and great prudence is required, as the authorities continue to remind us. The economic and financial drama of the pandemic, on the other hand, has still not reached its peak, and no forecasts are possible on what will happen in the second half of 2020, or even in the next two years. Despite the reopening of numerous businesses whose activities were suspended for many weeks, the economy is still suffering from the consequences of this stoppage and all of the effects it will ...

Action plans and uncertainty

These days, we are all looking for ways to cope with a future that looks increasingly uncertain. Uncertainty creates fear. Fear blocks energy, proactivity, and rational thinking; it is capable of completely taking over our mind and derailing our thoughts. Many of us respond to fear and uncertainty with optimism. Optimism is an integral part of our nature: research has shown that neuromodulator dopamine enhances people’s ability to think positively about their future. We are more inclined to change our beliefs when presented with positive pieces of information about the future than to review ...