Fotogrammi

2021-07-12 Donato Masciandaro

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 ...

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2021-06-28 Cecilia Attanasio Ghezzi

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 ...

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2021-06-23 Fabrizio Perretti

Americanism and Managerial Models

Managers use new management models to face the problems that arise each time changes appear – in the dimensions and complexity of businesses or in the international competitive environment – that challenge current practices. Those models contain not only a set of management techniques, but also represent the expression of a certain organizational ideology; they are cognitive maps of the social reality that influence the perception and actions of managers and justify their power and authority.[1] While it is true that managerial models are not determined only by economic and technological factors, ...

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2021-06-07 Gianmarco Ottaviano

G7: The Big Step Forward on Global Taxation of Multinational Corporations

A “big step forward... towards an unprecedented global agreement on tax reform.” This is how the European Commission for Economy Paolo Gentiloni greeted the agreement reached in London during the last meeting of the finance ministers of the G7, the group of seven large countries formed by Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, in which Gentiloni represented the European Union. The aim of the agreement is to work together to fight a certain type of tax avoidance at the international level, that according to some estimates, subtracts 240 billion dollars ...

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2021-05-24 Cecilia Attanasio Ghezzi

China Is Also Getting Old

The last Chinese census provided a picture of the very new China: 1.412 billion people, of whom over 60 percent live in cities and only 63.4 percent are in working age, versus 70 percent just ten years ago.[1] To be clear, over-65 people are now 13 percent of the total versus just 9 percent in the 2010 census. “China is growing old without first having grown rich,” wrote the New York Times,[2] paraphrasing the well-known maxim of Deng Xiaoping. And the trend won’t be easy to stop. The birth rate dropped for the fourth year in a row, such that in 2020 only 12 million children were born, ...

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2021-05-22 Andrea Beltratti, Alessia bezzecchi, Diego Ferrari

The Infrastructure of the Future? Car Parking for Sustainable Mobility

Italy sees sustainability and infrastructure as the key to revive the process of economic growth, that has disappeared over the past twenty years. There are many important areas of infrastructure, from traditional areas such as roads and railways, to new material infrastructure such as satellites, to immaterial infrastructure such as human capital and social cohesion. To paraphrase the singer Jovanotti, “when a definition captures them, the world is ready for a new generation.” If capturing the attention of investors is just as important, why limit ourselves to looking at satellites in the ...

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2021-05-22 Andrea Beltratti, Alessia bezzecchi, Diego Ferrari

The Infrastructure of the Future? Car Parking for Sustainable Mobility

Italy sees sustainability and infrastructure as the key to revive the process of economic growth, that has disappeared over the past twenty years. There are many important areas of infrastructure, from traditional areas such as roads and railways, to new material infrastructure such as satellites, to immaterial infrastructure such as human capital and social cohesion. To paraphrase the singer Jovanotti, “when a definition captures them, the world is ready for a new generation.” If capturing the attention of investors is just as important, why limit ourselves to looking at satellites in the ...

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2021-05-20 Roberto Ruozi

Finance and Social Media: A Dangerous Combination

Financial crises and the scandals associated with them recur over the years, and it’s no different now. After the great crisis of 2007-2008, they actually seemed destined to disappear, but the reality is that they are as relevant as ever, even though they haven’t reached the level of intensity of those years. With respect to the past, their quality has changed, as demonstrated by some very recent events which can provide us with interesting information. I will cite four of them, three that are very similar, and one that is different due to some “new” aspects. On the one hand, I refer to ...

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2021-05-10 Donato Masciandaro

Sovreignism and Currency: Istanbul Today, Byzantium Yesterday

If a country goes through three central bank governors in two years, as happened in Turkey, it means that its monetary policy is not credible. So it's no wonder that the Turkish lira is suffering and inflation is galloping. At the end of March, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan fired the central bank governor Naci Ağbal, who had been appointed in November 2019, to take the place of Murat Uysal. In turn, Uysal had been appointed in July 2019 to replace Murat Çetinkaya. How can we explain this waltz at the central bank? Let's start from the beginning. The decree that removed Çetinkaya did ...

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2021-05-03 Cecilia Attanasio Ghezzi

Rural China and the Return to Youth

When Xi Jinping officially declared the defeat of poverty last February, the officials assigned to the project were transferred to “rural revitalization,” with the task of dealing with even more complex problems such as depopulation, the ageing of the population, and the chronic lack of work in the internal areas. “China is still the largest developing country in the world,” the deputy propaganda minister Xu Lin stated at the time. And he added: “To face inequality, the inadequate development of the internal areas of the country, and to reduce the imbalance between urban and rural territories, ...

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