Archive

2025-05-29 Donato Masciandaro

Public debt and interest rates: the compass dilemma

Let’s start with the facts. The incoming German government coalition has reached an agreement to increase public spending by 500 billion euros, easing both formal and cultural constraints on spending, deficits, and debt – particularly with regard to defense. Following the announcement, German bond yields rose. But does this market reaction reflect optimism or concern? An empirical analysis applied the following method to this specific event: when there is an unexpected economic policy announcement, the market’s verdict can be inferred by observing a set of indicators. The study compares ...

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2025-05-23 Leonardo Caporarello

How to Negotiate (Successfully) in the Phygital World

Phygital negotiation refers to a blend of traditional face-to-face and digital-enabled interactions. In fact, digital tools can enhance the negotiation process in both in-person interactions (with data mining, for instance) and virtual ones (online meetings). In essence, phygital negotiations encompass a wide variety of combinations of direct, personal contacts and technology-driven elements such as online collaboration platforms, data collection and analysis tools, and document sharing systems. Advantages and challenges of phygital negotiation Phygital negotiation provides great flexibility in ...

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2025-05-15 Francesco Perrini

The Sustainability Pendulum: Stakeholders Set the Course

Sustainability took several hits in 2025, though none delivered a knockout blow. Regulatory progress slowed in both the U.S. and Europe, and mounting political pressure might suggest a retreat. Yet the underlying trend remains intact. Stakeholder demand continues to exert powerful influence beyond regulation. Clients, employees, local communities, and the media still expect measurable, verifiable commitments on climate action, human rights, and responsible governance. Institutional investors, particularly outside the U.S., are maintaining ESG criteria in fiduciary mandates. This has led to a disconnect: ...

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2025-05-07 Roberta Accettura, Antonella Pirro Ruggiero, Riccardo Rossi, Alessia Giorgia Sisti

Corporate & Investment Banking: Perceptions of GenZ and Millennials

The research methodology Our study began with a desk analysis based on accredited sources regarding research around the values and concerns of Under 36s, regardless of industry. The objective was to identify possible differences or overlap between young people in Corporate & Investment Banking and those working in other fields, starting with a larger sample. Next, we focused on C&IB, running qualitative analysis through in-depth interviews with young people employed by various banking institutions based in Milan, London and New York, in different areas and segments of C&IB. The evidence, processed ...

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2025-04-24 Lorenzo Diaferia, Leonardo Maria De Rossi, Gianluca Salviotti

AI in Business: How to Identify Areas of Focus and Strategic Initiatives

Technological and business stimuli from the market must be integrated with the company’s internal strategic directions, which should always serve as the guiding principle for any initiative. It is precisely the search for the intersection between these two dimensions that allows organizations to move to a more concrete level – identifying a set of work areas that respond to clear business problems and opportunities while remaining aligned with what technology can offer. The key questions this phase aims to answer are: • What are the company’s top strategic priorities, and how can AI capabilities ...

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2025-04-14 Gianmario Verona

Digital and sustainable decisions for a changing world

We’re living in the digital age and facing challenges linked to sustainability, so to put it another way, this is the century of digital and sustainable decisions. For some time, digital was fundamentally seen as an object, a tool: a smartphone, a tablet, a smart TV. We recognized the pleasure of the game (as Alessandro Baricco deftly describes it in his novel "The Game"), but governments and businesses didn’t have the foggiest notion of digital’s innovative potential at an economic level, so they didn’t understand its tremendous industrial impact. Suffice to say, apart from the US and ...

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2025-04-09 Donato Masciandaro

Trump, Finance, and Pandora’s Box

Will President Donald Trump go down in history – again – for opening Pandora’s box in finance? There are at least two reasons to think so: cryptocurrencies and structured finance. Let’s start with so-called cryptocurrencies. Since Trump returned to the White House, crypto trading volumes have surged. Even back in August, when he was still a candidate, Trump had loudly declared he wanted to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the world.” And he didn’t stop at words: since last October, Trump and his three sons – skirting basic conflict-of-interest norms – have lent their name ...

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2025-04-03 Roberto Vona

“Deep Blue”: Exploring the Depths of Space and Oceans at the Festival of Management

The second edition of the Festival of Management by SIMA – the Italian Society of Management – solidified the innovative initiative launched in February 2023 to elevate management culture within Italian universities. With over a thousand in-person attendees at Bocconi University, in Milan, the event underscored the need to reestablish human connections after years spent in "non-places" devoid of relational intelligence. The goal was to create a physical, welcoming, and empathetic gathering – free and open to all – where participants could not only shake hands but also exchange values of ...

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2025-03-31 Bruno Busacca, Giuseppe Bertoli

Leveraging Loyalty to Create Value

Companies need to manage their customer base according to loyalty-based logic, focused on building and maintaining loyal relationships that stand the test of time. This reality has long been underscored by the shift from transactional to relationship marketing. The digital revolution has fueled and accelerated this transition, redefining the structure and competitive mechanisms of many industries and creating new ones, breaking down geographic barriers and activating processes of cross-sector convergence. On the one hand, the exponential increase in available information (on individual preferences, ...

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2025-03-28 Sandro Castaldo

How to Gain Maximum Trust

We are experiencing a period of tremendous economic and social uncertainty, marked by international political tensions and stagnant consumption. Despite a slowdown in inflation, rising consumer prices over the past three years have eroded household purchasing power, already under pressure from high energy costs and rising financing costs. In this unpredictable environment, characterized by instability and limited consumer spending capacity, demand is shifting towards savings. This trend is reflected in the rapid expansion of convenience-oriented retailers. Across Europe, as discount stores continue ...

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