Blog Post
Francesco Papadia and Inês Gonçalves Raposo have recently written on Italian fiscal policy and the increase in the spread between Italian (BTP) and German (Bund) government. Since then, two developments have taken place: one good, and one bad. This blog post reviews them.
Blog Post
In the Italian macroeconomic context, many are convinced that if only we had a large enough fiscal lever, we could set in motion an economy that has stagnated for almost 20 years. But the author argues that the efficiency of Italian (public) investment is currently low. Specific measures can be taken to improve this situation, though, and only once this is done should the public investment lever be used forcefully.
Podcast
In this week's Sound of Economics, Bruegel affiliate fellow, Silvia Merler, is joined by Marcello Minenna, PhD lecturer at the London Graduate School and Head of Quants at Consob, as well as Lorenzo Codogno, LSE visiting professor, to discuss the Italian government's economic outlook in the European context.
Opinion
On March 4th, Italians sent a resounding message in favour of a break with the past. The ultimate test for the new ‘government of change’ will be whether it succeeds where all others have failed over the past two decades: bringing the country back to growth. The authors propose three different actions to revamp Italy’s ailing productivity and gear the country’s productive capacity towards the 21st century: human capital, e-government, and green growth.
