Companies & Regulation

The EU recently announced partial financial sanctions on Russia, designed to keep payments for energy moving. The EU accepted the contention – disproved below – that a bank either gets…

WP 2022-01. Executive Summary Prenuptial agreements or contracts (also known as prenups) are written contracts that enable affianced parties to organize their rights upon marrying, and eventually facilitate the procedure of divorce. They…

Today, personal data have become the resources driving much of current online activity in our global economy. Internet has torn down national borders in many aspects of our daily life.…

Central banks increasingly consider combating climate change by pursuing a “green monetary policy”. The European Central Bank is also venturing into the field of climate protection. The ECB can support…

On December 17, 2010, a young Tunisian by the name of Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest against police harassment. His act triggered a wave of revolts across the Arab world as people rose against authoritarianism and poverty. The fall of Ben Ali’s regime in Tunisia after 23 years in power generated enormous expectations. People throughout the region hoped to end injustice and corruption, and start moving towards freedom, democracy and economic prosperity.

This year and a half of pandemic has rekindled the debate about the relationship between individual freedom and its limits, especially when health is at stake. While in several countries governments seem to be reasonably cautious in this regard, Italy has adopted policies (i.e., the so called “green-pass”) that have no equal among Western democracies in terms of extension and invasiveness. Italian citizens cannot take a train, attend a university class or go to work without giving proof, possibly via a specific App in their smartphone, that they are vaccinated (or to be negative to a Covid-test taken in the last 72-hours). Despite the perplexity shown by some commentators, general support for the green-pass in Italy is rather high. About two Italians out of three believe that far from depriving them of liberty, the green pass actually enhances their liberty. Although this reaction may be surprising, it could perhaps be understandable, if such policies were thought as temporary. Some data, however, highlight a different and less optimistic scenario.

Much of the socio-economic damage linked to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted from poor regulation: the coronavirus would certainly have caused much less damage in contexts more respectful of the principle of individual responsibility. Unfortunately, poorly conceived regulation continues to lead to more and more state intervention, in a spiral that produces unsatisfactory results and constrains individual freedoms.

The recent paper “Fifty Shades of QE: Conflicts of Interest in Economic Research” by Fabo et al. investigates the possible biases of economic research when analysing QE effectiveness. Part of the research efforts on this subject is led by economists who work at the very central banks that design and put into operation unconventional monetary policies. Comparing their results to those obtained by academic economists may shed some light on the drivers of scientific consensus.

The term meritocracy describes a social and political context in which merit is the key criterion to evaluate the distribution of rewards. If such distribution reflects individual merit, it is fair. It is unfair in the opposite case. The term was coined in 1958 by British sociologist Michael Young, according to whom meritocracy describes a dystopia, not something necessarily desirable. Young was affiliated to the labor party. In fact, the term maintained a negative connotation for a long time within the leftist culture. Since the 90s of the last century, however, the world of politics took at different view, possibly encouraged by egalitarian theories that sought to combine egalitarianism and personal responsibilities.

WP 2020-07.