The United States and China have been investing large amounts of capital in artificial intelligence (AI) for years, with many of the resulting applications being in the military domain. The…
Europe
The European debate Last March, the European Parliament approved new rules on the weight and size of trucks: the total weight of single vehicles is now 44 tons (it…
Inflation Rates in Europe: Legacy of the Iron Curtain
WP 2024-10. Executive Summary When comparing inflation across European countries, we often overlook a simple fact – inflation is the percentage change in the price level. The rate of inflation…
Economic indicators are confused – but a ‘soft landing’ looks less likely than a few months ago
Introduction Governments and central banks have pinned a lot of their credibility on returning the world economy, after the Pandemic and the inflation shock, to an orderly picture of inflation…
Europe’s Competitive Future, Continued Paralysis or Capital Markets Union and Greater Integration?
In mid-September former ECB President Mario Draghi published a 400-page report recommending changes necessary to boost the EU’s competitiveness. Although couched in broadly positive language, the document did little to…
Youth unemployment remains a significant global issue, with young people consistently overrepresented among the jobless. With more than 64 million unemployed youth worldwide and 145 million young workers living in…
Introduction Financial regulators and governments have made much of their success in restoring the global financial system to a state of stability after the Global Financial Crisis and the Eurozone…
Introduction Two years after we last reviewed the fintech sector1, three significant trends are emerging which we explore in the body of this Newsletter: Investors remain wary of the sector…
Is there an air pollution emergency in Northern Italy? That’s what you might have thought if you had read the news or watched tv a couple of weeks ago. A…
Stability or Sovereignty? Italy’s Challenging Relationship with the European Stability Mechanism
The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is an intergovernmental organization founded in 2012 by the euro area member states. Its primary objective consists in ensuring long-term financial stability in the euro…