The internet revolution has brought great changes to the communications industry, both in terms of infrastructures and contents. For infrastructures, the scenario shows a different level of investment, a change in keeping with regulation and new business models. Today’s prospects are for a Pan-European map that should provide guidelines for the sector’s new organization.
The debate centered around two main points: investment in knowledge and human capital, and research and innovation. These two issues are determining factors of growth and competitiveness and together they represent the basic needs to survive, revive the economy and meet the challenges of the future.
The seminar, divided into three sessions, studied the main institutional economic and social causes holding back adequate growth in the South and its ability to reach the levels of growth seen in the North.
After the crisis, a new paradigm of development is emerging: more solid, anchored to shared values and projected to the construction of a future beyond the ordinary handling of the emergency. Over recent months, there has been discussion on the wave of moderate optimism brought on by commentators and economists, with figures in hand, to pronounce the imminent end of the economic and financial storm that occurred after 2008.
The global economic crisis is reshaping the energy system in a fundamental way, as extraordinary events have occurred in a very short time span. Six issues appear the most crucial in the current context: i) the discovery of shale gas, a transformational event which was also a consequence of high natural gas prices. According to a recent account, this discovery could potentially turn the US into a permanent net exporter, with dramatic implications on the market for liquefied natural gas (LNG) which now seeks markets when global demand is contracting.
The theme of the Ninth Annual Conference of the Aspen Junior Fellows, held in Milan on May 7-8, was “Reconciling the environment and development. New ideas from the Y generation to beat weak economic growth”. The Conference proceedings were divided into three sessions which focused on: the ecological deficit and measures to establish cross-generational solidarity on environmental values; Italy’s energy strategies viewed from an international comparative perspective; and the environment and food security in a more crowded, hotter, and “flatter” world.
The roundtable session opened with an acknowledgement by participants that the processes of globalization have made the fight against crime more complicated. Criminal activities have spread worldwide, expanding with the internationalization of trade and growth in migration flows. At the same time, however, organized crime has maintained a strong local flavor, due to its embeddedness in local communities and its permeation into the fabric of society.
The Conference got underway with a general discussion on a fundamental question: in the new world order, is Europe’s importance destined to wane – no matter what? Leaving aside the impact of major international trends (such as demographic changes), which have reduced the relative influence of the EU in objective terms, the participants pointed to various internal factors as constituting constraints on Europe’s potential. First and foremost of these is the difficulty of reconciling the sovereignty of the various Member States with the authority of Brussels.
The opening premise of this roundtable discussion was that a differential of more than ten percentage points has separated Italy from the average growth rate of the eurozone countries over the last 10 years. Whilst the growth rates of some of these countries have now been revealed as unsustainable, based as they were on an escalation in private and/or public borrowings, it was acknowledged that a comparison with the growth of more virtuous countries, such as Germany and, in particular, France, is still unfavorable to Italy.
This National Conference provided an opportunity for comparing the experiences of Italians who have managed to carve out brilliant careers and hold very high-level positions outside Italy, with a view to contributing to a better understanding of the country’s problems and areas of potential, and to identifying better long-term relationship-building and global integration prospects.
The roundtable participants began their examination of the mobility issues affecting Italy today with the observation that, last year alone, Italian households spent on average more than 35 billion euro on getting from one place to another. Also in 2009, the cost of congestion in metropolitan areas was around 9 billion euro. Just in Rome, for example, fuel consumption totaled between 12-15 million euro in the same year – to which must be added the costs generated by rising pollution in cities and areas beyond city limits, as well as by road traffic accidents.
The roundtable got underway with an examination of the twofold characterization of Italian exports that has, for over a decade, been a core theme in public debate over the competitiveness of the Italian economy in the age of globalization – one which sees exports both as a driver of Italy’s growth and, at the same time, as a reflection of the outward-looking nature of the Italian production system.
Roots in the plural, put together like a mosaic of contributions and meanings that are sometimes even at variance: the foundations of Italian culture, it was suggested at this roundtable discussion, cannot be otherwise described. Formed from a diverse array of knowledge, customs and learning, Italian culture has over time developed a pluralistic unity.
Discussions at this talk-debate, organized in collaboration with ISPI and TG1, focused on assessing the first year of Obama’s presidency, and examining the economic and financial crisis and the mechanisms developed to overcome it, as well as the relationship between the new US administration and Europe.
The debate over the need to broaden the scope of economic indicators – and more particularly, moving beyond measurements of GDP – has inspired a wide range of studies on the topic both in Italy and abroad. This roundtable event examined a recent Aspen Institute Italia-Fondazione Edison study entitled “Italy in the new geo-economy of the G-20”, which aims to contribute further to this discussion. The study reveals an Italy that is better-placed than indicated by traditional rankings and compares favorably with other industrialized economies in numerous fields.
Proceedings at this roundtable discussion got underway with the acknowledgement that, in recent years, consideration of the question of how to measure economic performance and social progress has gone far beyond the concept of Gross Domestic Product. This is true of the efforts of national statistical institutes, major international organizations, as well as the academic and research sphere. Today, there is a vast array of knowledge and statistical data available, enabling a much more comprehensive grasp of economic activities and their actual value.
