The Covid-19 emergency has forced millions of people into quarantine and has interrupted the ordinary flow of local and international traffic. The sudden emptying of urban spaces traditionally perceived as dense and congested is the most glaring evidence of the alteration in lifestyles and of the impact of thousands of city dwellers’ inevitable recourse to more streamlined and flexible work solutions.
The daily effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on every individual and organization are clearly foregrounding how wealth and health go hand in hand. The quest for health – the focus of the political agenda and objectives of every government – will influence every government’s process of reconstruction for months to come.
The pandemic has unmasked the fragility of our self-assured, globalized, skill-savvy world. Even the most economically advanced countries’ primary response to this unknown virus was a low-tech social distancing, which has necessarily foregrounded the limitations of human action and knowledge. The Socratic paradox “I know that I do not know” encourages the kind of continuing fortification of basic research that calls for increased funding from the Italian government.
Wealth creation, energy demand and CO2 emissions continued even through 2018, building on the trend of the previous year. With every day that passes, the problem of reducing emissions becomes more urgent and its complexity more evident. A complexity that began to emerge at the very beginning of annual emission measurement but that does not offer a holistic rendering of the phenomenon.
Brexit and all the uncertainty it is generating constitute an entirely new and potentially destabilizing element for financial markets.
London has long functioned as Europe’s main financial market despite being located outside the Eurozone. The United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union now places Europe at a crossroads: either reach an agreement making it possible to maintain a good portion of operations in London or begin the long and painstaking task of creating a continental marketplace.
Italy has great potential to attract investments but many factors still hinder the influx of foreign capital. Data on the presence of multinationals offer a mottled picture. As regards the manufacturing sector, the more important of the second ranked European industrial power, nearly 20% of employees answer to foreign multinationals, a percentage that rises to 25% in the field of mechanical engineering, the pride of the “made in Italy” brand.
Concomitant with the adoption of more stringent European copyright rules, any discussion of innovation and competition in the information sector necessarily involves examination of the current digital revolution. The instruments of governance inherited from the traditional sectors of publishing and telecommunications no longer suffice to deal either with the changes under way or the high concentration of market shares and financial resources in the hands of so few: large scale platforms and major American and Asian digital operators (in terms both of hardware and software).
Europe is finally being put to the vote. Of course, the parties of individual nations will continue to count, and national issues will hold a certain importance for citizens called to the polls. But in the end what will be at stake is a new idea of Europe, because this time, and as never before, the European construction is going to be judged politically.
The aim of this Aspen Institute Italia round table was to examine the public administration’s role in meeting the challenges posed by technological innovation. A background document entitled “Public administration and digital platform capitalism” was presented during the meeting.
There has been a waning over recent years in society’s trust in and understanding of scientific progress and its pervasive benefits. How can science and public opinion be reconciled when the two appear to exist on parallel planes, divided by the critical confrontation being fomented by the social networks? A polarization of positions that is influencing the perceptions of communities and of policies that include with scientific and/or technical aspects.
The Italian and European healthcare systems are under increasing pressure as the result of a series of dynamics involving their populations and of new technological and scientific trends that are calling into question the efficacy and appropriateness of current approaches to the provision of healthcare services.
Banking is one of the sectors most exposed to the digital revolution. The major changes introduced by new technologies and the various actors that have debuted on the credit market are causing traditional operators to wonder about their future. The timid attempts at innovation undertaken to date by Italian banks do not appear sufficient to ensure their competitiveness in a scenario that is seeing sources of short and medium term returns shrinking.
The theme of mobility is central to current reflections on economic development, and considerations on the mobility of persons and goods – to which approximately 29% of global CO2 emissions can be attributed – is a special focus.
The global economy is undergoing deep and rapid changes that are revolutionizing how production is organized. The very concept of the “job market” seems outdated in a world where skills are increasingly becoming the real currency. If the most innovative firms’ main demand is for talent, however, it is impossible to imagine a future without policies tailored to the transition that the majority of workers are going to have to face as they adapt to the continuing changes imposed by digitalization.
Italy is, by far, leader of Europe’s circular economy, recuperating double the European average of raw material, much more than the Germans in all sectors, but especially in hypercompetitive ones such as wood/furniture. Much needs to be improved, however, in the proper management of every phase of the waste cycle (from collection to recovery to disposal) which is an integral part of the circular economy. A single southern Italian region – Sardinia – reports recycling and reuse percentages far above the European average.
