I’ll try to keep you posted. The theme is the one of aid effectiveness to reach poverty alleviation and progress to reach Millenium Development Goals. http://www.aideffectiveness.org/busanhlf4/about/about-busan.html Ministers from across the globe, from both developing and donor countries, government representatives, parliamentarians, civil society … Continue reading →
Ask me what is the most relevant reform that our Prime Minister Monti could implement at no cost, actually at a positive gain, in the next few days. Well, to answer that, you should know that the Italian public sector … Continue reading →
So it looks like markets are pricing the euro (dark blue) break-up (light blue being all other countries of the EU without the euro). The best proof is the spread of Austria over the German bund: this is not a … Continue reading →
Dr. Merkel came out of her meeting (M. Sarkozy was there too) with our new PM Prof. Monti by claiming (Ansa Italy-english) that “Monti showed us the plans and it was very impressive to see the structural reforms”. It is a … Continue reading →
A wonderful article today by Bernard Henri Levy (BHL) on the future of Rome and Athens, crave of Western civilization. He argues correctly that the crisis is not one of the economy nor finance, but of Europe (the Western world we … Continue reading →
The right way to judge a policy: The metaphor I find helpful is to a patient who has been in a terrible accident and has massive internal bleeding. After life-saving surgery to stop the bleeding, the patient is likely to … Continue reading →
Here is europe (lower case europe) for you, served on a (fake) gold platter.This time it is about Spain, yes the Spain that just saw its people celebrate new elections (to be fair the new PM will take charge by end … Continue reading →
Here is Christina Romers’ (Obama economic advisor in the early years of his White House) take on whether this Administration had used too much of the stimulus: “Now, it would take another bold move—probably substantially larger than the $450 billion … Continue reading →
Here am I in Beirut, Lebanon. Adel, my driver who takes me to beautiful Byblos (picture), reminds me of the distractions of the West which has forgotten that this part of the world requires investments and jobs to grow, solidly … Continue reading →
An undergraduate student I supervise, Giulia Di Pierro, is finishing up her thesis and has examined 48 episodes of expansionary fiscal policies in 19 OECD countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway,the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, … Continue reading →