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The Storm, the Ship and the Helmsman: Italy’s Condition in the Global Economy

Categoria/Category
Anno XXXIII, n. 144, marzo-aprile 1998
Editore/Publisher
Centro Einaudi

Abstract

Testo disponibile solo in lingua inglese.
This essay draws an overview of the storm (changes in the global economy), the ship (Italy) and the helmsman (the Italian government and its lines of action) on the basis of the Terzo rapporto sull'economia globale e l'Italia (Third Report on the Global Economy and Italy), published by the Centro Einaudi and Vitale Borghesi & C. The storm is the crisis in Asia. The importance of this crisis was underestimated at first, but it has now – in the Far East at least – cast serious doubts on the very idea of the global economy’s capacity for self-regulation, while, in the meantime, the West continues to score successes. Moving on to the ship, the author reconstructs the difficulties experienced by Italy over the last seven years: he concludes that changes in the production structure objectively weaken the country, but also offer grounds for hope in the future. He then goes on to analyse Italy’s attempts to put its financial house in order. The culmination of this action was the country’s joining the Euro process, though many doubts have been raised about the way in which it went about the task. Lastly, the author lists the conditions – basically, a growth rate of around 3 per cent of the GDP – needed to set the ship sailing again.