We present the current Italian economic crisis as a phase of a major systemic decline. We argue that “Italy’s system” has forced the country to abandon a “dynamic” view of comparative advantage, crucial for sustained economic growth, in favour of a “static” view of specialization....

This paper examines eight suggested solutions to the Greek debt crisis and six political and institutional reforms in order to achieve a single objective: eliminate deviations from the EU benchmark and thus transform the country into a modern EU state. In the absence of a national political...

The Recent German research has suggested that extending the number of caseworkers may have a very positive effect on PES performance. The present paper accepts this key insight but argues that there are other factors that may independently drive outcomes and in particular local agents’...

The article considers the interrelationships between ideas of fairness and ideas of evidence, and how progress in the policy pursuit of fairness in health and healthcare has been plagued by problems with vocabulary, vagueness as to values, deplorable absences of relevant empirical knowledge and...

The persistence of financial instability calls into question the adequacy of the current regulatory regime. A critical review of the three pillars at the core of current financial regulation exposes some structural flaws. Four new pillars are proposed and compared with measures proposed to shore...

The following is a report from a panel of the same title held at the Rimini Conference in Economics and Finance, Rimini, Italy, 10-13 June 2010, and organized by the Rimini Conference for Economic Analysis (RCEA). Panel Chair: Angelo Melino (University of Toronto and RCEA). Panelists: David...

The Italian university system is in a profound and dangerous crisis. The below par performance of Italian universities is compared with the increasingly successful accomplishments of Canadian Universities. The paper identifies the major source of this performance differential in the hiring and...

This paper argues that the evolution of social policy – vulgo: labor market mandates – in the European Union seems to follow a set path. Intervals of activism have been followed by challenges and checks to its development, but Treaty innovations (inter al.) have provided the impetus for...

In recent years, Asian policymakers have considered the possibility of promoting closer financial integration and, possibly, monetary union. This paper considers the economics of the decision to form a currency union in East Asia using the European experience as a benchmark. We also compare the...