After recalling the financial origin of the crisis and the persistent worldwide fragility of the financial sector, and after citing papers which before 2007 had pointed out the elements of systemic fragility of the US and world economy, the paper illustrates the cultural roots of the crisis,...

The article contains the introduction to the meeting on the financial crisis held in February at the Accademia dei Lincei, by Alberto Quadro Curzio, president of the division of Moral Sciences of the Accademia. The introduction deals with three main topics: a brief account of the crisis, the...

The financial crisis of 2008 is put in relation with two bubbles, financial and housing. Easy credit is at the origin of both bubbles. Risky bonds were issued to mobilize mortgages originated in the housing market, and bad bonds entered a fantastic number of institutional and private portfolios...

Con questo numero, Moneta e Credito riprende la sua regolare cadenza trimestrale dopo l' interruzione connessa al passaggio di proprietˆ dalla Banca Nazionale del Lavoro alla Associazione Paolo Sylos Labini. Abbiamo tentato di colmare tale interruzione con i numeri speciali per il 2008 e per il...

Some unpleasant characteristics of the financial reality over the last few years are examined. First, financial growth was largely based on products that are not exchanged on organized markets, but rather over-the-counter. Moreover, they are often opaque and illiquid, and lack symmetric...

The drive towards radical reforms of financial regulation is weakening as financial firms seem to be returning to calmer waters. The proposals that now appear to be having a higher probability of adoption leave the financial structure and its regulation substantially unchanged. An analysis of...

Up to now, the G20 has supervised the process to revitalize the real economy affected by the Great Recession through fiscal stimuli and a very easy monetary policy, and to rescue the battered financial system by injecting capital into giant banks and firms. The G20 is now turning its attention...

The Italian economy is going through its deepest contraction in history. Even more worrisome is the negative trend in productivity and capacity to export, which has persisted since the early 1990s. The paper analyzes the root causes of these twin evils, as well as the linkages between them. An...

A system of firms managed by the workers, if organized in the LMF form as suggested by Vanek, realizes a new method of production, one of the possible forms of a market based socialism. Thus, it is interesting to investigate the issue of a transition from capitalism to the new mode of...

The article, in memory of Ezio Tarantelli, discusses the relevance today of a number of his ideas and proposals on economic policy. Among these, the reduction of working time and the opportunity to create a European currency that would finance the European Social Fund with the aim to fight...