LIBRI DI AUGUSTO NINNI

Cassa depositi e prestiti (CDP) is an ancient Italian institution which has had an historically leading role in supporting the economy, mainly by financing the building of infrastructures owned by municipalities and local authorities. Ten years ago it became a limited company, even if the majority of its shares was still hold by the Italian Ministry of Treasury. Its task was then broadened to support Italian firms as a development bank. More recently CDP is acting as an important industrial policy player, collecting Italian State’s existing stakeholding in various firms or acquiring minority stakes in private emerging firms. Possible trade-offs between collective interests and management efficiency are discussed.

This Special Issue of Economia e Politica Industriale/Journal of Industrial and Business Economics seeks to shed light on the reasons for the economic and industrial gap between Germany and Italy based on the discussions of five research papers. The contributions compare the microeconomic features of the two countries and investigate the competitiveness and internationalization of their economies. This introduction provides the readers with a structural overview to enable them to better understand the comparison, underscoring the few similarities and the main basic differences that characterize the two countries. It also provides a summary of the topics discussed in each of the five articles and reflects on why we believe the contributions offer an original reflection on the topic.

Economic stimulus packages in EU countries and the Italian case - The article discusses the role of fiscal policies acting on the supply side within the recent economic stimulus packages of the EU countries, detailed according to OECD methodology and data. The supply side feature is analyzed according to the goals of the "new European industrial policy". Economic stimulus packages differ rather largely among countries in terms of size. Worthwhile features are: a) the supply side involvement often accounts for less than half of the whole package, the majority being focalized on the defence of income and purchasing power of the weaker population; b) a preference towards specific sectors occurs only for the automotive (of course in the car producing countries) and construction industries; c) a long term perspective (related to innovation, energy and environment) seems to be present only in few countries; d) concern about dangers from a new protectionism pushed by the State subsidies seems overstated. The Italian package is rather small: its size is justified by the high Italian debt/GDP ratio, but it cannot be explained according to perspectives on expected performance.

Keywords: economic stimulus packages, new European industrial policy, "smart" investments

Parole chiave: pacchetti anti-crisi, nuova politica industriale europea, investimenti "intelligenti"

Jel Classification: E62 - E65 - L52