The arrival of a new government also serves to take stock of the economic situation, update the diagnosis of the problems to be addressed and define new priorities. We can take this opportunity to revisit our diagnosis of the performance of the Italian economy during this very difficult 2013.
Compared to 16 November 2011, when the Monti government was born, the economic situation both in Europe and in Italy is worse: not only has the economy worsened, but the expected improvements have not been seen. Let's say that today there is more pessimism than then.
This heavier climate is largely one of lower demand, and therefore gives rise to Keynesian-type proposals: more public spending (digging holes is better than nothing!) and tax cuts (starting with the IMU, which is perceived as the most unpleasant of taxes).
But it should not be forgotten - and both the Prime Minister and the new Minister of the Economy know this well - that our most serious crisis precedes the one we are in today and concerns above all the fall in productivity and therefore the lower growth potential of the next few years.
It would be enough to re-read the analyzes of Letta's Arel and Saccomanni's Banca d'Italia. In this regard, see the work of De Novellis and Vaciago in the Arel publication The Lost Decade, of 2012, with a preface by Enrico Letta, entitled "An economy in crisis before the crisis".
Topics already anticipated by the same authors in the 2009 analysis by LaVoceInfo and confirmed in the 2013 article in Repubblica. For the analyzes of the Bank of Italy - shared by the new Minister of the Economy - see our "The recovery is postponed to 2014" of 16 April 2013.
The challenge of the Letta government – which previous governments have failed to achieve (or have not even tried...) – is therefore to stimulate two things at the same time which are often in conflict with each other. That is to increase the demand for goods, but also the productivity of the economy.
Wishes.
