The Portugal situation during the financial crisis

Today it's frequently used the terms PIGS or PIIGS, acronyms used by economic journalists to refer to different countries of the European Union for their statement of affairs. The bad connotation is evident from the fact that pigs in English suggest the bad state of the economies of these countries. PIGS has been used at the beginning of the years 1990 to indicate four countries of southern Europe: Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. Ireland has sometimes been added during the year 2007, so the acronym is modified in PIIGS. Nevertheless, the alarms of BCE about the public accounts of these States it seems to exclude Italy from the group of the countries characterized by very bad statements of affairs. The aim of this work is to analyze especially during the financial crises the situation of the public accounts in Portugal, one of the countries with greater difficulties and probably with the worse condition if we exclude the dramatic Greek case. In Portugal, the economic growth has been superior to the average UE, for big part of the decade 1990-2001, even if the remains under the 75% of the principal European economies' PIL

The effects of ageing population on health expenditure and economic growth in China: A Bayesian-VAR approach

The increasing proportion of the population aged 65 or over has generated a global rise of health spending due to higher demand for medical and long-term care services, which has become a growing challenge to the sustainability of public finances across countries. This phenomenon is especially prominent in China, which has experienced accelerated rates of both economic growth and population ageing over the past four decades. Using Bayesian-VAR (B-VAR) models we compute the impulse response functions (IRFs) and the forecast error variance decomposition functions (FEVDs) to empirically examine the dynamic relationships between ageing index, life expectancy, economic growth and health expenditure in China. We compare China with the USA which has distinct trajectories of population structure and economic development to better understand the former’s dynamic patterns. We find a pronounced response for both the USA and China of ageing index to life expectancy and of health spending per capita to GDP per capita, while ageing population induces a relatively strong reaction from health expenditure per capita in China. Our results are robust with either nominal or real variables. These findings suggest that, in China, a well-rounded policy accommodating economic, social and health factors is needed to improve the quality of life of the ageing population for a sustainable development of the economy

Analyzing the emotional impact of COVID-19 with Twitter data: Lessons from a B-VAR analysis on Italy

: The novel coronavirus 2019 revolutionized the way of living and the communication of people making social media a popular tool to express concerns and perceptions. Starting from this context we built an original database based on the Twitter users' emotions shown in the early weeks of the pandemic in Italy. Specifically, using a single index we measured the feelings of four groups of stakeholders (journalists, people, doctors, and politicians), in three groups of Italian regions (0,1,2), grouped according to the impact of the COVID-19 crises as defined by the Conte Government Ministerial Decree (8th March 2020). We then applied B-VAR techniques to analyze the sentiment relationships between the groups of stakeholders in every Region Groups. Results show a high influence of doctors at the beginning of the epidemic in the Group that includes most of Italian regions (Group 0), and in Lombardy that has been the region of Italy hit the most by the pandemic (Group 2). Our outcomes suggest that, given the role played by stakeholders and the COVID-19 magnitude, health policy interventions based on communication strategies may be used as best practices to develop regional mitigation plans for the containment and contrast of epidemiological emergencies

The Global Health Networks: A Comparative Analysis of Tuberculosis, Malaria and Pneumonia Using Social Media Data

Global health networks (GHNs) of organizations fighting major health threats represent a useful strategy to respond to the challenge of mobilizing and coordinating different types of health organizations across borders toward a common goal. In this paper we reconstruct the GHNs of malaria, tuberculosis and pneumonia by creating a new unique database of health organizations from the official Twitter accounts of each organization. We use a majority voter Multi Naive Bayes classifier to discover, among the Twitter users, the ones that represent organizations or groups active in each disease area. We perform a social network analysis (SNA) of the global health networks (GHNs) to evaluate the structure of the network and the role and performance of the organizations in each network. We find evidence that the GHN of malaria, TBC and pneumonia are different in terms of performance and leadership, geographical coverage as well as Twitter popularity. Our analysis validate the use of social media to analyze GHNs, their effectiveness and to mobilize the global community toward global sustainable development

Monetary Policy Rules and Directions of Causality: a Test for the Euro Area

Using a VAR model in first differences with quarterly data for the euro zone, the study aims to ascertain whether decisions on monetary policy can be interpreted in terms of a “monetary policy rule” with specific reference to the so-called nominal GDP targeting rule (Hall and Mankiw, 1994; McCallum, 1988; Woodford, 2012). The results obtained indicate a causal relation proceeding from deviation between the growth rates of nominal gross domestic product (GDP) and target GDP to variation in the three-month market interest rate. The same analyses do not, however, appear to confirm the existence of a significant inverse causal relation from variation in the market interest rate to deviation between the nominal and target GDP growth rates. Similar results were obtained on replacing the market interest rate with the European Central Bank refinancing interest rate. This confirmation of only one of the two directions of causality does not support an interpretation of monetary policy based on the nominal GDP targeting rule and gives rise to doubt in more general terms as to the applicability of the Taylor rule and all the conventional rules of monetary policy to the case in question. The results appear instead to be more in line with other possible approaches, such as those based on post Keynesian analyses of monetary theory and policy and more specifically the so-called solvency rule (Brancaccio and Fontana, 2013, 2015). These lines of research challenge the simplistic argument that the scope of monetary policy consists in the stabilization of inflation, real GDP, or nominal income around a “natural equilibrium” level. Rather, they suggest that central banks actually follow a more complex purpose, which is the political regulation of the financial system with particular reference to the relations between creditors and debtors and the related solvency of economic units

Endogeneità dell'offerta di moneta e cartolarizzazione: il caso italiano

Dottorato di ricerca in Economia applicata, XXIII ciclo. A. a. 2010-201

Monetary policy, crisis and capital centralization in corporate ownership and control networks: A B-Var analysis

Based on a connection between network analysis and B-VAR models, this paper provides a first empirical evidence of the relationships between capital centralization expressed in terms of network control on one hand and monetary policy guidelines and business cycles on the other. Our findings suggest that a tightening monetary policy leads to a decrease in the fraction of top shareholders of network control which results in a higher centralization of capital; and that a higher centralization of capital, in turn, leads to a reduction of GDP with respect to its trend. These relations are confirmed both for the United States and the Euro Area