Robin Hood all'esame di "microeconomia 1"

Su LaVoce.info è uscito un bell'articolo di Carlo Scarpa che ha il merito di guardare con gli occhi dell'economista la nuova improbabile trovata del nostro nuovo e vecchio Ministro dell'Economia: l'estroso Giulio Tremonti.
La lettura è agile, e aiuterebbe a capire la maggior parte degli italiani che (comprensibilmente) di economia politica non hanno mai letto. Il problema è in realtà molto semplice: tassare un'azienda comporta farle aumentare il prezzo dei prodotti o servizi che fornisce. Questo genera un meccanismo a cascata che colpisce inevitabilmente i consumatori. Nel caso dell'energia elettrica, d'altra parte, la presenza di una tariffa massima di riferimento per i piccoli consumatori frenerebbe l'impatto sulla bolletta degli italiani". Ma in questo caso a essere penalizzati sarebbero i distributori immediatamente a monte: gli enti locali!
Nota microeconomica: la teoria economica di base mostra questo effetto "a cascata" sul consumatore nel caso di una tassa indiretta, la tassa di Tremonti è invece una tassa diretta sugli utili (o almeno così è stata pubblicizzata). Scarpa giustamente nota che questo non impedisce all'impresa di adottare questa strategia per riottenere i profitti persi. In particolare questo è tanto più facile in un contesto come quello energetico, dove le imprese che subiscono la tassa a monte operano in regime di oligopolio e beneficiano di una curva di domanda sostanzialmente inelastica nel breve periodo.

Domanda: perchè i partiti dell'opposizione non hanno denunciato questo fatto (davvero comprensibile a chiunque abbia un'infarinatura di microeconomia) anzichè accogliere nel silenzio le esternazioni da clown del "Super-"Ministro?

On the Beijing Consensus

Some days ago I was writing an article for an Italian e-zine "l'Arengo del Viaggiatore", when I came across an interesting and (I then learned) quite important report by the former journalist of the Time and consultant of Goldman Sachs Joshua Cooper Ramo.
In his report, which dates back to 2004, he argues that a new international consensus is emerging: he calls it "the Beijing Consensus", for the People's Republic has a central role in inspiring it. Moreover, it represents the overcoming of the old "Washington Consensus" which has been praised, as well as fiercely criticized, during the last twenty years.

The issue of the future geopolitical equilibria, and the role that China will undoubtedly have in them, is of course fascinating.
Mr. Cooper Ramo shows a great deal in managing the complexity of several sources of information to give a self-consistent explanation of what we are experiencing today and the recent trends (e.g. the increasing role of China's investments in Sub-Saharian Africa).
In some senses, I believe that the idea of seeing China as a blueprint of the failures of the Washington Consensus is undoubtedly true: at least, this is how developing countries are perceiving it.
Nonetheless, the main idea is somehow naive. Indeed, in my very humble opinion, Beijing Consensus:
- is too less problematic
- overlooks the role of the other emerging countries (notably, Brasil, India, and Russia)
- is non-storicistic in defining China as a "non-ideologic country" that believes that every country should find its way to development. It is true that this is China's opinion at present. Nonetheless, I argue that, when it comes to geopolitics, cultural differences are really not that important. China's ideas reflect its emerging role, while the "imperialistic" approach of the American New-conservatorism may be considered the byproduct of a phase of decay of a well-established super-power. When and if things will change, I think (and I'm a bit afraid of it) China may want to reconsider its "soft power" strategy. It is a matter of tactics and power, not an issue of ideology.

I think a good example of this naive view can be read in an article published in the Chinese newspaper "People's Daily" (in english). Looks like the two Chinese academics are driven mostly by nationalism and by their faith in the future, so that the resulting debate is nothing but a big praise of the new "Consensus".

Actually, that is what I don't like about political sciences: they give too huge a scope for partisanship. It is not that economics does not allow people to be partisans, it is just a bit more difficult to be so thanks to mathematics and statistics!

Bypassare SquidGuard al Polo di Novoli

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Richard Dawkins strikes again!

I came across a documentary of Richard Dawkins.
I know it is not new (it dates back to 2006). I know it has been exposed to several critics (and some of them are well posed, imho, like the one that says that Dawkins concentrates his -and our!- attention almost exclusively on extremists). But it is still less flawed than many public speeches of Pope Benedictus XVI on relativism, and usuallyno public commentators criticize them!
Be as it may, I want to place it in this public/private repository.

Note that the video from you tube is divided into five parts.
Enjoy "The Root of All Evil?"!

PART I


PART II


PART III


PART IV


PART V

Ogni blog ha il suo first post

Every blog has its first post, and this is not an exception.
Like every first post, this one is supposed to tell you:
- who I am
- why I have decided to build up a blog
- why I have decided for such a stupid name "Zumma Zumma Baccalà"
- whether I am going to continue writing in English or I am going to quit in favor of Italian, since it is pretty much clear that I am not so good in writing in English...

well, let's make it clear: I am not going to waste time in answering the above questions.
The only one who deserves attention is the last one:
I am going to write in English, apart for issues regarding "my backyard": these will be written in Italian and will be tagged "maccheroni".
Cheers