• In the last fifteen years, the world economy has been on a rollercoaster ride, going through all the phases it had experienced in the previous century in the space of three five-year periods.
• The impressive sequence of cyclical or structural crises that we have and are currently experiencing is all the more significant in that it follows a thirty-year period, from the mid-1980s to the 2008 crisis, of 'Great Moderation', of unpronounced cyclical fluctuations and moderate, stable inflation.
• The excesses in the financial markets, growing inequality, and macroeconomic and trade imbalances that led to the 2008 global financial crisis have provoked a profound rethinking of the 'Consensus' based on the neo-Keynesian model centred on market efficiency and a limited role for macroeconomic and structural policies. A debate was launched on the need to rethink the role of public agents, whether national or supranational, in stabilising the economic cycle, setting policies for economic and social reform and innovation, accompanying growth alongside private agents and social partners, and simplifying and better regulating intervention in market mechanisms.
• The debate covers many aspects, from industrial policy to income distribution, from demography to the education system, from taxation to other structural reforms, from new dimensions of work to efficiency in public administration. In particular, the current debate re-evaluates the role of budgetary policy, which has now become central again in macroeconomic stabilisation and in contributing to industrial policies, after having long been relegated to a marginal role. The debate on public investment and its impact on growth and employment in the short and long term continues today, after having been lively since 2008, even in a context in which public debt has increased everywhere since the pandemic.
• This issue of the Journal of Economic Policy attempts to take stock of some of the aspects of this debate, which is ongoing and has not yet led to the emergence of a consensus similar to that of the years before the global financial crisis. The attempt is to present an albeit partial atlas of the economic debate as it has emerged in recent years and, in particular, since the shocks that have hit in the last two years. The authors of the articles collected here come from different backgrounds, intellectual orientations and analytical perspectives as in the spirit of the Magazine - seek to provide the reader with insights into whether the debate between academics and policy makers is asking the right questions about how the transformation of reality should be interpreted and addressed. And, equally important, whether the answers are up to the challenges facing the economy and society.

• Over the past fifteen years, there have been various crises, from the global financial crisis of 2008-09 to the sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone in 2010-11, from the pandemic to the more recent crisis related to rising inflation in many countries. In some respects, the world economy is more resilient today, but in others it is still more vulnerable. In this paper, the focus is on the outlook for economic growth and interest rates, and their impact on the financial sustainability of government debt.
• The tsunami that started in 2021 may come to an end in the course of 2023. Although the rise in inflation has apparently been synchronous internationally, the underlying phenomena are profoundly different, justifying monetary and fiscal policies that are not fully aligned. Public and private debts as a percentage of GDP remain close to historical highs, and this is coupled with rising interest rates that will make servicing debt increasingly expensive.
• The current sharp slowdown in the world economy will bring specific problems for the Eurozone and Italy to the surface. It will probably translate into a full-blown recession, the contours of which at the moment do not seem to be particularly marked or even prolonged, if the various pieces that make up the global geopolitical and economic-financial puzzle manage to fit together without further shocks. But there are many unknowns about the new normal that will emerge after this phase.

JEL Classification: E0, E3, E63, F3.
Keywords: macroeconomic development, price, business fluctuation and cycle, joint analysis of fiscal and monetary policy, international finance.

• After the turbulent 1970s, academia and policy makers in the advanced countries adhered for thirty years to the economic paradigm of the New Consensus which, postulating market efficiency, attributed a very limited role to macroeconomic policy. In particular, what was removed from the toolbox was budgetary policy, which was less 'technocratic' than monetary policy and thus more prone to distortions and delays. The European institutions, created in the 1990s, reflect this New Consensus.
• The global financial crisis triggered a process of rethinking (Rethinking Macroeconomics), which shifted the pendulum between market and state back to the state. Today, fiscal policy seems indispensable for both short-term macroeconomic stabilisation and industrial policy and the provision of public goods in the long run. The role of public investment, sacrificed for decades in all OECD countries, is central both in the theoretical rethinking process and in the post-pandemic recovery plans.
• In this context, one cannot help but look with some concern at the European Commission's recent proposal to reform the Stability Pact. The proposal is a substantial improvement on the existing one, but does not seem to guarantee the creation of a 'fiscal space' for EU member states. In order to meet the challenges of the future, from strategic autonomy to investment in ecological and digital transitions, it will be necessary to open the construction site of a European fiscal capacity as soon as possible.

JEL Classification: E22, E32, E62, E65, G01, H12.
Keywords: fiscal policy, austerity, public investment, public goods, industrial policy, strategic autonomy, global financial crisis, macroeconomic governance, Stability Pact, New Consensus.

• Inequality must be studied in order to understand the processes that generate it and their acceptability and to highlight its possible negative consequences with respect to economic growth and other social objectives.
• Looking at inequality by focusing only on the division of output between wages and profits is limiting, because it does not allow us to understand the profound changes taking place within the world of work.
• On a theoretical level, various mechanisms can lead to a slowdown in growth as inequality increases. For example, a large part of inequality originates from phenomena, such as curbing competition, which can limit growth.
• We must, therefore, overcome Okun's 'bucket hole' metaphor, which has been an essential reference point to support the trade-off between reducing inequality (fairness) and expanding overall income (efficiency). To be concerned with inequality, and the mechanisms that generate it, is to be simultaneously concerned with protecting fairness and fostering growth and efficiency.

JEL Classification: D31, D33, D63, J31.
Keywords: inequality, functional distribution, personal distribution, social justice, equality of opportunity, economic growth.

• Corporate governance systems determine the behaviour (e.g., strategies, investments) and results (e.g., growth, profitability) of companies and, indirectly, also of economic systems. After the fall of the Soviet regime based on the socialist model, paraphrasing Francis Fukuyama's famous book The End of History and the Last Man1, can we claim to have reached the end of the story of corporate governance systems? Are all industrialised and emerging countries converging towards a single capitalist model?
• Even after the substantial disappearance of the socialist model, the models of capitalism that have developed at the national level continue to differ. That is, there has been no convergence of the various corporate governance systems towards a single common model, which, according to some scholars, was supposed to be the Anglo-American model, as it was considered more efficient and effective.
• Starting from these reflections, this paper analyses the main corporate governance systems in order to present their characteristics, recent evolution and future prospects. In particular, it highlights how the various systems are oriented towards creating value for shareholders or stakeholders and how recent crises - think, for example, of the financial crisis or the Covid-19 epidemic - may change this orientation in the future.

JEL Classification: G3, P1, P4, P5.
Keywords: corporate governance systems, convergence, performance, equality.

• This article presents a revised mapping of National Innovation Systems (NIS) in Europe, based on a new empirical analysis of micro-aggregate data from different EU countries.
• Using data from Eurostat's Community Innovation Survey 2014 (CIS 2014), we performed a factor analysis to identify the multiple components of NIS in the EU. We analysed the relationships between the firm's structure, innovation strategies and performance with the relevant institutional characteristics of the NIS in which they are embedded, including the nature of public sector support (e.g. cooperation and public procurement) and the characteristics of public-private links (e.g. with universities, foreign institutions and/or other firms).
• We then redrew a map of European innovation 'clubs' by means of a cluster analysis based on different factors. Our results complement the most recent literature on NIS with evidence from micro-aggregate level data. The representation of European innovation clubs provides useful evidence for reviewing the European cohesion strategy, to be realised through industrial and innovation policies.

JEL Classification: O30, O52, C38.
Keywords: National Innovation Systems, Europe, technology clubs, innovation policies.

• This paper applies (and refines) the well-established input-output methodology to the OECD Inter-Country Input-Output (ICIO) dataset to study the evolution of global value chains (GVCs) over the period 1995-2018 in three geographical areas: Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas.
• The results show three distinct patterns of integration in GVCs. In particular, the European model appears to be characterised by an increasing regionalisation of its supply of foreign value added (nearshoring) and a globalisation of internal value added contributions (farsharing). In contrast to Asia, where nearshoring is accompanied by an increasing internal absorption of value added, Europe has become increasingly dependent on extra-regional demand. This calls for a deeper analysis of the gains and losses for Europe of a process of further fragmentation of value chains into regional blocks.
• Furthermore, from the perspective of employment, the results show that European GVCs mainly generate employment outside Europe, but also suggest that these are low value-added jobs. Overall, these results highlight that added value and employment are not always distributed equally along global value chains and that both aspects should be central in discussions on the future of GVCs.

JEL Classification: F10, F15, C67.
Keywords: global value chains, nearshoring, value added, employment.

• Blockchain is a technological innovation that has the potential to radically change our financial markets through a different management of the 'promise market' that underpins our financial systems. However, in order for fintech finance to replace, in whole or in part, traditional finance, it will have to meet important challenges, such as regulation, environmental sustainability, the relationship with illegal activities and the increased efficiency of crypto markets. For this reason, the likely future of fintech finance will be more boring, but also more transparent, efficient and regulated.

JEL Classification: G14, G15, F31.
Keywords: Fintech, crypto, blockchain, NFT.