Trento festival on 'borders of economic freedom'

"The borders of economic freedom." This is the fascinating and extremely topical subject of the Festival of Economy of Trento, which this year "expands in space and in time".

Two relevant previews enrich the traditional four-day programme of meetings among economists, information operators, statisticians, scientists and students, planned in Trento from 2nd to 5th of June.

On May 26 the city of Trento, thanks to the precious co-operation with Federazione Trentina della Cooperazione (Trentino’s Federation for Co-operation), had the opportunity to listen to a lectio held by the Nobel prize in Economic Sciences Amartya Sen.

On Saturday, May 28, the festival moved for the first time to Naples, with the ambitious goal of discussing "off-the-book employment and the economy". The session was held in the full-of-charm site of the 'catacombs' and was organised by Fondazione Ahref and Fondazione per il Sud. This year also the town of Rovereto will host some relevant meetings, as well as propose a Green Night between 4th and 5th of June, fully dedicated to environmental sustainability.

Redefining borders

The festival programme is full of incentives and rich in meetings this year, which is now in its 6th year. There are forty meetings scheduled for the main programme.

"In our time borders must be redefined," said Lucia Maestri, councillor in charge of culture for the municipality of Trento, during the press conference held in Milan on April 20 to present the festival. "Borders define a given space, they mark a belonging, but they haven’t ever been so changeable and unstable as they appear today."

"The economic and financial crisis has reopened the whole question about the borders between private initiative and public role," affirms Tito Boeri, Scientific Director of the festival. Some topics, which have been considered taboo so far, as the public regulatory intervention in the economic sector, today are the theme of a lively debate. In Europe the governments are redrawing, though in different ways, the borders between public and private.

"Some of them, among which the Italian one" Boeri goes on, "are determined to reduce the state role in social assistance, directly involving the so-called third sector, shifting from welfare state to welfare society or big society."

The role the family plays as a social security cushion is invoked in order to lessen the costs of a crisis. Borders between public and private are re-discussed and re-drawn even where in the past we recorded an almost relentless progress of public intervention, as in the school, in the university and in the health-care sectors.

But in spite of these choices, it appears quite wrong to jump to the conclusion that everywhere a process of regression is played by the public actor in economy. On the contrary it happens that the controlled areas, where limits are imposed to restrain the free private initiative, are increasing.

At the festival these issues will surely be interesting topics for discussion with leading economists participating, such as Bill Easterly, Zygmunt Baumann, Alan Krueger, Philippe Aghion, Dani Rodrik, Esther Duflo.

There will be also many leading characters of the political scene, both on an international and national level, like Enrico Bondi, author of the Parmalat reorganization and balancing, the President of the Controlling Authority for Competition and Market, Antonio Catricalà, the Cgil Union Secretary Susanna Camusso, the Minister of the Interior Roberto Maroni, the ISTAT President Enrico Giovannini, the Chief Prosecutor Giancarlo Caselli, the former President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel and Emma Bonino.

In the 'Meet the author' session, coordinated by Tonia Mastrobuoni, there will be the interventions of Roger Abravanel, Lucio Caracciolo, Andrea Carandini, Maurizio Ferraris, Giovanni Floris, Paolo Legrenzi, Ivan Lo Bello, Corrado Passera, Marco Revelli, Bruno Tabacci.

As earlier, this year too, a students’ jury will express its opinion, taking side for or against some of the topics discussed. Some other subjects will be the regulation of prostitution, the authority of universities to increase enrolment taxes, public water liberalization and so on. Well, all possible matters on "the borders of economic freedom".