Ignazio Visco: Italy's lost productivity and how to get it back

Opening remarks by Mr Ignazio Visco, Governor of the Bank of Italy, at the Riccardo Faini Memorial Conference "Italy's lost productivity and how to get it back", Rome, 13 January 2017.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Central bank speech  | 
24 February 2017

I am pleased to welcome all participants to this conference to remember Professor Riccardo Faini. 

I first met Riccardo in 1978 when I presented a paper written with Stefano Micossi in the famous monetary workshop held by Franco Modigliani and Stan Fisher at MIT (Riccardo was then a PhD student with Giampaolo Galli and Luca Barbone...). We met often in the following years inside and outside of Italy, socially and professionally, exchanging views and commenting on each other writings. Indeed, issues related to the topic of today's conference - long-standing poor productivity dynamics in Italy - happened to be at the centre of a couple of professional exchanges between us in the mid-1990s and early 2000s, which I would like to briefly share with you.