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AbstractThis work sheds light on how firm- and entrepreneur-specific attributes covariate with Chinese private firms' growth rates before and during the global financial crisis. In order to do so, we exploit the exceptional presence of data regarding the firms' sales over the previous three years in the 2010 China Private Enterprises Survey. Firms run by entrepreneurs with a high level of education and a positive subjective perception of their economic and social status tend to grow more in both periods. The age and the gender of the entrepreneurs, on the contrary, are not associated with different growth performances. As shown in the literature, companies that are smaller, more productive and have higher capital at start-up perform better in both periods. Notably, the relationship between firm growth rates and other relevant factors changes between 2007/2008 and 2008/2009: privatized companies outperform the others before the crisis, whereas joint-stock enterprises and companies with articulated systems of corporate governance do better in the crisis period. These and other novel results contribute to the understanding of the heterogeneous performances of the private firms in China and of the evolution of entrepreneurship during its transition toward a market-oriented economy.

The European debt crisis has brought about permanent changes in the Eurozone (EZ). The no-bailout rule was - de facto - removed, new institutions such as the ESM and the banking union were designed and partially implemented, new monitoring and surveillance schemes, such as the macroeconomic imbalance procedure, were introduced. In this way, the functioning of the EZ has been irreversibly transformed. Now, as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, a new - even more devastating - crisis has hit the EU. In response to this crisis, it is taking place a substantive - if not also formal - infringement of well-established principles such as those preventing the ECB from monetizing government deficits and the EU from acting as a transfer union with a common debt. The latter development was made possible by German Chancellor Angela Merkel's abandonment of her reiterated opposition to substantial intercountry transfers and any form of debt mutualization. This turnaround was motivated by the exceptional circumstances due to the pandemic and was presented by the German Chancellor as a one-off policy change. The risk that Italy's fragile financial, economic and political situation, exacerbated by the current crisis, could destabilize the entire EZ in the absence of sizeable external assistance was probably one of the main determinants of the German government's policy shift. We argue that, although this shift is sufficient to prevent Italy from plunging into a major financial and political crisis in the short term, thus buying time, it is far from sure that it will be sufficient to drive Italy into a sustainable and satisfactory growth path, so as to avoid that in the longer term it will be in need of further financial support from EU institutions and member states. Hence, the latter may again face the dilemma of whether to provide financial assistance to the EZ most vulnerable countries, thus making permanent what was supposed to be temporary, or exposing the EZ to a possible implosion.

ABSTRACTThere is a widespread consensus that China needs to rebalance its export‐driven growth paradigm towards a more consumption‐based one and that such process is to be accompanied by the transition towards the renminbi's full convertibility. However, the Chinese authorities have so far acted with great caution because this transition cannot but accelerate the slowdown of China's growth which will likely occur because of other structural factors. We address these issues by means of a two‐country two‐stage (before and after the renminbi's full convertibility) model, which reproduces some qualitative features of China's growth pattern and its relationship with the United States. We analyse the extent to which altering the Chinese exchange rate regime, as well as other policies affecting sensitive social and economic issues, may impact on the short‐, medium‐ and long‐term evolution of the Chinese economy. The paper shows that by lifting the controls on the capital account and letting the currency float, the Chinese authorities will renounce those policy instruments for controlling the allocation of the national resources and the dynamics of China's economy.

AbstractThe large current account imbalances in the eurozone reflect persistent diverging trends between core and periphery countries, also fed by low interest rates and abundant capital flows brought about by the introduction of the euro. With the global financial crisis, the market sentiment has changed, and capital has left the periphery countries suffering from debt and growth problems due to their failure to bring price–wage dynamics into uniformity with those of the more disciplined countries.Germany is called upon to provide financial assistance and additional external demand; however, though the euro is at stake,Germans are recalcitrant. This article investigates the rationale of theGerman stance in light of the (corporatist‐etatist, neo‐mercantilist)German socio‐economic model and the widespread concern about losing the competitiveness thatGermany regained through painful reforms and changes in the last two decades.