Policy
Policy research
World Investment Report 2024: Investment facilitation and digital government
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, July 2024.
Co-author of Chapter IV, Investment Facilitation and Digital Government.
In a world grappling with global and regional crises, the delicate balance of foreign direct investment (FDI) hangs precariously. This World Investment Report (WIR) serves as a stark reminder that investment, the lifeblood of sustainable development, is not merely a statistic but a lifeline for developing nations. The challenges we face are multifaceted and interconnected. Geoeconomic fragmentation is reshaping the landscape of global investment. Trade networks are fragmenting, regulatory environments are diverging and international supply chains are being reconfigured. Overall, however, these trends are leading to a further deterioration of the international investment landscape as seen from the developing world. Against this complex backdrop, the WIR underscores the importance of investment facilitation and digital government as tools to attract and retain investment. By streamlining procedures, enhancing transparency and leveraging digital tools such as online single windows, we can foster a more conducive investment climate, particularly in developing countries. Furthermore, the report emphasizes that digital business and investment facilitation is not merely a technical solution; it is a stepping stone towards wider digital government implementation, which can address underlying weaknesses in governance and institutions that often hinder investment and impede progress towards sustainable development.
World Investment Report 2023: Investing in Sustainable Energy for All
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, July 2023.
Co-author of Chapter I, International Investment Trends, and Chapter IV, Investing in Sustainable Energy for All.
UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2023 reveals a widening annual investment deficit that developing countries face as they work to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The gap is now about $4 trillion per year – up from $2.5 trillion in 2015 when the SDGs were adopted. The report shows that global foreign direct investment (FDI) fell 12% in 2022 and analyses how investment policy and capital market trends impact investment in the SDGs, particularly in clean energy. It highlights that developing countries need renewable energy investments of about $1.7 trillion each year but attracted only $544 billion in clean energy FDI in 2022. Although investments in renewables have nearly tripled since 2015, most of the money has gone to developed countries. The report calls for urgent support to developing countries to enable them to attract significantly more investment for their transition to clean energy. It proposes a compact setting out priority actions, ranging from financing mechanisms to investment policies, to ensure sustainable energy for all.
ASEAN Investment Report 2023
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, December 2023.
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows into ASEAN reached an all-time high at $224 billion in 2022. This was an important achievement for ASEAN, despite a 12 percent decline in global FDI flows to $1.3 trillion due to the multitude of international crises and challenges, including geopolitical conflicts, inflated prices of food and energy, the risk of recession and mounting debt pressures in many countries around the world, resulting from the consequences of COVID-19 pandemic. It is noteworthy that ASEAN continues to remain resilient and positioned itself as a top FDI recipient. The robust growth in manufacturing investment, and the increased interest in sectors related to energy transition, digital economy, wholesale and retail trade, are among the key drivers of these strong investment trends.
Inequality in Healthcare: Saturation of Hospitals and Death by COVID-19 (with Stefano Falcone)
Learning from the Curve, May 2020.
The spread of COVID-19 pandemic has put healthcare systems around the world under strain. Is there any relationship between the burden on hospital facilities and the number of deaths by COVID-19? In this study, we exploit regional variation in the Italian healthcare system and the severity of the contagion to provide suggestive evidence that well-equipped intensive care units (ICUs) can save human lives from deaths by COVID-19. We show that this result holds even when controlling for possible confounding factors and that the relationship is not linear: one additional intensive care bed (IC) is more strongly associated with fewer deaths by COVID-19 when ICUs are more extremely saturated.
Promoting International Investment by Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, February 2024.
Small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) are important contributors to economic development, representing a substantial portion of businesses globally. Global markets offer SMEs opportunities for growth, diversification and resilience. Access to international markets enables them to tap into new customer bases, gain exposure to diverse business practices and foster innovation through cross-cultural collaboration. Based on original empirical studies in different developing regions and selected developed economies, this report discusses how to reduce the common investment policy bias in home and host countries towards large MNEs, the role of SMEs in South–South and intraregional FDI, and ways and means to maximize the development impact of SME FDI.
Organisation of policy conferences and workshops
October 16-20, 2023 World Investment Forum and Academic Research Conference (UNCTAD-DIAE, Abu Dhabi).
June 20, 2022 UCB-Solvay Brussels School symposium (ECARES, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels).
May 2018 European Youth Debate, European Generation (Bocconi University, Lombardy Regional Council, Milan.)
