A Community Impacting Europe
A photo shoot to represent the 27 countries of the European Union through the students, professors and staff born in each of them.
2023/2024 Opening Ceremony Highlights
Facing global challenges and training new talent, students and researchers: this is the mission the university is taking on with inclusion and sustainability as its objectives. Only by doing so, says Rector Francesco Billari, can we change the lives of people and the world.
A University designed and developed to cultivate intellectuals, both students and researchers, able to leave a lasting legacy on the world. A university that is a community of 165,000 members including students, faculty, staff, alumnae and alumni, that draws strength from its own diversity and is continuously committed to opening up to new inputs and contributions.
This was the focus of the Opening Ceremony of the 2023-2024 Academic Year, the 122nd year in the history of the University. The ceremony was attended by the President of the University, Andrea Sironi, Rector Francesco Billari the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala – the first woman and the first African to hold the position of WTO Director-General – and Guerino Figlino, student representative on the Bocconi University Board.
One year of war in Ukraine: three facts and two doubts for the future
One year after the start of the war in Ukraine, Livio Di Lonardo, assistant professor of Political science at Bocconi, highlights some elements that have emerged clearly, and at times surprisingly, in these 12 months. First of all, the role of the US in uniting the front of the Western democracies. Secondly, the resilience of European countries, which, albeit with some hesitation, have nevertheless responded promptly. Third, Russia's military difficulties. But if these three elements have become clear, two others make forecasting the development of the war arduous: firstly, the duration of support from European countries, within which public opinion may in the long run no longer support sending arms to Ukraine. Secondly, the credibility of Russian promises: how long would peace then last? Would we find ourselves in the same situation as today in a few years' time?
Hacker attacks, the importance of investing in prevention
"The hacker attacks of these days could have been avoided," explains Greta Nasi, Director of the Master of Science in Cyber Risk Strategy and Governance at Bocconi University, "if institutions and companies had updated their defence systems. It would be important to involve in the decision-making process people who can read these potential risks in order to report them to the boards, who could then make the necessary investments in protection".
Bernankes prodigious contribution to monetary policy
“Ben Bernanke is the best example of an academic who made a huge contribution to monetary policy, especially in difficult times,” says Roberto Perotti, of the Department of Economics and who was teaching assistant to Bernanke at MIT, commenting on the awarding of the Nobel prize in Economics to Bernanke, alongside Douglas W. Diamond e Philip H. Dybvig. “The prize was awarded to Bernanke for three reasons: his study of the Great Depression and the mistakes made with monetary policy in that period; his study of the financial accelerator effect, ie how small shocks to monetary policy can have large effects; his advances on the econometrics of monetary policy.”
In memory of Alberto Alesina
Two years after his untimely death, Bocconi dedicated two days of studies and tributes to Alberto Alesina - alumnus, scholar and friend. The University has named a seminar room after him in the Department of Economics, and is launching a fundraiser to establish the Alberto Alesina Young Economists Award (https://give.unibocconi.it/projects/in-memory-of-alberto-alesina). Gathered to remember and pay tribute to the scholar on May 25 were Mario Draghi (President of the Council of Ministers), Lawrence H. Summers (former US Treasury Secretary and President Emeritus, Harvard University), Silvana Tenreyro (External Member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee and Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science) and Lionel Barber (former Editor-in-Chief of the Financial Times) who joined Mario Monti, Gianmario Verona, Francesco Giavazzi and Alberto’s wife Susan Alesina.
Before after B4i Mapo Tapo and the group trips for extreme sport lovers
Join Mapo Tapo founder Daniele Calvo Pollino's journey throughout the acceleration program in B4i and discover how his business evolved.
What If Russia Adopts CIPS?
"If the military aspects of the war are there for all to see, with an escalation that could lead to the end of Ukraine as we have known it, another war, the cyber war, is being fought with cyber attacks and counter-attacks. But there are also economic sanctions," explains Brunello Rosa, visiting professor of Cyber strategy and governance at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Bocconi University, "such as the exclusion of some Russian banks from the Swift circuit. One implication of this could be that Russia adopts the alternative payments system CIPS, developed by China, which is still in the minority but growing steadily. If this is the case," Brunello Rosa continues, "we could really see the bifurcation of international payments with two competing systems."
#RussiaUkraine: three tools to strangle the economy
"The sanctions imposed on Russia are unprecedented and aim to strangle the Russian economy by preventing it from accessing international sources of financing," Carlo Altomonte, professor of European economic policy at Bocconi University, explains in this video. "Three main tools are used: blocking Swifts; banning the country's top two banks from accessing dollar liquidity; and blocking central bank assets held with European countries and the United States, which amount to about 40% of these assets." The Russian economy, with the application of these sanctions, thus risks a series of defaults.
Before/After B4i: Cargoful, when technology meets logistics
Erica Pezzica, founder of Cargoful spoke again with B4i to answer the exact same questions, and look back at a time capsule of her answers, from when she started the acceleration programme. Her startup grew from just an idea presented at a hackathon to a team of 7 person. See how Erica’s life changed over the last year.
War in Ukraine: Europe Must Face Its Security Challenges
Russia’s all-out attack on Ukraine is the biggest security crisis since the end of the Cold War and the war will have far-reaching consequences for the European continent, highlights Catherine De Vries, professor of Political Science at Bocconi. “The EU has a big role to play and cannot only reply to Russia with sanctions but has to safeguard its security,” she says. “This means an increase in defense spending and strengthening the eastern flank of the EU. And also supporting Ukrainian resistance, accepting refugees and sending troops to states bordering Ukraine. The EU should also work towards greater strategic autonomy – speeding up fiscal integration to strengthen economic power and the Green Deal to diversify away from Russian oil and gas.”
#RussiaUkraine: Sanctions targeted at members of Putin's elite could instill doubt about his conduct
Leaders in Europe and the US hoped that economic sanctions would have enough deterrent power to avert a Russian invasion of Ukraine. It did not. "One wonders at this point what the effectiveness of the sanctions will be," explains Livio Di Lonardo, assistant professor of political science at Bocconi. "These punitive sanctions are designed first and foremost to keep up the credibility of other future sanctions against Putin or other adversaries," Di Lonardo continues. But can sanctions have an immediate impact on current events? "In recent years, Putin has taken steps to protect the Russian economy from sanctions that he expected." The hope is that targeted sanctions against the narrow elite, which is crucial to Putin's survival in power, "can create an internal rift by changing the expectations of these elites. Thus convincing them that the course of action chosen by Putin will lead to a decrease in the economic benefits they have received over the years."
FTxBocconi Challenge 2022: young talents' vision for the new hybrid world
The 3rd edition of the competition organized by Financial Times and Bocconi saw 200 students and young professionals worldwide challenge each other with fresh ideas to innovate business and society in the new hybrid world. Held over five intense days of masterclasses, talks, networking and teamwork, FTxBocconi Talent Challenge 2022 culminated in the 200 participants, coming from over 50 countries, devising teams solutions for four challenges in the areas of Work, Health, Entertainment and Customer Experience - searching for innovative policies and business ideas, integrating physical and digital experiences.
www.viasarfatti25.unibocconi.eu/notizia.php?idArt=23848
From courses to the New Computing Sciences Department: the Digital Path of Bocconi University
In this interview, Rector Gianmario Verona talks about how Bocconi has worked over the last five years to enhance its digital infrastructure in research and teaching by calling in new professors and designing new academic programs. It is a path that in academic year 2021-2022 will be completed by the activation of the new Department of Computing Sciences, which can count on an international faculty team.
The Nobel to Pioneers of Natural Experiments in Economics
The Nobel prize in economics to David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens is an acknowledgement of their pioneering use of natural experiments in economics, comments Thomas Le Barbanchon, Labor economics professor at Bocconi. Card, for example, used such experimenting to study the effects of minimum wages, of migration and education. And Imbens to study the returns of education in terms of wages in the labor market.
The Fundamental Contribution of Card, Angrist and Imbens to the Economists' Toolbox
"The Nobel Prize to Card, Angrist and Imbens demonstrates the importance that data and accurate quantitative analysis have assumed today in modern economics," explains Francesco Decarolis, professor of economics at Bocconi. In particular, the work of the three scholars has contributed in fundamental ways to the analysis of causal impacts of certain policies and decisions, he underlines. "Card, for example, on impacts of labor market reforms. The merit of these three scholars is to have contributed to the tool box that economists have today to evaluate the impacts of policies and reforms and the applicability of this tool box is very broad.”
The Impact of the Natural Experiments of the Nobel Winners
The Nobel prize in economics to David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens is an acknowledgement of their contribution in the development of methods to establish economic relationships, comments Jerome Adda, Dean for Research at Bocconi. In particular, he explains, for their “development of natural experiments. That is, the study of instances such as natural disasters or changes in government that induce individuals or firms to do things they would not have done otherwise. And then comparing the outcomes with those not affected by such changes.” And, he underlines, “these techniques they pioneered are incorporated in much research here at Bocconi.”