Mario Pianta

Mario Pianta is Professor of Economics at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence.

Mario Pianta

What has been the Cost of Ukraine’s War—And Who Pays?

Mario Pianta 10th March 2025

Three years on, the war in Ukraine has reshaped economies, lives, and global politics. Can Europe afford the price?

Lib-Pop Politics: Why Italy’s New Government Is More Neoliberal Than Populist

Mario Pianta 21st May 2018

A new Italian government is in the making, with an unprecedented alliance between the Five Stars Movement (33% of votes in the March 2018 elections; 36% of seats in the House of Deputies) and the Lega (17% of votes; 20% of seats). The view that ‘populist barbarians have conquered Rome’ is a gross misunderstanding. Lega […]

Fear, Loathing And Poverty: Italy After The 2018 Elections

Mario Pianta 6th March 2018

The post-election map of Italy has two main traits: fear and poverty. Northern and Central regions have gone to a Centre-Right-wing coalition where the leader is not anymore Forza Italia’s Silvio Berlusconi but the League’s Matteo Salvini, who dropped its previous ‘Lega Nord’ emphasis to turn it into a nationwide Le Pen-style National Front. In […]

Market Innovation? Four Questions On The Lamy Report

Mario Pianta 11th December 2017

The future of European research and innovation policy is under discussion after the publication of the ‘Lamy Report‘. It sets out to provide the vision shaping the final years of Horizon 2020 and the program that will follow. The report contains 11 recommendations. Some rightly aim at strengthening Europe’s Research and Innovation (R&I) system, doubling […]

Teleworking experiment

Is Europe’s teleworking experiment coming to an end?

A new episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast looks at data from the Living and working in the EU e-survey showing a decline in the number of respondents engaged in remote work, with the percentage of people working entirely from the workplace increasing from 36% in 2023, to 41% in 2024.

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

Progressive Ukraine

The policy brief series by FEPS and FES on Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) offers timely insights into how the EU can advance gender-sensitive and sustainable peace agreements in a time of mounting militarisation.

While current measures being considered are framed as necessary responses to geopolitical instability, especially concerning Ukraine, there are significant concerns from an FFP perspective and broader security critiques.

We highlight five urgent considerations:

Feminist considerations for EU security and defence
Reversing cuts to feminist movements
Learning from Latin America’s Feminist Foreign Policy
Placing Feminist Foreign Policy at the heart of EU External Action
Embedding FFP into EU Foresight Practices

READ THE SERIES

WSI European Collective Bargaining Report 2023/2024

Real wages in the European Union continued their decline in 2023—despite an acceleration in nominal wage growth and falling inflation rates. For the current year, there are only tentative signs of a slow recovery in the purchasing power of wages.

A resumption of real wage growth would stabilize the functional distribution of income and strengthen domestic demand. However, even under this benign scenario, the crisis is far from over from workers' point of view. They have borne the brunt of real income losses associated with the energy-price shock resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The lingering reduction in real wage levels means that wage policy still needs to catch up to contribute to a fairer distribution of the burden between labor and capital.

The Politics of Unpaid Work

This new book published by Oxford University Press presents the findings of the multiannual ERC research project “Researching Precariousness Across the Paid/Unpaid Work Continuum”,
led by Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven), which are very important for the prospects of a more equal Europe.

Unpaid labour is no longer limited to the home or volunteer work. It infiltrates paid jobs, eroding rights and deepening inequality. From freelancers’ extra hours to care workers’ unpaid duties, it sustains precarity and fuels inequity. This book exposes the hidden forces behind unpaid labour and calls for systemic change to confront this pressing issue.

DOWNLOAD HERE FOR FREE