Rubrics » Bridging News
The COVID Crisis and the 2nd Pillar of the Romanian Pension System
Far from the public attention, the value of the assets held in the seven private funds that manage the pension money in Pillar II for seven and a half million future pensioners decreased dramatically in the second part of February and continued to decline during March, with the minimum being reached on the 18th of March 2020. More
Centuries of “Concrete”-Solid Discoveries of the Humankind: From Building the Roman Empire Towards Contemporary Buildings
Have you ever questioned what lies at the basis of the so-called highly-developed cities, at the foundation of the tallest buildings worldwide or how the infrastructure came to life? The answer is directed towards… concrete. It built the modern world step by step. The rock-solid history of the material we all know today was embodied in mystery since it is not known where it started or who exactly came up with the brilliant idea behind it. Various empires presided over an immense contribution towards finding the perfect recipe for building the concrete structures which remain a complex enigma for the architects or engineers today. The grey building slabs are considered to be a source of inspiration for many of the bricklayers in history that contributed with numerous attempts to discover the utopian recipes that the Romans for the specific built landscapes that characterized their empire. Currently, almost everything around us that is “tangible” and “real”, from the sidewalks to the bridges, are reliant on concrete. But very few of us acknowledge that. We might take it for granted, but this mixture comprises much of the constructed environment of modern civilization. More
The Effects of the Coronavirus on the Labor Markets in the EU
Romania was among the least affected EU Member States in Q2 2020 in terms of temporary layoffs, reduced working hours or job losses, according to the analysis published by Eurostat. The consequences of Covid19 pandemic varied significantly from one country to another, the most affected being Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Ireland and Greece. More
The Matter of Persia: Discerning Meaning from Strife and Unrest
The year 2018 began with a renewal of some of last year’s main geopolitical clashes, the most prominent being the nuclear threats exchanged between North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un and Donald Trump, China’s President Xi Jinping delivering grim speeches to his army, urging troops to be ready for war, and analysts offering generally gloomy forecasts for this year. One other significant event that has erupted near the end of 2017 were the unexpected and violent protests in Iran that have continued up to at least the first week of 2018, with mass demonstrations held both for and against the country’s current government and an uncompromising crackdown by Iranian police. More
Amfiteatru Economic, the Measure of Lastingness
I started writing about economics and economy in the “big press”, both academic and mass-media, around the same time, somewhere in 2002. This, after having explored journalism during the university studies. I had understood the difference in the literary species between an article dedicated to the mass-media field and one published in academic journals, long before the biblio- and sciento-metric tsunami reached Romania, with its (inter)national indexations and citations of the scientific publications. More
What Does Brexit Reveal About Government Responsibility?
In the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, Andrei Sandu relayed his observations on the emotional rift between the ‘remain’ and ‘leave’ voters. He noted how many citizens defined ‘leave vs. remain’ as ‘change vs. an unhappy status quo’. The government tried to push for unity, but it was clear that the UK had by then become a “fractured country”. More
Diaspora, in Theory and at Crossroads
Although it has been a developing field for some time, Diaspora Studies is a discipline which has remained unapproached at the academic level in our country. As the ‘diaspora’ has been more frequently mentioned in the media, in political debates and by the common people, it is necessary to understand the various aspects of the concept along with other connected ones. My two books, “Transnational Networks, Identities and Homes: South Asian Diasporic Women in Fiction and Film” (2017a) and “‘Love’ and ‘sisterhood’ in the Identities of Women in Novels by Writers of the South Asian Diaspora” (2017b), include several theories and large analyses on diaspora(s) and ‘home(s)’ (in the plural). More
The Curious Case of the Romanian Yield Curve
The single biggest evidence in favour of a recession looming on the horizon, which is on the lips of every single pundit in advanced economies at present, is an atypical relationship between the yields of government bonds of different maturities, called the inversion of the curve. Short term government borrowing has become more expensive than long term government borrowing, which goes against basic tenets of economic theory such as time preference. This atypical relationship between long term and short term maturities is thought to predict a recession, because the only reason why borrowing would become more expensive in the short run than in the long run seems to be a flight on the part of creditors to safe, highly liquid and easy to exchange assets, which pushes up demand for the near-end of the curve, and a pessimistic growth outlook for the future, which pushes down demand for the far end of the curve. In the United States, the model-economy in this regard, the inversion of the curve has so far predicted every recession in the last decades. More
Smith, Hayek and the Virus: Entrepreneurial Responses in Times of Crisis
The world is struggling with despair in the face of an uncaring threat at the moment of writing these ideas: that word is not even worth mentioning any longer, since it is probably on the lips (and in the ears) of the majority of people worldwide. ‘Probably’ and ‘majority’ are only used here in order to respect a certain journalistic demeanor in writing which requires some precautionary – thus, not categorical – statements. Indeed, some children might not truly understand what goes on during the present time; so might some minority of people living in any given disconnected and remote settlement (if such disconnection still exists) and, unfortunately, so does some whimsical category of people – even grown-ups – who, although they have heard about the danger, behave as if they do not understand what is happening (which, again, with precautionary measures, might just be the case: their ignorant behavior simply denotes a lack – inability? – of understanding). Or, the more despicable, they did understand, but they simply want to make a spectacle of their ability to break the law (because, hey, isn’t it so, they are ‘smarter’, ‘wiser’, ‘brighter’). More
Think Fast: Interactive Filmmaking Puts Consumers in the Spotlight (Or Is It Just an Illusion?)
In 1967, the cinephiles attending that year’s edition of Expo Montreal were left with the experience of a lifetime, having been submerged into a new dimension of film-making. Radúz Činčera’s vision brought the audiences a new perspective, as his new movie, Kinoautomat, enabled the viewers to take a stand on the chance to direct the scenario by themselves. Thus, the trajectory of the film could be chosen and so, the viewers used voting buttons to decide the course of events in One Man and His House, a black and white satire on democracy written and directed by members of the Czech New Wave cinema (BOZAR 2020). A few generations later, as the technological revolution is unfolding, so does the shift towards a more digitized shape of the interactive movie. The now-renowned director’s daughter, Alena Činčerová, has carried on the work of her father, having restored and adapted the voting system by making it wireless, thus allowing any intrigued viewer to choose his own plot from the comfort of his home. More
The Romanian Leu, Koruna, Zloty and Forint in Pandemic: A Comparison in Terms of Stability and Its Effects
The Romanian leu was much more stable during the pandemic than the currencies of Central European countries with a similar exchange rate regime – the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. Data published by the National Bank of Romania shows a much lower devaluation of our national currency against the euro, of only 1.95% between January and October, well below the levels recorded by Czech koruna (-7.38%), Polish zloty (-6.44%) or Hungarian forint (-7.78%). More
Invitation to the European Resource Bank Meeting
Economic think tanks, entrepreneurs, institutes, and intellectuals assemble annually at the European Resource Bank meeting to discuss the challenges to the free market, individual liberty, and free enterprise facing Europe and the world. This year the event is in Prague, Czech Republic, and will be an exciting three day conference from 13 April through 15 April, 2018. It will be hosted in cooperation with the CERGE-EI Foundation and will take place at the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education – Economics Institute. More
