From large-scale works to housing, from healthcare to employment: here are the themes and promises at the Festival of Economics

From the Minister of Infrastructures Matteo Salvini to the Health Minister Orazio Schillaci, from the two Nobel Prize winners Tawakkul Karman and Edmund Phelps to Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi. Numerous and varied guests took part in panels, conferences and round tables on the first day of the 19th Economics Festival, organised by the24 Ore Group and Trentino Marketing on behalf of the Autonomous Province of Trento and in collaboration with the Municipality of Trento and theUniversity of Trento. running until 26 May. There was also a large and warm participation of the public that crowded the event locations.

Pope Francis' message and blessing also arrived on the first day of the 19th edition of the Trento Festival of Economics. "I am pleased to be able to reach you with a message on the occasion of the 19th Edition of the Trento Festival of Economics, during which you will be called to question yourselves on some themes that are particularly dear to me, which require a common and responsible reflection on the part of all those who have the future of humanity at heart," wrote Pope Francis. "The current scenario, unfortunately," the Pope continues in the message, "highlights some critical issues that at several levels risk threatening the peaceful coexistence among men and the well-being of creation; there are numerous questions and uncertainties that we are called to face, while problems and dilemmas of epochal scope emerge". The Pope mentions the goal of peace "which the world seems to have forgotten"; he refers to the "pervasive progress of technology and artificial intelligence": he does not forget "climate change and situations of marked economic and social inequality". "While I entrust each one to the intercession of St Francis of Assisi, singer of creation and craftsman of peace, I send my paternal Blessing, asking everyone to please pray for me," the Pope concluded.

The redditometer could only be the topic of the first question to Minister Salvini, who participated in one of the first meetings of the day: 'The redditometer is a legacy of the past. Wealth and welfare are not evil. The state must not prosecute on the basis of assumptions. It must incentivise. It is an error of path, largely overcome,' the minister said. As for pensions, 'the goal is to allow young people to work before the age of thirty, but it is clear that if you keep people over a certain age in the workplace the spaces in companies, shops, hospitals for 25, 30 year olds never open up. So I think that by the end of the parliamentary term, definitively overcoming the Fornero law is an economic and social moral duty, and then with the other ministers we will find the necessary balance. Let it be an option eh, because who feels good even at 80'. Lastly, 'given that the job of the minister of infrastructure is to 'do public works', the goal is to 'open construction sites by 2024' for the construction of the bridge over the Strait of Messina. It is a work that serves 'not me but the country, millions of Italians' and on the environmental front that 'will remove 100,000 tonnes of CO2'.

The day is then enriched by the presence of two of the five Nobel laureates expected at the Festival. Yemeni politician and activist Tawakkol Karman, who was awarded the prize in 2011 for her non-violent battle in favour of women's safety and their right to full participation in peace-building, will take part in a discussion on children's right to happiness, with Enzo Cursio (activist candidate for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize), Enzo Fortunato (spokesperson for St. Peter's Papal Basilica), Fabio Tamburini, director of Il Sole 24 Ore, Radio 24 and Radiocor and chairman of the festival's scientific committee. "We must be able to tell our sons and daughters that those who commit the atrocious crimes we are seeing are punished. I want to congratulate the International Criminal Court in The Hague on its request to issue arrest warrants" against Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity," said Karman who, recalling that it is children and women who suffer the effects of wars, recalled that in Palestine "30,000 children have died so far". Those who pay the price of war, "of all wars, are civilians, women and children". "We must stop the occupation of Palestine by Israel, there are possibilities to do so, on the basis of UN resolutions, to save those children whose future is being taken away. The same,' Karman added, 'is happening in Ukraine'. Karman strongly emphasised that all boys and girls have 'the right to be born happy and to live happily. This means that they must have the full right to education and health, to drinking water, to services, to electricity, to live in countries and situations that are not subject to tyranny and corruption, with the full right of expression'. Introducing the panel, Director Tamburini recalled that war 'has once again become a widespread tool, with almost 60 conflicts going on right now. Wars,' he said, 'are no longer the result of local conflicts but a real method, as if the lesson of the world wars had been forgotten'. Father Enzo Fortunato, spokesperson for St. Peter's Papal Basilica, wanted to emphasise that "children have become blackmail merchandise. Pope Francis,' he recalled, 'wants to put the reality of children back at the centre, asking ourselves first of all what future we want to give our children'. Reiterating the importance of the role of schools and teachers, and recalling the issue of the denatality that affects Italy, Father Fortunato made a reminder to politics of its responsibilities and the role of the West.

Then it was the turn of 2006 Nobel Prize winner in economics Edmund Phelps who spoke about his journey through economic ideas and theories. Governments 'should not adopt programmes that take people out of work and they should do things that can be satisfying regardless of whether they have little commercial value'. This was one of the lessons the Nobel laureate delivered to the audience of students who listened to him for an hour as part of the first day of the Festival of Economics. Phelps, one of the leading exponents of the new Keynesian macroeconomics, who was awarded the Nobel Prize almost twenty years ago for clarifying the understanding of the relationships between the short-term and long-term effects of economic policies, spoke about his long journey through economics ideas and theories, from the hypothesis of the natural rate of unemployment linked to the concept of job-search models to the characteristics of welfare economics and public finance to the post-Keynesian debate. Central was his 'correction'' of the 'Phillips curve' (when inflation is high, unemployment is low and vice versa): according to the American economist, inflation does not only depend on unemployment, but also on the expectations of firms and workers regarding the future development of prices and wages. Up to the latest elaborations. For Phelp, the great challenge today is how to restore dynamism to economic growth, a condition of which is to promote, safeguard 'the broad creativity' that is based on the capacity for innovation that starts with individuals. In this context, 'removing obstacles to such a process, creating new production, reforming hierarchical structures in the workplace, everything that prevents the transmission of new ideas'. And also, the economist adds, 'improve worker morale with higher wages. As well as recognising that economists also need to address the need for people to live a life that makes sense, a life of which having an engaging job is an important part.