Main Topics:
- Finance and international markets with a specialization in risk hedging techniques (forex, raw materials, interest rates). When will companies be able to consider the costs of coverage as an insurance cost?
- international commodity markets:
- commodity geopolitics (the impact of the war in Ukraine on commodity markets has dramatically hit the front pages of the press)
- analysis of the main raw materials markets: energy, grains, base, precious and strategic metals, soft (all these sectors live different cycles, but the present cycle will not last only a decade, but at least thirty years …)
- the green revolution in energy production and consumption … with a huge impact on the supply/demand in different markets (in particular base and strategic metals with the explosion of their demand)
- the main challenges of the future (water, food, air, pollution, population, world income distribution, health, education and information)
- logistics: the other side of the coin of raw materials … in the past, goods travelled on ships; now they travel in containers carried by ships and the ship-container tandem affects logistics …
- Economic history (of markets, of various commodities, of civilizations) … when people drive in an uncertain world it is always useful to take a look in the rear view mirror …
- Central Banks: after years of glory and success they have entered the phase “from the pan to the fire” (… their consumption of aspirin pills is exploding …)
In other words, this list is an overview of the subjects I follow for personal interest and that I teach to students of the Master and post graduate courses, for which I have written numerous notes.
The fact that I regularly participate to the meetings of the Cyclope Club allows me to be informed about the evolution of the markets and problems and, above all, to cultivate intense contacts with experts working in these markets (traders, brokers, shipowners, producers, consumers, bankers and insurers specialized in international trade, market analysts). I have numerous contacts with economists of various central banks.
Professional Profile:
He studied at the Scuola d’Ammnistrazione Industriale (Sammi – Turin University) and he holds the BBA and the MBA in Management Sciences (note of the final thesis: 110/110, summa cum laude and special mention of the Jury– winner of the national CIRIEC price for the best dissertation in Finance in Italy– academic year 1973). He followed some post-graduate studies at Genoa University (Int’l Finance and Economic History), at Berkeley (Int’ Economics and Economic History with Prof. CM Cipolla) and he attended the Salzburg Seminars-Harvard (Int’l Economics and Multinational Corporate Enterprises).
He worked for Fiat Co. (Int’l Development Dept. and for the same company he worked at the Hudson Institute in New York with Hermann Kahn). As a Grain Trader and Investment Manager he worked for Cargill in Milan, Geneva, Paris and Amsterdam and for UBS (Zurich-Edelmetall Abteilung and Chief Trader in Paris).
Deeply interested by the commodity world, he became the senior economist for NLMP (Commodity broker at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris) and he spent more than 20 years with Tradition in Paris, where he was the Group World Chief Economist.
After the early experience as a tutor at the Sammi (he taught Economics in Italian), he is teaching at Institut Supérieur de Gestion – Paris (Markets Finance, Int’l Economics, Economic History of Finance, Top Economic Challenges in French and English), at the Business School of Paris (Corporate Int’l Development – in French and English), at Sciences Po-IEP – Paris (Commodity Markets – seminars in English), at AMISTADES-Rome (lectures in Italian on commodities), at LSE – London (post-graduate conferences of commodities subjects in English), at INSEEC – Paris (Commodities: risks and hedging in French and English).
Here the titles of his latest books he wrote:
- Mythes et légendes économiques (Paris – éd. Economica – 2007)
- Money Tales (London – Economica Press – 2007)
- Au Temps des Comptoirs, with Philippe Chalmin (Paris, éd Bourin, 2010)
- Le nerf de la guerre (Paris, éd. de Taillac – 2013 – winner of the price of the French Military Academy of Saint-Cyr)
- Quand le fer coûtait plus cher que l’or (Paris, éd. Fayard – 2015, translated in Spanish, Korean, Mandarin; the book will be issued in Italy early March 2023)
- Vingt histoires pour comprendre l’économie (Paris, éd. J’ai-lu/Librio, 2016)
- Or, argent et folies des grandeurs (Paris, éd. Economica, 2016)
- Histoires extraordinaires des matières premières (Paris, éd. Bourin, 2017 – translated in Italian – winner of the price Città di Pontremoli, 2020)
- Nouvelles histoires extraordinaires des matières premières (Paris, éd. Bourin, 2017 – translated in Italian)
- La courtisane du Rialto – Novel – Paris, éd. L’Harmattan, 2018 (winner of the price Città di Pontremoli for the best novel in foreign language – price of the Alliance Française – 2019)
- La toge rouge et la courtisane (Novel – Paris, éd. L’Harmattan, 2018
- Le Lion et la courtisane (Novel – Paris, éd. L’Harmattan, 2019)
- L’auberge du Tramway (Novel – Paris, éd. L’Harmattan, 2020)
- Several papers published by: Nomisma (Bologna), Central Banking (London), Cyclope (Parigi), Banca d’Italia Research (Roma). He contributes to IL SOLE-24 ORE, Corriere della Sera (since 1971 he is a member of the Italian Press Association)
He is a member of the Société d’Économie Politique de Paris and of the Club Cyclope-Paris (group specialized in commodity research).