As the world tries to rebalance itself after having been hit by a fast-spreading and wide-reaching financial crisis and economic recession, is Italy on the side of the countries emerging as winners or losers? Views differ according to who is asked, with foreign observers inevitably the gloomiest about Italy's future.
Earlier this year, Charles Calomiris, who is the Henry Kaufman professor of financial institutions at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, and was one of the first people to predict Argentina's debt crisis a decade ago, said that Europe's biggest concern after Greece is Italy, given that it has the continent's second highest debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, not to mention the perceived level of corruption within the country.
