En el último The Economist (2 de Nov de 2006) http://www.economist.com [1]hay un artículo (“Mediterranean rivals”) muy largo pero muy interesante donde se compara a España con Italia. El citado artículo, siguiendo la misma tesis que aparece en la entrada de este mismo blog titulada “España alcanzará la renta per cápita italiana en 2009” (se puede encontrar en la pestaña de este blog denominada Economía Española), señala que “for much of the past decade Spain’s economy has been growing at around twice the EU average. At this rate, officials beam, Spain will surpass Italy in terms of GDP per head by 2009. If you account for the black economy (Italy does, Spain does not), Spaniards might be richer already. Compared with Italy, Spain has few internationally competitive small firms. It is overly dependent on construction and is “enjoying” a housing boom”. Y como dice José Luis Feito, en ese artículo del Economist, por ese motivo la economía se ha vuelto muy vulnerable a las subidas de los tipos de interés.
“Like Italy, Spain is stuck with high-cost, low-productivity businesses that are vulnerable to Chinese competition; poor schools; and low spending on research and development. Overall, however, economic success in Spain has produced a change in the public temperament of a country comparable only with that of Germany after the second world war, says Pedro Schwartz, a professor at the San Pablo CEU University in Madrid. For most of the 20th century, after defeat in the Spanish-American war of 1898 (known in Spain as “the disaster”), everybody’s favourite topic was “the problem of Spain”. Now Spain has self-confidence on steroids. Spanish companies are on acquisition sprees, first in Latin America, now in Europe”. The Economist señala también al final del artículo que dos escuelas de negocios (el Instituto de Empresa y el IESE) se encuentran permanentemente entre las 10 primeras business schools de Europa. De hecho el Instituto de Empresa, últimamente, se ha situado entre las primeras del mundo. El artículo termina señalando que Zara, “one of the world’s fastest-growing retailers, is based in Galicia”. I was born in Galicia.