have downgraded, sometimes rather severely, our sovereign rating. of course, we may voice our discontent with the rating agencies ’ evaluation. at times, rating agencies themselves have facilitated our criticism. indeed, i find it hard to understand how an earnest rating agency might assess sovereign risk without even referring to that country ’ s level of public debt and international reserves. as a professor, i can safely assume that the “ subject is not treated ”, hence the conclusion is unsubstantiated. as concerns these assessments, i must say however that things are not in the least that simple. of course, we could assert that at present our economy is in a better position than those of other countries in the region rated within the “ investment grade ” range. but those countries have at least adopted austerity measures at domestic level. how do things stand in our country? after two consecutive years of wage increases in a range from 20 percent to 25 percent per year – i. e. more than twice the labour productivity gains – the wage rises envisaged for 2009 ranged between 50 percent and 60 percent, whereas the agreements with the trade unions, whenever struck, do not provide for hikes lower than 35 percent. such an approach reveals a dangerous decoupling between aspirations and reality. in the current international context and given the already dangerously high level of external deficit, we must not aim at further increases in domestic consumption above labour productivity gains, since there are no more financing sources for something like that. and unless we understand this state of affairs ourselves, rating agencies are going to warn us. and if we act so as to reach wage agreements and even compile laws that are not backed by real economic resources, and if demand – potential at this moment – becomes real and immediate, we might witness some of the worst effects possible. the wage rise will not bring about a higher living standard – on the contrary, all the accomplishments made in terms of economic stability, investment expansion and growth potential over the past years might dissipate very easily. as i have already stated before the parliament of romania, should the improvement of the living standard boil down to a matter of willingness and political decisions, there would no longer be poor countries anywhere in the world. it is true that the economic press tackles this issue in a balanced manner. the economic press evolved significantly over the past decade. now we have dedicated publications, even dedicated tv channels, a financial analysts ’ market, which is ultimately indicative of a mature romanian

harnessing big data & machine learning technologies for central banks opening remarks by the deputy governor of the bank of italy fabio panetta rome, 26 march 2018 it is my great pleasure to open this workshop on ‘ harnessing big data & machine learning technologies for central banks ’, and to welcome the speakers and participants. i would like to take this opportunity to thank the organizers for putting together such a broad and topical program. big data and machine learning are the products of digital technology, whose widespread adoption has important implications for how communication occurs, education is delivered, and knowledge is spread. as we become accustomed to the new digital environment, we are seeing significant shifts in society. around 80 per cent of europe ’ s citizens own a smartphone, personal computer or tablet. the internet is widely used to gather information, communicate and carry out activities that directly or indirectly affect people ’ s behavior. in italy 80 per cent of consumers have access to the internet via a smartphone ; half of them have direct access to their checking account and buy goods and services online. around one third of italian firms has automated both administrative and back - office activities. the effects of these changes are particularly evident in the financial sector. globally, the number of users of payment solutions offered by tech giants such as apple, google, samsung or android has risen from 18 to 144 million in the last two years alone. amazon lending1 issued more than one billion dollars in loans last year ( from june 2016 to june 2017 ), three times more than the average over the previous five years. in broad terms big data is the application of new techniques to digital information on a size and scale that extends well beyond traditional approaches. 2 the word ‘ big ’ encompasses the volume, diversity and speed with which the data are generated. this idea is synthesized in the three v ’ s : volume, velocity and variety, as illustrated below. amazon lending, the lending arm of amazon, is a financing service for firms selling through the amazon platform. lohr, s., ‘ how big data became so big ’, the new york times, 11 august ( 2012 ). figure big data : expanding on three fronts at an increasing rate data velocity mb gb tb pb data volume data variety central banks could, and definitely should, play an active role in exploiting digital technologies and the enormous amount of data they generate. the flow of high - volume, high - velocity and high - variety information on agents ’ preferences and choices can be put to good purpose by policy makers