can we rely on directives with national leeway in their implementation or do we need to make use of regulations that are directly applicable? as regards actors, there is the question of where we should rely on decentralised application of common rules and where we need institutions at eu level to implement common rules? what functions could be performed, for example, by the european supervisory authorities, whose activities and tasks are currently being reviewed in brussels? as regards geographical scope, it is important that we strive to make the capital markets union a project of the eu28 to reinforce the single financial market as a whole. nevertheless, it is clear that the euro area has a particular interest in increased financial integration to pave the road towards a genuine monetary and economic union. conclusions let me conclude. some may argue that the capital markets union is old wine in new bottles. i disagree. what is old are the problems that we need to overcome. but for that we need new measures that we have not previously been able to implement – either because of a lack of political will or because of an insufficiently clear plan on how to implement them. art. 114 of the tfeu gives a clear mandate for this purpose. the capital markets union is not so much about a couple of high - profile actions but more about a larger series of less visible initiatives. and that is why we need the capital markets union as connector and label. to operate with this term will help to raise awareness, to define overall objectives, to prioritise resources and to ensure consistency of the individual measures. ladies and gentlemen, the overall situation of the european economy makes it abundantly clear that we cannot wait for a miracle to end a period of low growth. we are not out of the danger zone. the patient is still fragile and unfortunately relapses cannot be ruled out. as i have explained, a capital markets union can provide very important impulses for both economic recovery and financial stability. i am aware that some of the proposals are ambitious and cannot be implemented overnight. but the fact that the incoming president of the european commission has already taken up the idea makes me optimistic. the challenge in the coming months will be to create greater political awareness of the enormous importance of this highly technical area for europe ’ s economy. at the same time, i want to point out that a capital markets union cannot be our only area of action. financial policy, fiscal policy and economic policy are all equally important to keep the recovery on track. governance of

as development progresses inequality first increases and then starts decreasing as income grows, was confirmed until the 1970s with inequality decreasing since the period before world war i. the increase of inequality since the 1970s however, has disproved the hypothesis. a subsequent kuznets ’ inequality decline phase, with the same causes of the first ( higher taxes and transfers, wars, revolutions, hyperinflation and nationalisations ) seems quite unlikely at present. on the other hand, according to atkinson, piketty or milanovic, effective changes would require interventions at the level of market results by operating changes in endowments, which seem unlikely to happen. indeed, the type of measures they refer to could include wealth taxes, meaningful inheritance taxes, employee share ownership plans ( esops ) and share distributions28, birth endowments in the form of financial assets, for example. 29 most of these are seen by many economists as distortions detrimental to economic efficiency. usually, this concept refers to potential pareto improvements occurring when the income winners could compensate the losers, even if they do not do it. these are usually referred to as “ welfare enhancing ” consequences which, obviously, do not include any considerations about distribution while pretend to be the basis of “ scientific ” economic advice. maybe the normative word “ welfare ” in this narrow sense is an ambiguous misnomer that we should no longer use. this does not imply that economists should stop giving advice on economic efficiency and growth which are of course essential to reduce poverty and inequality. at the same time, we should be aware that all policies involve trade - offs and have distributional consequences, which are often forgotten or concealed. that is why gunnar myrdal underlined that economics could hardly be value neutral : he proposed that the only acceptable approach was for a researcher to disclose his values not hiding a pretense of science. 30 on this point, at the american economic association annual meeting in 1973, in a lecture about thorstein veblen, kenneth arrow reminded us that : “ the world is indeed full of injustices and the writings of economists full of attempts to disguise them ". 31 unfortunately, this has continued to hold true for a long time but, hopefully, much has started to change over the last few years, in the aftermath of the crisis. thank you for your attention. 1 krusell, p. ( 2017 ), “ akmww : a weapon of mass creation? ”, comment on ahn, kaplan, moll