Sovereign Funds: A New Observatory in Bocconi

The research and debate on sovereign funds, a crucial theme at the moment in international finance, has now found a new point of reference in Bocconi: the Paolo Baffi Research Center on Central Banking and Financial Regulation, directed by Donato Masciandaro, has in fact created a specific observatory on sovereign funds, the Sovereign Investment Lab, placed under the direction of Bernardo Bortolotti, professor at Turin University and fellow at the Paolo Baffi Center.

The Sovereign Investment Lab has an "ambitious and fundamental objective", explains Bortolotti: "The crisis has highlighted how much governments have become ever more important actors in investment and, thus, detailed research on the risks and opportunities that this brings is very necessary. We would like that the new observatory becomes the most accredited source on a global scale for research on sovereign funds or other subjects which have the state as the reference shareholder." A necessity which also arises from the fact, explains Bortolotti, "that the investments of sovereign funds are often opaque and politically sensitive. Starting from data is thus crucial to understand the phenomenon but also to draw up strategies and policies."The Lab "which will avail of internal and external competnces", concludes Bortolotti, will produce, apart from the normal academic research, also an annual report on sovereign funds and will organize specific conferences involving the main actors of the sector. The first document is expected in the spring of 2012.The Lab will be officially inaugurated on November 17 in occasion of the Baffi Center's seminar "Curbing Volatility?Financial Markets, Credit Rating Agencies and Sovereign Investment Funds" (2pm, Room E4-sr03, 4^th floor, via Roentgen 1), which will seek answers to a fundamental question: through which instruments can we contain the explosion of volatility of financial markets and promote long-term investment in times of crisis? The seminar will investigate in particular the role of rating agencies as operators of auto-regulation and of global sovereign funds, analyzing the risks and opportunities of involving these vehicles for state property in the capital of listed companies, with particular reference to the European and Italian context.

In the seminar will participate, among others, Donato Masciandaro, Bernardo Bortolotti, Marcello Sala (Intesa Sanpaolo), Giovanni Ferri (Università di Bari) and Winnie P.H. Poon (Lingnan University, Hong Kong).