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The Gallois Report and France's efforts to improve competitiveness under the Hollande administration.

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The elections in Italy in Feb. 2013 show the centre left coalition headed by Pier Luigi Bersani with 29.6% of the votes in the lower house, the centre right coalition headed by Silvio Berlusconi with 29.2% of the votes, the Five Star Movement headed by Beppe Grillo with 25.6% of the votes, and the Civic Choice headed by Mario Monti with 10.6% of the vote. In the Senate the results show the centre left coalition with 31.6% of the vote, the centre right with 30.7%, the Five Star Movement with 23.8%, and Civic Choice with 9.1%. Election rules in Italy give the party with the highest number of votes for the lower house an automatic majority of 340 of 630 seats. The vote shows voter protest over austerity measures. This benefitted both the centre right and the Five Star Movement and hurt the Civic Choice centrist party of Mario Monti which implemented austerity measures in 2012. The centre left was affected by its role in coming to the aid of Monte de Paschi bank in Siena and failing to mount a strong campaign under Bersani. A majority in both houses is needed to provide a stable coalition government which opens the prospect of new elections. The Five Star Movement emerged as the largest single party. Its support comes from young people, internet based campaigning, and a rejection of the right and left parties from the old order in Italian politics, and offers a new dimension to Italy's political future....

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Sovereign government funds from Asia and the Middle East have invested $37 billion in US financial companies. And another $15 billion in investments may be made in coming months.

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Biden's student loan cancellation plan is targeted at low income people who are struggling to make a living and for whom it means putting less food on the table. The plan eliminates the debt of millions of borrowers because about one third of borrowers owe about $10,000. The plan cancels $10,000 in debt for people making below $125,000 and extends this to $20,000 for the poorest borrowers who received Pell Mell grant loans. A Columbia University study shows that the loan default rate for borrowers without a college degree is 40% and that for borrowers with a college degree is 8%. Biden said when unfolding the plan that these people have the worst of both worlds no college degree and student loans to pay off. College degrees give borrowers a much higher income. Biden's plan is to also cap payments on loans to 5% of discretionary income as opposed to 10% or 15% that it is today. The effects are also not understood by most economists. For a society to do well over the next 10 years to 20 years, 2030 or 2035, it has to increase opportunities for all its citizens. Young people with these burdensome loans grew up in a period when unrestrained so called "free markets" distorted markets and manipulated public opinion to favor a small segment of the people, leading to a false concept that 12 years of universal instruction were enough. Biden pointed this out and the importance of higher education beyond these 12 years to compete in the world in manufacturing and technology. The income and wealth generated by this investment in the people is what made America what it was in the early post war years. The income and wealth created will more than pay for not just removing a big part of this burden but also extending universal instructiuon beyond 12 years in future legislation. Rerouting some of the waste in capital allocation of so-called "free markets" alone could more than pay for most of these investments, with extra for additional investments in science and technology that would make the US what it was, the most advanced and highly educated society in the world. ...

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Germany benefits from the lower value of the euro in relation to other currencies. Germany's exports to the eurozone as a percentage of all exports increased from 38.4% in 2009 to 41.7% in 2011, according to the Germany Federal Statistical Office and the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce. Exports to China increased from 4.64% to 6.11%, and to Asia from 11.8% to 13.73%, and to the U.S. from 6.77% to 6.95%. This increases the gap between Germany and other eurozone countries with smaller exports. Ireland with its large export base and foreign investment is likely to benefit from the lower euro. German companies VW, BMW, Mercedes, Heidelberg Cement and EADS also benefit from the weaker euro. France's Peugeot with sales concentrated in Europe does not benefit from the weaker euro compared to German auto companies with higher sales overseas, especially in China.

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Early opinion polls show Macron the more convincing candidate in the first television debate held in March with 29 percent in an Elabe poll, with Le Pen at 19 percent. An OpinionWay poll shows Macron more convincing at 24 percent and Le Pen at 19 percent. Polls show Le Pen winning 27 percent of the vote in the first round with candidate Fillon on the right and Melenchon, Hamon on the left splitting the vote. In the second round with two candidates the vote shift of other right and left candidates determines the outcome. The second round then hinges on whether French middle and working class voters see risks to their economic future in leaving the EU, and whether appeals to nationalism and anti-immigrant rhetoric works enough to draw support from a centrist candidate.

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So far the Italian government has already recovered $15 billion for 2011 in its fight against tax evasion. The fight includes an advertising campaign depicting tax evasion as anti-social activity and vigorous enforcement by tax officials and the financial police. Italy has already banned cash transactions to reduce possibilities for evading taxes. This problem is severe in Italy because the underground economy is about 17.5% of GDP. An estimated $150 billion is lost to the Italian treasury from tax evasion. As a result Italy has a chronic budget deficit problem and is not able to make necessary investments in improving competitiveness to keep up with other countries. This may be one of the lasting achievements of the new administration of Mario Monti, along with its efforts to change the way the public thinks about other issues including labor laws that place large burdens on small companies in hiring practices. Italians sense the need to change the way they think about taxes because this is one way to reduce the burden of austerity measures- higher tax revenues could enable lowering taxes. It would also enable investing in improving competitiveness that would the economy grow and provide the jobs to reduce the high unemployment rate among young workers. One of the lasting positive aspects of the eurozone crisis is the change in the way the people and society think about many issues....

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Efforts to change labor laws by Italy's prime minister, Mario Monti.

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The strong showing by National Front leader Marie Le Pen and her focus on the economy in France, and the lack of growth with austerity measures, is likely to change the way the eurozone countries respond to the deficits and German insistence on austerity cuts. Marie Le Pen's economic positions for more government spending to reduce unemployment and provide additional benefits is closer to Socialist candidate Hollande's position. The right wing party in Holland also voiced the same concern recently- that it did not want to hurt Dutch pensioners with austerity cuts- when it refused to support the Dutch government leading to its collapse and new elections.

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The WSJ's Christopher Emsden and Alessandra Galloni's interview with Italy's Labor Minister, Elsa Fornero, after major changes to Italy's labor laws including Article 18. This is a major change for Italy. She describes the problems she faced and how she has tackled them to get the new labor law passed. Fornero will set up a monitoring system to ensure that the law's imprementation takes place smoothly. To make the change Fornero took apart Article 18 to its constituent elements, preserving the anti discrimination aspect and the right to appeal, but allowing employees to be terminated for economic reasons. This puts Italy on an even footing with its europartners Germany and France, and addresses one of the main reasons Italian businesses are loath to hiring new employees. It also addresses the main reason why foreign investment in the Italian economy is so scarce. In achieving this Fornero faced the lack of support from Confindustria, the business association (which does not cease to amaze her), CGIL, the labor unions, and the political class in Italy, with each side wanting to tweak the system to make gains or get special exemptions. Fornero is a pensions expert and economics professor at the University of Turin. Her ministry covers pensions, labor, welfare and equal opportunity policies....

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John Carney of the WSJ looks at the financial transactions tax proposed by 2016 U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to pay for high college tution costs.

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WSJ's Chuin-Wei Yap provides a glimpse of life in Chengdu with the closing of the Panchenggang steel factory. The Chengdu Iron and Steel factory was started in 1958 under Mao's effort at industrialization. The city depended on the huge steel complex for jobs as generation after generation worked at the same factory. The factory was closed in 2015. Mr. Deng is a laid off worker who gets $24,000 in buyout following 26 years at the plant, and 1500 yuan or about $235 month for 2 years of unemployment benefits with required retraining classes. Economic uncertainty is faced by many laid off workers, worrying about children's college education, spouses doing odd jobs, including a pedicab run by Mr. Deng's wife. About 2 million workers in China work in steel factories, with production having reached extremely high level of overcapacity of 800 million tons. With the plant gone, the local hospital Panchenggang District Hospital, is restructured and bought by a private company, 115 doctors and other staff are offered buyouts....

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India's demographics show one startling fact. By 2020, the average age of Indians will be 29. This is happening just as the rest of the world is aging very fast. In the next 15 years India will have 130 million more people in the 20 to 49 age group. This compares with a shrinking in population of 100 million in that age group in developed countries and China, according to the U.N. Population Division. The problem facing India is malnutrition that runs as high as 43% for children with half the mothers anemic, weak educational system at the primary and secondary school levels especially in the government run schools, lack of good governance in the most populated states such as Uttar Pradesh in the Ganges plains which has 200 million people, the consequent overburdening of cities which have no plans to manage the migration of the rural poor to the cities. India has to find ways to fill the huge gaps in getting better nutrition, education, dignity and sense of opportunity, and work for the growing numbers....

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Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, compares the growing cronyism in the U.S. and the lack of social mobility to the situation in Italy where he grew up, and where the economy has stagnated over the last decade with fewer opportunities for the younger generation.