This has been my first research topic, as well as the subject of my PhD thesis. I investigated with Prof. Manzocchi the degree of capital mobility in developing and emerging countries, as well as the role of macroeconomic fundamentals in external debt crises. I then studied the relation between the fiscal and the external deficit in OECD countries, as well as in the Eurozone peripheral countries. I am now studying the role played by external disequilibria in the Eurozone crisis.

I investigated the role of China in global external imbalances using an aggregate macroeconometric model of the global economy. I co-organised in Pescara a conference on small-business industrial clusters in China and Italy, and I am now co-editing a special issue of China Economic Review reporting the best conference papers.

I investigated the impact of structural breaks on the empirical performance of Thirlwall law. I then extended this law to a multicountry setting, and used it to investigate the impact of developing Asia on Sub-Saharan Africa's growth performance (with A. Rieber and A.-D. Tran). I also plan to use this framework to explain the build-up of the current Eurozone crisis.

I coauthored with prof. Carlucci the first aggregate model of the Eurozone published in a refereed journal. I further developed this project by embedding the Eurozone model in a model of the world economy. I used the latter model for several scenario analysis, including an evaluation of the ECB monetary policy, and of the impact of a yuan revaluation on the US external deficit.