On September 27-28, 2010 FEEM will host  the 12th International Biodiversity and Economics for Conservation Conference (BIOECON) entitled "From the Wealth of Nations to the Wealth of Nature: Rethinking Economic Growth". The conference is organized in association with the Basque Centre for Climate Change, Conservation International, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and the United Nations Environment Programme.

FEEM and the University of Basilicata jointly organize an international conference on biodiversity and ecosystem services with the aim of exploring the understanding between biodiversity, ecosystem health, ecosystem services and human wellbeing. The conference that will be held at the University of Basilicata on September 24, 2010 will address the identification of effective tools that help to map and quantify such complex relationships, highlighting the potential role that natural resources, in general, and ecosystems, in particular, have in promoting the wealth of communities.

The 2010 FEEM Award ceremony was held before the Adam Smith Lecture by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz at the 25th European Economic Association (EEA) congress at the University of Glasgow. The prizes were bestowed by Prof. Stiglitz, at the presence of EEA president Timothy Besley, and FEEM executive director Bernardo Bortolotti. The three winners of the second edition of the FEEM Award are: Nina Guyon with a paper entitled "The Effect of Tracking Students by Ability into Different Schools"; Benjamin Elsner with a paper entitled "Does Emigration Benefit The Stayers? The Eu Enlargement As A Natural Experiment. Evidence From Lithuania"; and Florian Mayneris with a paper entitled "Entry on Export Markets and Firm-Level Performance Growth: Intra-Industrial Convergence or Divergence".

FEEM is pleased to announce that on June 30, 2010, the FEEM 20th Anniversary Prize in Environmental Economics was awarded to Resources for the Future, Washington DC and Professor Martin L. Weitzman. The Prize ceremony took place in Montreal, Canada, during the Fourth World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists.

One year after witnessing massive injections of government capital into financial systems, 2009 saw a record volume of state sales of corporate equity - or, stated more accurately, a record volume of corporate repurchases of government-owned shares. Privatization proceeds totaled a record €184.30 billion ($265.17 billion) during 2009, but bank repurchases of government holdings of preferred shares accounted for €118.46 billion ($168.8 billion) of this record. For the first time ever, the United States was the world’s largest privatizer during 2009. China was the second largest privatizer of 2009. Find out more of 2009 privatization activity in the newly published Privatization Barometer Annual Report in partnership with KPMG.

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and Monitor Group release today the 2009 Annual SWF Report entitled "Back on Course: Sovereign Wealth Funds Activity in 2009". During 2009 the sectors and geographies in which SWFs invested have shifted in line with current global economic realities. In addition to joint ventures, SWFs showed a strong preference for energy, natural resources, and engineering- or technology-based industries, rather than the financial and real estate sectors.  SWFs also demonstrated a greater tendency to invest at home in 2009, primarily at the beginning of the year.  However, they have not retreated, and many have maintained an appetite for Western markets, especially in Europe, where funds have sought to take advantage of underpriced, high-quality assets.

The Clingendael International Energy Programme (CIEP), the Loyola de Palacio Programme of the European University Institute, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) and Wilton Park (WP) organized a four-tier project to discuss the potential for a smart EU Energy Policy. The project consisted of three workshops where academics discussed the various interactions between the three core objectives of EU energy policy with stakeholders from governments, regulators, and industry. Following the three workshops a conference took place to examine the workshop reports and to formulate overall project conclusions and recommendations. The objective of the project was to come out with a set of “smart” conclusions and recommendations for the 2010 EU energy policy review.