The Spanish economy entered a deep recession in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A strong government response has protected jobs and firms. However, the crisis has exacerbated long-standing structural challenges, such as high unemployment, inequalities and regional disparities.

This book addresses the fundamental changes that the Italian public utilities sector has undergone in the last two decades. Since the late 1990s, liberalisation and privatisation have replaced state-owned monopolies at both the national and local level, new technologies have created a broad range of new opportunities for power generation and distribution, and a redesigned public policy agenda has brought to the fore a whole set of new priorities. In this fast-changing environment, firms have redrawn their strategies, redesigned their business architectures and models, invested in infrastructure and R&D, taken advantage of growth opportunities at home and abroad, opened up their ownership structure, revised their offerings, and developed a new approach to customers. As a result, a radically altered market structure has emerged. As the sector tackles the overriding challenge of sustainability and energy transition, the book takes stock of such past and ongoing developments through the direct testimonies of various stakeholders: the companies in the energy, water, and waste management sectors that are at the forefront of this sweeping transformation; regulators; financial partners; and management consulting firms. The diversity of perspectives and wealth of information presented make this book a valuable resource for anyone wanting to grasp the direction, intensity and causes of change, as well as the nature of the challenges that lie ahead. This work has been prepared as part of the research activities of the Observatory on Alliances and Strategies in the Pan-European Utility Market, one of Agici’s Research and Advisory units.

In Worthy Efforts Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly offer an innovative approach to the history of perceptions and representations of work in Europe throughout Classical Antiquity and the medieval and early modern periods.