意大利公投将再次重创欧元？

欧盟可谓一波未平一波又起。目前，欧盟还在努力应对英国脱欧公投造成的影响，意大利又将在周日举行公投，这可能进一步冲击欧元。公投的支持者认为，公投提议的修宪将结束意大利立法程序的混乱和僵化。而反对者却表示，修宪会毁灭代议民主制度，使意大利进入威权主义的新时期。

现年41岁的意大利总理马泰奥•伦齐，以改革与复兴的天真口号上台掌权。他承诺如果在周日公投中，意大利选民反对修宪，他将辞去总理职位。而这可能会引发意大利的另一项公投；不过，这一场公投将由五星运动党（Five Star Movement）的领导人、原喜剧演员贝佩•格里罗主导。五星运动党希望举行脱离欧元区的公投。换言之，如果公投结果不支持修宪，将会进一步加剧全球市场波动，使这一计划雪上加霜。六月份的脱欧公投，已经使欧盟陷入前所未有的存在性焦虑。

而如果意大利选民支持修宪，布鲁塞尔和世界主要金融中心肯定会长舒一口气。

但事实证明，周日公投的结果很难预测。这不止是因为在今年民意调查出现严重失误（脱欧公投、特朗普）之后，全球对民调的可靠性产生了广泛质疑。为了保证选前宁静，意大利采取了一种激进的方式，这在以国民健谈（或许正是出于这个原因）著称的意大利是极其罕见的：政府特别在公共广场强调投票的“私密性”（毕竟意大利在1988年才废除议会不记名投票），各大机构也努力确保在投票之前的这段时间，最大程度减少干扰，让国民安静、沉默、单独行使投票权。

尤其是在这场意大利政治运动的最后两周，更是禁止进行民意调查。

由于自11月19日以来，没有公布任何对周日公投的民意调查结果，因此意大利和全球媒体得以从自我强加的义务中解放了出来，不必再盲目地跟踪报道最新的民调结果变化。但面对新获得的自由，媒体怎么办？多数媒体都在重复管制阶段开始之前公布的最后民调结果。所有结果均显示反对阵营领先，受此影响，意大利政府债券收益率大幅提高。

或许是最近意识到了过度依赖民意调查的谬误，媒体和投资者将全球波动性面临的下一次严峻考验，看作是继续过度依赖民意调查的机会。“万变不离其宗”用意大利语怎么说？

而Predata的调查结果却显示出截然相反的情况。Predata调查了公投双方阵营的网络宣传活动吸引的参与度水平。

Predata的数据显示出意大利公投的选情变化

9、10月份的网络宣传活动均以反对阵营为主导，与民调结果相符，但在11月初，支持阵营开始发力。在民意调查管制开始后的10天内，支持阵营的势头加快，现在，支持阵营的网络宣传活动已经“领先”。

需要说明的是：调查结果并不代表预测意大利选民会在周日支持伦齐的修宪主张。我们得出的分数也不能代替民意调查。但这些数据却向我们揭示了对公投的讨论所发生变化，而且或许具有重要意义的是，支持阵营在网上的势头强劲，比反对阵营吸引了更多网民的关注，这主要得益于支持阵营的几条出色的宣传广告，以及加纳出生的21岁音乐人贝罗•菲戈发行的一首支持修宪的说唱歌曲在年轻人当中引起的热烈反响。

在实行民调管制前几周，民意调查结果均显示，25%的选民仍未做出决定。此外，国内民调并不包括意大利规模庞大的海外人口，该群体约占全国4,700万合格选民的8%。这均意味着，在解读管制开始前的民调结果时，应该像制作煮意大利面的水一样：要加上足够多的盐，才能与地中海的水相媲美。

民意调查“遗漏”的选票，极有可能决定周日公投的结果。我们的调查对自然状态下的在线参与方式进行了解读，它们没有受到民调公司各种提示的干扰和引导。数据显示，支持阵营及其政治改革和组建高效率政府的主张，可能正在引起越来越多人的兴趣，这是管制开始前的民意调查未能捕捉到的。

公平地说，部分感兴趣的选民可能来自尚未做出决定的选民和海外选民。最近几周，双方阵营都在努力吸引海外选民，但Predata对网络宣传活动的监控数据显示，支持阵营的网络宣传活动，吸引海外选民的效率远远高于反对阵营。

我们的数据显示网络上的势头正在向支持阵营转变之后，博彩市场也开始向类似的方向变化。这并不意味着支持阵营肯定会赢得周日的公投，但却证明，公投结果并不会像反对阵营支持者所预测的那样，导致意大利和欧洲的建制派彻底崩溃。 （财富中文网）

作者：Aron Timms

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

One crisis barely over and another begins. As the European Union continues to grapple with the fallout from Britain’s Brexit vote, Italians will vote this Sunday in a referendum that could further shake the Euro. Supporters say the constitutional reforms proposed in the referendum would end the chaos and sclerosis of Italy’s legislative process. Detractors say they would kill representative democracy and usher in a new period of authoritarianism.

Matteo Renzi, the 41-year-old prime minister who vaulted to power three years ago on a cherubic cloud of reform and renewal, has pledged to resign should Italians reject Sunday’s referendum. This could trigger fresh elections; elections could hand power, in turn, to Beppe Grillo, a former comedian and leader of the Five Star Movement (M5S), a coalition that wants to hold a referendum on leaving the Euro. A No vote, in other words, could spell further volatility in global markets and heap more misery on a European project already brought to unprecedented depths of existential angst by June’s Brexit vote.

If Italians vote Yes, the relief in Brussels and across the world’s major financial centers will probably be audible.

Figuring out which way Italians will vote on Sunday is proving to be a tricky task. This is more than simply a reflection of the broader global questioning of polls’ reliability in the wake of this year’s big polling misses (Brexit, Trump). Perhaps unusually for a country whose citizens have a reputation for volubility (or perhaps because of this), Italy takes an aggressive approach to electoral silence: there’s a special emphasis in the public square on the “private and secret” nature of voting (this is, after all, a nation that only abolished secret voting in parliament in 1988), and institutions work hard to ensure there is minimal interference in the period immediately preceding elections with the quiet, contemplative and solitary act of civil enfranchisement.

Polling, in particular, is prohibited in the final two weeks of Italian political campaigns.

Since there have been no polls published on Sunday’s referendum since November 19, the Italian and global press has been liberated from the self-imposed obligation to slavishly report the latest polling swings. What has it done with this new freedom? Mostly, it’s repeated the results of the final polls published before the blackout began, all of which showed No ahead. Italian government bond yields have climbed in response to No’s time-frozen lead in the polls.

Newly aware of the fallacy of over-reliance on polls, the media and investors have taken the next great test of global volatility as an opportunity to remain over-reliant on polls. What’s Italian for “plus ça change”?

Predata’s signals, which measure the level of engagement generated by each side of the referendum campaign online, tell a different story.

Predata data showing Italian referendum sentiment

The No camp dominated the digital referendum campaign for all of September and October, mirroring poll findings, but in early November, Yes began to gather momentum. That momentum has accelerated in the 10 days since the polling blackout descended, and Yes is now “ahead” in the digital campaign.

To be clear: this does not amount to a prediction that Italians will vote to approve Renzi’s reforms on Sunday. Nor do our scores replace the polls. But they do tell us something about the way discussion of the referendum is evolving, and it’s potentially significant that the Yes camp — assisted by a couple of killer campaign ads and the street cred jolt of a pro-Yes hip hop track by 21-year-old Ghana-born musician Bello FiGo — has digital momentum on its side and is now capturing more of the online public’s attention than No.

In the weeks before the blackout descended, polls consistently showed around 25% of the electorate remained undecided. Italy’s large expat population — 8% of the 47 million eligible to vote — is also excluded from domestic polling. All this means you should consume the pre-blackout polls the same way you prepare your pasta water: with enough salt to rival the Mediterranean Sea.

These votes “left out” by the polls are likely to be decisive come Sunday. Our signals, which pick up on patterns of online engagement in their natural state, unmediated and undirected by the promptings of a pollster, suggest there may be a current of interest in the Yes camp and its message of political reform and efficient government that the pre-blackout polls did not capture.

Some of this interest, it’s fair to surmise, may come from undecided and expat voters. Both sides have worked hard to woo overseas voters in recent weeks, but Predata’s monitoring of the digital campaign suggests the Yes camp’s digital expat outreach has been more effective than No’s.

In the wake of the swing in digital momentum toward Yes revealed through our signals, the betting markets have begun to move in a similar direction. That doesn’t mean Yes is certain to win on Sunday. But it does suggest that the result will be far from the hearty “vaffanculo” to the Italian and European establishment that No’s boosters predict.