Banks, local credit markets and credit supply

The volume collects the papers presented at the Conference on "Banks, Local Credit Markets and Credit Supply" held in Milan, on 24 March 2010. The papers presented at the two sessions of the Conference analyse how banks' lending activities are organized and how this affects the supply of credit to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The first session focuses on new lending technologies and banking organization. The second session studies how these organizational variables affect the lending activity to SMEs. The papers draw on the results of a sample survey of more than 300 Italian banks conducted by the Bank of Italy in 2007.