Despite successive reforms, public procurement in Italy is still highly fragmented and vulnerable to collusion, corruption and ex-post renegotiation. Other defects are found in the planning stages of the works. These problems are due in part to the regulations on the awarding of public works...

Risky investment projects make the coordination among small, uninformed investors hard to achieve, and generate inefficient low levels of investment. Several authors have pointed out the benefits to an economy from multiple avenues of financial intermediation. This paper explains endogenously...