In this paper, we test whether micro firms run by migrants pay more for credit than firms run by natives and whether the differences in the cost of credit for these two groups of entrepreneurs decrease as the informational and cultural gaps narrow. We employ a large and unique data set providing...

In this article we test whether Italian female entrepreneurs are more reliable payers than men, by carrying out a survival analysis of micro enterprises that utilize a credit for the first time in the period January 2005 to December 2008, and monitoring the quality of their exposure until...

We analyze data from the Bank of Italy's most recent recruitment rounds, in an effort to explain why men consistently score better than women. We focus on the pre-screening stage of the hiring process, a multiple-choice test, where men acquire a preliminary advantage. After observing a higher...

The paper estimates the gender wage gap in Italy, taking into account two salient features of the economy: the low rate of women�s labour market participation and the high share of self-employment. It exploits the Bank of Italy�s survey on household income and wealth, which contains...

The paper evaluates gender differences in labour market transitions in Italy. Women have a lower employment rate than men, owing to their shorter periods of employment and lower probability of entering into employment. The shorter duration of periods of employment for women is related to a...

The real estate sector is of particular interest from a central bank's perspective; due to its size, it directly and indirectly affects economic developments, financial stability and the monetary policy stance. The volume collects the papers by economists of the Bank of Italy and the discussions...

The book brings together a series of research papers presented at a workshop on "The trends of Italy's international tourism", held at the Bank of Italy in Rome on 22 June 2012, on occasion of the release, on Bank of Italy's website, of microdata from the Survey on international tourism in...

In this paper we present new estimates of the effect of households� financial and real wealth on consumption. The analysis makes reference to eleven OECD countries and takes into account quarterly data from 1997 to 2008. Unlike most of the previous literature on European countries, we...

In this paper I estimate the impact of changes in real and financial wealth � proxied by house and stock market prices � on private consumption for a panel of sixteen emerging economies in Asia and Central and Eastern Europe. Using recent econometric techniques for heterogeneous...

Using 11 years of monthly Italian bank-by-bank data, this paper correlates the bilateral amounts and the identity of each interbank borrower and lender with a long list of explanatory variables. The results show that interbank customer relationships, i.e. stable and strong relationships between...