High-speed Internet, or broadband, access is an essential infrastructure that has been proven to stimulate competition, productivity and growth and it is considered the engine of the so called knowledge-information economy. In this paper, we first provide a technical survey of the standard...

Credit purchases of consumer goods are commonly made upon terms governed by an agreement between the lender and the seller. This type of purchase is generally subject to a legal principle of joint responsibility under which the lender and the seller are jointly liable to the consumer for breach...

The Italian and European regulatory framework for patents would benefit from further improvements in order to foster dynamic competition between Italian firms. At the national level the exclusive allocation of the right to patent inventions to universities, rather than to researchers, would...

In this paper we investigate the relationship between the number of lawyers and civil litigation across Italian provinces over the period 2000-2005. First, we document the existence of a positive correlation between the number of lawyers and litigation. We then employ a 2SLS approach to verify...

In recent years, banks have become increasingly aware of the credit risk borne in lending in the interbank market and they select their counterparties accordingly. They may also fear that if they come across a bad borrower, rescue plans will be skewed towards domestic creditors; moreover,...

Several factors contribute to attracting foreign investment: cyclical, such as demand fluctuations; structural, such as industrial specialization or the presence of natural resources; fiscal policy, including taxes; political, such as social stability and country governance; and finally, the...

The paper analyzes the relationship between barriers to entry and employment in the Italian retail trade sector. In Italy the opening of large outlets is regulated at the regional level. By using differences-in-differences estimators I study the effects of the rules implemented in Abruzzo and...

There has been a significant increase in project financing in the public sector in Europe in the past decade, benefiting the implementation of infrastructure projects. In Italy, project financing is still much more limited than in such countries as Spain and the UK: the projects funded are...

The paper summarizes the framework used in a research project on local public services carried out by Bank of Italy researchers. It discusses motivations, characteristics, results and general lessons of the project, whose sector-specific results are detailed in individual papers. The project was...

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...