This paper focuses on the issue of limited financial market participation and determines a lower bound on the level of fixed transaction costs that are required to reconcile observed portfolio choices with asset returns within an isoelastic utility framework. The bound is determined from the set...

This paper presents new evidence on the patterns of price and wage adjustment in European firms and on the extent of nominal rigidities. It uses a unique dataset collected through a firm-level survey conducted in a broad range of countries and covering various sectors. Several conclusions are...

The study analyses wage adjustment by Italian firms on the basis of information collected through a coordinated survey carried out in 17 European countries in two waves (at the beginning of 2008 and in the summer of 2009). The pre-crisis evidence indicates that the degree of wage rigidity is...

This paper presents a model of non-cooperative network formation in which the marginal benefit of new links eventually decreases. Agents link with each other to gain information and update their links according to better-reply dynamics. In the long run the system settles to a unique network...

This paper analyses the dynamics of Italian household wealth over the 1990s and assesses the strength of the wealth effects on consumption, using as a benchmark the United States. In a period of sharply rising asset prices, Italian household net worth rose significantly, but on the whole...

The literature is unanimous in highlighting that banking crises have a negative impact on GDP, usually more pronounced in developing economies. The magnitude of the losses is more controversial: the quantitative results of studies on the repercussions of banking crises on economic activity, in...

Supervisors and policy makers pay increasing attention to the possible procyclical nature of banks� behaviour. Indeed, to guarantee macro and financial stability, it is important to understand whether, and to what extent, banks are affected by the macroeconomy and second round effects...

This paper documents the existence of a significant forecast error on crude oil futures, particularly evident since the mid-1990s, which is negative on average and displays a non-trivial cyclical component (risk premium). We show that the forecast error on oil futures could have been explained...

This paper discusses the role that macroeconomic uncertainty plays in banks� decisions on the optimal asset allocation. Using a portfolio model recently proposed in the literature, the paper aims at disentangling how Italian banks choose between loans and risk-free assets when uncertainty...

The prices of futures contracts on short-term interest rates are commonly used by central banks to gauge market expectations concerning monetary policy decisions. Excess returns - the difference between futures rates and the realized rates - are positive, on average, and statistically...