In this paper I study two methods often used in public procurement to deal with the risk that the winning bidder may default on his bid: augmenting the standard first price auction with an ex-post verification of the responsiveness of the bids and using an average bid auction. I show that when...

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...

The paper discusses the economic problem and the institutional features underlying the Nimby syndrome, and illustrates preliminary empirical evidence for Italy. It argues that siting procedures taking local preferences into account should be preferred when the heterogeneity in preferences across...

This paper puts forward a comprehensive framework to model medium-to-long term public debt refinancing strategies. Essentially the framework has two main building blocks. First, a large number of strategies are generated so as to determine a wide range of potential financing plans, regardless of...

We analyse the wide array of rescue programmes adopted in several countries, following Lehman Brothers� default in September 2008, in order to support banks and other financial institutions. We first provide an overview of the programmes, comparing their characteristics, magnitudes and...

Consolidation in the banking industry of many countries has reduced the number of small banks and led to significant shifts in market shares; deregulation has fostered entry in local credit markets and branch expansion, which in turn have increased competition. Small businesses are believed to...

The general conclusion of the empirical literature is that in-market consolidation generates adverse price changes, harming consumers. Previous studies, however, look only at the short-run pricing impact of consolidation, ignoring all effects that take longer to materialize. Using a database...

The banking industry is consolidating at an accelerating pace, yet no conclusive results have emerged on the benefits of mergers and acquisitions. We analyze the Italian market, which is similar to other main European countries. By considering both acquisitions (i.e. the purchase of the majority...

In response to fundamental changes in regulation and technology, the financial industry around the world is undergoing an unprecedented wave of consolidation. A growing body of empirical literature has attempted to measure the efficiency gains from M&As; however there is little sense of how the...

This paper analyzes the effects of the financial crisis on credit supply by using highly detailed data on bank-firm relationships in Italy after Lehman’s collapse. We control for firms’ unobservable characteristics, such as credit demand and borrowers’ risk, by exploiting multiple lending....