We exploit a gravity model to study the main determinants of cross-border financial flows and to identify those flows that appear to be abnormally above the predicted value. Our data include all Italian cross-border bank transfers that took place between 2007 and 2010. We find that, other things...

The paper explores the view that the Asian currency and financial crises in 1997 and 1998 reflected structural and policy distortions in the countries of the region, even though market overreaction and herding caused the plunge of exchange rates, asset prices and economic activity to be more...

This paper investigates the determinants of the investment activity of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) at a macro level, with special emphasis on the possible reaction to a financial crisis in a potential target economy. The analysis relies upon a specially built proprietary database, which...

The process of European monetary integration has prompted interest in the study of differences in financial systems and their consequences for monetary transmission mechanisms. This paper analyses the case of a monetary union composed of countries with heterogeneous "credit channels". In order...

This paper studies the interaction between monetary and fiscal authorities while investors are coordinating on a speculative attack. The authorities want to achieve specific targets for output and inflation but also to avoid a regime change (i.e. sovereign default). They use the traditional...

This paper estimates a pricing-to-market equation for Italy over the period 1990-99 with the aim of assessing the degree of exchange rate pass-through (ERPT). As compared to previous works, we minimize aggregation and selection biases using export data on all products (about 700 from 4 digits of...

This paper builds a baseline two-country model of real and monetary transmission in the presence of optimal international price discrimination by firms. Distributing traded goods to consumers requires nontradables, intensive in local labor. Because of distributive trade the price elasticity of...

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...