A well-established result of the theory of antitrust policy is that it might be optimal to tolerate some degree of collusion among firms if the authority in charge is constrained by limited resources and imperfect information. However, few doubts are cast on the common opinion by which stricter...

Questo lavoro analizza le diverse fasi della recente crisi economico-finanziaria, ponendo l'accento sull'entita' del credit crunch in Italia e nel resto d'Europa, al fine di cogliere le similitudini ma, soprattutto, le differenze tra i paesi centrali e quelli periferici ell'area dell'euro, tra i...

Government intervention in credit markets has been criticized as potentially conducive to distortions in the behaviour of both banks and firms. We argue that credit subsidies may lead to a decline in the level of screening performed by banks. This effect was at work in Italy in the early 1990s...

This paper shows evidence on the real effects of the bank lending channel exploiting the dramatic 2007 liquidity drought in interbank markets as a source of variation in banks' credit supply. For a large sample of Italian firms we combine information on firm-bank credit relationships, firms and...

Questo paper analizza in che misura i confidi siano riusciti a limitare i problemi di accesso al credito da parte delle piccole imprese durante la crisi.;Dapprima vengono discusse le principali trasformazioni registrate dalla struttura del settore dei confidi negli anni recenti e le evidenze...

Recent years have seen an intense and critical debate about the impact of microcredit on entrepreneurial activities and poor households' welfare. This paper suggests that information asymmetries in the ex-post loan arrangement between the microfinance institution (MFI) and local borrowers could...

This paper examines how banks around the world have resized and reallocated their earning assets in response to the subprime and sovereign debt crises. We focus especially on the interaction between sovereign debt and the bank asset allocation process. After the crisis we observe a general...

An intense process of deregulation and financial liberalization in Latin America has increased competitive pressures and led to bank restructuring and consolidation. This paper looks at firm access to credit in the region, focusing on the role of credit market structure. Using firm-level data...

We discuss the literature on the shift from stakeholder to shareholder finance behind the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). Traditional banks generally maximized stakeholder value (STV). But before the GFC also many of them started maximizing shareholder value (SHV). Moving from STV to SHV often...

In this paper we empirically test the recent lender-based theory for the use of collateral in bank lending. Based on a proprietary dataset of loan contracts written by a local bank in competitive credit markets, we use the physical proximity between borrowers and the lending branch of the bank...