Our empirical study aims at identifying the determinants of Information Technology (IT) adoption by small and medium sized Italian manufacturing firms. An ordered probit analysis is conducted on a sample of about 17 000 firms surveyed by the Italian Statistical Institute, using as a dependent...

The hypothesis that ownership structure affects persistence of profits in the Italian banking industry is tested. The time-invariant components of ROA and ROE are regressed against ownership concentration and the fraction of shares held by the major shareholders. The results show that abnormal...