This paper explores the effect of taxation on the capital structure of banks. For identification, we exploit exogenous regional variations in the rate of the Italian tax on productive activities (IRAP) using administrative, confidential data on regional banks provided by the Bank of Italy...

We analyse the financing sources of over 360,000 Italian start-ups registered between 2003 and 2010. The data show that, before the Global Financial Crisis, 50 per cent of start-ups borrowed from banks when they were one year old, and that bank loans covered 16 per cent of total assets on...

Based on a large sample of mostly unlisted non-financial companies, this paper studies the relationship between business cycles and firms’ leverage, disentangling the relative contributions of debt and equity and assessing the role of firm size in explaining cross-sectional heterogeneity. I...

In the run-up to the financial crisis Italian firms significantly increased their debt in absolute terms and in relation to equity and GDP. The positive gap in firms' leverage between Italy and other euro-area countries has widened in recent years, despite the outstanding debt of Italian firms...

This work analyses the main trends in bond financing by Italian non-financial firms and its role in relation to bank credit across different economic phases. The first part of the analysis refers to the 2008-2019 period, characterized by both crisis and recovery episodes, while the second part...