This paper evaluates the performance of Italian local public enterprises (LPEs) with respect to their private sector counterparts. We address the following questions: i) do LPEs perform worse than (comparable) private firms?; ii) does the performance gap depend on the ownership structure (the...

In a context characterized by upcoming regulatory changes and deeply affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, this paper examines the diffusion of firm undercapitalization (i.e., the firm displaying a level of equity below the legal limit) among Italian corporations. In a proposal by the National...

The paper analyses the main differences in the financial structure of Italian and European non financial corporations in the 2004-2007 period, that is during the years before the financial crisis. The research is based on individual balance sheets of Amadeus (Analyse Major Databases from...