The first decade of the 21st century saw wide fluctuations in commodity prices and a massively increased participation of financial investors in the commodity derivatives markets. The investigation of whether the presence of financial investors was responsible for these fluctuations - and, more...

We propose a new way to compute market-based risk-adjusted measures of inflation expectations. Borrowing from the finance literature, we study the ex-post excess return on inflation swap contracts – the difference between the swap rate at a given maturity and the realized inflation rate over...

This paper presents stylized facts of the segmentation of the Euro Area (EA) banking system and investigates cross-border banking dynamics. Results show that the determinants of cross-border banking change substantially over-time: (i) in the pre-crisis period of financial integration the...

Asset and liability management deals with the joint evaluation of assets and liabilities in a bank’s balance sheet; it is a traditional tool used by intermediaries to limit financial risks. Building on a measure of the extent of asset-liability management practices, which we name...

In line with developments at the global level, the attention of financial regulators on ESG factors, particularly on environmental and climate-related risks, has significantly increased over recent years. In this context, disclosure of relevant climate-related information plays a key role, for...

This report investigates the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI-ML) techniques used by the Italian financial intermediaries to assess creditworthiness. The analysis aims to evaluate how financial intermediaries use AI-ML techniques for customer selection and management...

This paper shows the results of a survey on firms regarding the changes that are occurring in the bank-firm relationship in view of Basel II. The survey has been conducted on an national basis together with a local one directed to small firms localized in the regions of Emilia-Romagna, Puglia...

The paper reviews the supply of different mortgage instruments to Italian households by means of data obtained from a survey conducted in 2007 by the Bank of Italy over more than 300 banks. The results document significant innovations in housing finance in the last five years: a greater variety...

In 2007 the new framework for capital adequacy of banks (Basel 2), defined in 2004 by the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision, will replace the 1988 Accord (Basel 1) in all major countries. In the last years the Committee has carried out several impact studies in order to simulate the...

This study analyzes the main characteristics of loans for house purchase issued in Italy between 2004 and 2007 employing the data on individual contracts from the Sample Survey of Lending Rates. Variables describing the type of mortgage and the borrower are related to the ex post probability of...