Economic activity is concentrated in urban areas and during the 20th century the urban population grew at a faster rate than the national average in many countries. Why is this the case? In this paper we focus on the urban premium in firms' productivity. We run two exercises. First, we document...

Italian Abstract: Il lavoro analizza la variabilità territoriale dei prezzi delle case, concentrandosi in particolare sul gradiente dal centro verso i quartieri e i comuni periferici. Le differenze lungo queste dimensioni nelle aree urbane sono ampie, anche più di quelle esistenti tra Centro...

We analyse the geographic localization and the productivity of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) in Italy, using both census data and balance-sheet data at the firm level. We find that KIBS are generally agglomerated in urban areas where they attain significantly higher labour...

Italian Abstract: Lo scopo di questo lavoro è presentare una panoramica dei risultati di un recente progetto di ricerca della Banca d'Italia. Il lavoro inizia discutendo come il sistema urbano italiano sia stato, in passato, plasmato dall'interazione tra geografia e eventi storici. Più...

Italian Abstract: Una delle caratteristiche salienti dello sviluppo economico è la sua dimensione marcatamente urbana. Come in altri paesi avanzati, in Italia la gran parte dell'attività economica si concentra nelle città: nel 2001 i 73 Sistemi Locali del Lavoro (SLL) urbani producevano il 62...

Contingent capital – any debt instrument that converts into equity when a predefined event occurs – has received increasing attention as a viable tool for allowing banks to raise capital when needed at relatively more affordable prices than common equity. While the debate has focused on...

Contingent capital – any debt instrument that converts into equity when a predefined event occurs – has received increasing attention as a viable tool for allowing banks to raise capital when needed at relatively more affordable prices than common equity. While the debate has focused on...

The financial crisis that began in 2007 has revealed a need for a new supervisory and regulatory approach aimed at strengthening the system and containing the risk of future financial and economic disruptions. Three ingredients are needed to ensure financial stability: robust analysis, better...

We assess the long-term funding conditions for banks in the US, the euro area and the UK and, separately, for the group of global systemically important financial institutions (G-SIFIs), over the period 1997-2011. After the outbreak of the subprime crisis there was a considerable reshuffling of...

The crisis has shown that banks that are too big to fail are at the core of the international financial system. These institutions are thus at the centre of a powerful wave of re-regulation of the banking system. Overall, the proposals developed to strengthen the capacity of big banks to weather...