In the last two decades the socio-economic literature has highlighted the importance of social capital (an ample set of social relations and cultural attitudes) for economic growth and the wellbeing of citizens. The literature broadly suggests a negative correlation between social capital and...

Shadow banking is the creation or transfer – by banks and non-bank intermediaries – of bank-like risks outside the banking system. In Italy the shadow banking system is fully regulated, mostly following the principle of same business-same rules or ‘bank-equivalent regulation'. After an...

The paper provides a critical analysis of the indicators most widely used at international level to measure the size and risk of the securitization market and its contribution to shadow banking. The analysis outlines the reasons why measuring the size of the market on the basis of the total...

Since financial inclusion has become a policy target in many countries, it is crucial to measure it properly. The usual indexes of financial inclusion include inappropriate variables and do not take into account other relevant aspects, thus misrepresenting the phenomenon. In this paper, we focus...

The paper provides an overview of the main statistics produced by the Bank of Italy: financial accounts, monetary statistics, balance of payments, household and business surveys. The volume discusses the problems related to the measurement of economic phenomena, how statistics can be used for...

This paper studies the case of the Marche footwear districts. Statistical evidence and interviews with entrepreneurs suggest that the traditional inter-firm relationships within these districts have significantly changed during the past decade. Some leading firms have been building up more...

In this paper we analyse the evolution over time and the determinants of corporate liquidity in Italy, for which the empirical literature is still scant. Using a very large sample of firms for the period 2002-15 (about 460,000 firms per year on average), we document a substantial increase in...

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...

The two recessions that have hit Italy since the end of 2008 have raised the share of non-performing loans to businesses in banks' portfolios substantially. In this paper we evaluate to what extent the deterioration of credit quality was due not only to the decline in firms' sales during the...

Italian Abstract: Tra il 2005 e il 2013 la disciplina italiana sulle crisi d'impresa è stata oggetto di varie riforme, che hanno cercato di rafforzare il concordato preventivo, in particolare nella sua funzione di istituto atto a favorire la continuità di aziende in crisi non irreversibile....