Why do residential mortgages carry a fixed or an adjustable interest rate? To answer this question we study unique data from 103 banks belonging to 73 different banking groups across twelve countries in the euro area. To explain the large cross-country and time variation observed, we distinguish...

Bank takeovers result on average in little improvements in performance. This may be due to conflicting driving forces behind them; however these have seldom been studied. We study directly the motivations for bank acquisitions by analyzing the prices paid for them, under the assumption that...

This paper analyzes the role of bank credit in firms' export performance. We use Italian bank-firm matched data and contribute to the existing literature by focusing on the link between bank-credit and exports in 'normal times' (1997-2008) and measuring access to credit with hard data on the...

Using Bank of Italy data on Italian banks in the period 1990-2004, the paper analyses the short and long-run effects of the concentration of the banking industry on the availability of credit to small and medium-sized firms. Our study employs a bank-based approach and investigates the...

The literature has shown that in the short- and medium-term bank mergers and acquisitions (M&As) may generate a temporary reduction in firm credit. Using bank-firm matched data, this paper investigates the impact of M&As involving Italian banks over the period 2009-2019 on credit to firms,...

This paper explores the implications of systemic risk in Credit Structured Finance (CSF). Risk measurement issues loomed large during the 2007-08 financial crisis, as the massive, unprecedented number of downgrades of AAA senior bond tranches inflicted severe losses on banks, calling into...

This paper analyzes the effects of the financial crisis on credit supply by using highly detailed data on bank-firm relationships in Italy after Lehman's collapse. We control for firms' unobservable characteristics, such as credit demand and borrowers' risk, by exploiting multiple lending. We...

European comparisons for the 2000s show that Italy was among the EU countries where women were least represented in bank boardrooms. Using a unique dataset on Italian banks over the period 1995-2010, this paper investigates the effects of gender diversity in boards on bank riskiness and economic...

This paper explores the implications of systemic risk in Credit Structured Finance (CSF). Risk measurement issues loomed large during the 2007-08 financial crisis, as the massive, unprecedented number of downgrades of AAA senior bond tranches inflicted severe losses on banks, calling into...

Using data on single credit relationships, the paper shows that after a merger or an acquisition, involving two or more banks which had previously jointly financed the same firm, the share of credit granted to the client by the consolidated intermediaries moderately decreases over three years....