Based on widely accepted evidence on the exceptional ageing of the Italian population, this paper aims to assess the impact of ageing on household portfolios in Italy and hence ultimately on financial markets. To this end, we use data taken by the Bank of Italy Survey of Household Income and...

The solution adopted in Basel II to deal with procyclicality of capital requirements (i.e. through the cycle ratings and long-run average estimates of default probabilities) implies a reduction in the risk-sensitivity that contradicts the original spirit of the new framework.In order to preserve...

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the relationship between asset returns and age-structure by investigating the case of Italy, which is experiencing one of the most pronounced ageing in the world. To this end, time-series regressions are run, in which real returns on different...