The inefficiency of the Italian judicial system has contributed to reduced investments, slow growth and a difficult business environment. The enforcement of civil and commercial claims suffers from excessive delays in court proceedings, resulting in a very large number of pending cases. The...

This paper looks at some technical issues when using CDS data, and if these are incorporated, the analysis or regression results are likely to benefit. The paper endorses the use of stochastic recovery in CDS models when estimating probability of default (PD) and suggests that stochastic...

Volatility in Italian sovereign spreads has increased since mid-2011. This paper finds that news on the euro area debt crisis and country specific events were important drivers of sovereign spreads. Movements in sovereign spreads affect CDS spreads and bond yields of Italian banks, and are...

This paper evaluates elements of a comprehensive reform of the Italian tax system. Reform options are guided by the principles of reducing complexity, broadening the tax base, and lowering marginal tax rates, especially the tax burden on labor income. The revenue and distributional implications...