The paper evaluates the impact of the guarantees provided by the Italian scheme Fondo di Garanzia on the access to credit for small and medium enterprises. The study exploits the mechanism that assigns the guarantees, which is based on a scoring system to assess eligibility. By using regression...

Guarantee banks backed by the state aim to close the gap in the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises or start-ups caused by lacking collateral or equity and high information asymmetry. The present study quantifies the economic and fiscal net benefits of guarantee banks in the new...