A New Keynesian model characterized by labor indivisibilities, unemployment and a unionized labor market is presented. The bargaining process between unions and firms introduces real wage rigidity and creates an endogenous trade-off between inflation and output stabilization. Under an optimal...

The paper studies the motivations behind banks' shareholding of non-financial firms using a panel of large Italian companies in the period 1994-2000. Empirical evidence shows that banks are shareholders of companies that are less profitable, have experienced slower growth, are more indebted, are...

We study the effects of progressive labor income taxation in an otherwise standard NK model. We show that progressive taxation (i) introduces a trade-off between output and inflation stabilization and affects the slope of the Phillips Curve; (ii) acts as automatic stabilizer changing the...

We study the Italian monetary regime from 1861 to the creation of the Bank of Italy in 1893. The regime was characterized by a multi- plicity of note issuers although one of them, the BNS, rapidly became the dominant bank of the country following a process of territorial expansion. We carefully...

This paper studies models of credit with limited commitment and, therefore, endogenous debt limits. There are multiple stationary equilibria plus nonstationary equilibria in which credit conditions change simply because of beliefs. There can be equilibria in which debt limits display...

The authors study banking using the tools of mechanism design, without a priori assumptions about what banks are, who they are, or what they do. Given preferences, technologies, and certain frictions - including limited commitment and imperfect monitoring - they describe the set of incentive...