The prices of futures contracts on short-term interest rates are commonly used by central banks to gauge market expectations concerning monetary policy decisions. Excess returns - the difference between futures rates and the realized rates - are positive, on average, and statistically...

We model an economy where the cost of the oil input, industrial production, and other macroeconomic variables fluctuate in response to fundamental oil supply shocks, as well as aggregate demand and supply shocks generated domestically and in the world economy. We estimate the effects of these...

The outbreak of the financial crisis coincided with a sharp increase of worldwide interbank interest rates. We analyze the micro and macroeconomic determinants of this phenomenon, finding that before August 2007 interbank rates were insensitive to borrower characteristics, whereas afterwards...

This paper combines qualitative information from the Eurosystem Bank Lending Survey with micro-data on loans for the participating Italian banks to assess the role of supply and demand factors in lending to enterprises developments, with a focus on the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Both demand and...

The strong and prolonged deviation of money growth from its reference value since 2001 has caused concern among policy-makers about the upside risks to price stability from monetary developments. In this article we provide evidence that these risks might have been smaller until 2005 than...

The change in taxation for Italian mutual funds establishes a level playing field among European products but introduces complexities in making a choice between mutual funds and pension funds (still taxed with maturity method), suggesting the necessity of a similar reform for pension funds taxation.

This paper combines qualitative information from the Eurosystem Bank Lending Survey with micro-data on loan prices and quantities for the participating Italian banks to assess the role of supply and demand factors in credit developments, with a focus on the sharp slowdown of 2008-09. Both demand...

Il lavoro propone un’analisi comparata dell’andamento dei principali aggregati macroeconomici, reali e creditizi, nonché delle reazioni della politica monetaria in occasione delle più gravi recessioni attraversate dall’economia italiana. L’indagine, di tipo descrittivo, si concentra...