Recent advances in machine learning have made it possible to extract rich data features from video. These techniques allow for a new understanding of the role of advertising in marketing products. I demonstrate how to extract text, image, and audio features from a novel dataset of over 20,000...

We implement machine learning techniques to obtain an automatic classification by sector of economic activity of the Italian companies recorded in the Bank of Italy Entities Register. To this end, first we extract a sample of correctly classified corporations from the universe of Italian...

The paper illustrates the phases of the process that the Bank of Italy follows to produce the statistics derived from credit and financial reporting: the identification of the information requirements; the definition of the data model; the design of the new data collection method to be used by...

The paper presents a decision-making rule, based on statistical learning techniques, to evaluate and monitor the overall quality of the granular dataset referring to the Non-Performing Loans data collection carried out by the Bank of Italy. The datasets submitted by the reporting agents must...

Hard-information based financial ratios such as financial leverage, debt service coverage ratio, return on assets, etc are important considerations in corporate default risk. The relationship between the usefulness of such financial metrics and soft information such as ESG scores or corporate...

When race is not directly observed, regulators and analysts commonly predict it using algorithms based on last name and address. In small business lending--where regulators assess fair lending law compliance using the Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding (BISG) algorithm--we document large...

Proxies for race are commonly used in settings where race cannot be observed directly. In the context of small business lending, we examine the standard race prediction algorithm (BISG), which regulators use to assess compliance with fair lending laws. The algorithm relies on an individual’s...

The Bank of Italy collects a large amount of data — statistical, supervisory and resolution — from banks and other financial intermediaries in order to fulfil its institutional functions and meet the needs of other national and international authorities, in particular the ECB, the EBA and...

We exploit a novel dataset on mortgages offered by banks through Italy’s main online mortgage broker, which works with banks representing over 80 per cent of mortgages granted, to gain an up-to-date assessment of loan supply conditions. Characteristics of mortgages are reported for about...