A large literature showed that small firms experience difficulties in accessing the credit market due to informational asymmetries; these may be mitigated by collateral or relationship lending, possibilities often precluded to small business. We investigate the effect on small business finance...

A substantial literature has investigated the role of relationship lending in shielding borrowers from idiosyncratic shocks. Much less is known about how lending relationships and bank-specific characteristics affect the functioning of the credit market in an economy-wide crisis, when banks may...

A growing number of studies on the US subprime market indicate that, due to asymmetric information, credit risk transfer activities have perverse effects on banks' lending standards. We investigate a large part of the market for securitized assets (“prime mortgages”) in Italy, a country with...

The 2007-2010 financial crisis highlighted the central role of financial intermediaries' stability in buttressing a smooth transmission of credit to borrowers. While results from the years prior to the crisis often cast doubts on the strength of the bank lending channel, recent evidence shows...

We assess the long-term economic impact of the new regulatory standards (the Basel III reform), answering the following questions. (1) What is the impact of the reform on long-term economic performance? (2) What is the impact of the reform on economic fluctuations? (3) What is the impact of the...

We assess the long-term economic impact of the new regulatory standards (the Basel III reform), answering the following questions: 1) What is the impact of the reform on long-term economic performance? 2) What is the impact of the reform on economic fluctuations? 3) What is the impact of the...

This paper investigates the relationship between short-term interest rates and bank risk. Using a unique database that includes quarterly balance sheet information for listed banks operating in the European Union and the United States in the last decade, we find evidence that unusually low...

This paper investigates the relationship between short-term interest rates and bank risk. Using a unique database that includes quarterly balance sheet information for listed banks operating in the European Union and the United States in the last decade, we find evidence that unusually low...