The aim of this paper is to test the predictions of Sutton's model of independentsubmarkets for the Italian retail banking industry. This industry, in fact, can be viewedas made of a large number of local markets corresponding to different geographicallocations. In order to do that, I first...

Information asymmetries can severely limit cross-border border expansion of banks. When a bank enters a new market, it has incomplete information about potential new clients. Such asymmetries are reduced by credit registers, which distribute financial data on bank clients. We investigate the...

This paper investigates the level of debt specialization across European firms relying on a cross-country comparable sample of manufacturing firms. We find that a number of firm characteristics -- such as firm size and age -- help predict the firm composition of the various types of debts (i.e....

Companies are under an increasing pressure by policy makers to publicize data breaches. Such notification obligations require announcing the loss of personal data collected from customers, because of hacker attacks or other incidents. While notification is likely to impact on firms' reputation,...

According to the Terror Management Theory, the fear of death may induce anxiety and threaten individual self-esteem. To remove this fear, individuals need to obtain and sustain self-esteem, for example by competing in rank order tournaments, or by focusing on status seeking. Within an...

This paper investigates the determinants of reciprocity towards the experimenters in the lab under a flat-wage scheme. We find that personality attributes – such as agreeableness – help predict the behaviour of the subjects. We additionally propose and assess a general measure of reciprocity.

This paper investigates the effects of different job categories on households' likelihood of experiencing financial distress. Given imperfect financial markets and the absence of unemployment subsidies, households with less secure jobs are likely to experience drops in income more frequently...