We examine the Italian insurers’ investments between 2017 and 2020, focusing on the interplay between the companies’ balance sheet structure and the financial market conditions. Our findings suggest that insurers play a stabilizing role in financial markets by increasing their exposure to...

We show that carbon-price shocks affect firms’ investment and emission-intensity via a debt-channel. Our identification exploits a reform-driven carbon-price surge in the EU Emission Trading System (EU-ETS) and loan-level credit registry data for Italy. Highly-exposed ETS-firms increase their...

We analyse whether soliciting multiple ratings leads to lower syndicated loan spreads. Our results document that banks apply, on average, lower spreads to multi-rated firms. This effect depends on the reduction of information asymmetry about borrowers' creditworthiness (information production...

This paper examines whether the regulatory approach adopted by banks to calculate capital requirements has a different impact on the loan rates for public and private companies when financial market conditions change. Using Italian data for the period 2008-18, the analysis documents that the...

We analyze the difference between credit default swap (CDS) and syndicated loan spreads, defined as the “CDS-loan basis”. Our results indicate that the CDS-loan basis is greater when the cost of information asymmetry is higher, such as for riskier borrowers and in economic downturns. Our...