We show that a longer relationship length with the main bank fosters Italian firms' foreign direct investment (FDI) and, weakly, production off-shoring abroad. Possibly, longer bank relationships help secure external financing for these companies, which have become more opaque because of their...

Given the importance of banking intermediation, we investigate the determinants of the size of bank loans in 18 OECD countries in the period 1981-1997. The aim of the paper is to show that the ratio of government debt to GDP has a negative effect on the level of bank credit. Second, countries...

In this paper we present new estimates of the effect of household financial and real wealth on consumption. The analysis refers to eleven OECD countries and takes into account the years from 1997 to 2008. Unlike most of the previous literature, we exploit European quarterly harmonized data on...

The theme of this paper is whether there was a textbook-like Phillips Curve in post-WWII Italy. We estimate a standard model of the relationship between inflation and the level of real economic activity over the 1949-1998 period and find no evidence of a significant and positive feedback from...

Given the recent traumatic events in the world?s banking industry it is important to understand what drives bankers to create larger and larger, often multinational, banking groups. In this paper we investigate whether the targets in cross-border bank M&As are materially different from those...

This paper finds that the stock of bilateral investment treaties (BIT) is subject to diminishing returns measured in terms of foreign direct investment flows. Diminishing returns are more pronounced among country-pairs that have not signed bilateral investment treaties but have their own BIT...

The global crisis and the expansionary government reaction in many countries has revamped the attention of policy makers and academics on the growth effects of large public debts. Recent empirical studies investigate the impact of public debt on growth in advanced and emerging countries. This...

Multinational banks are a distinctive feature of today's globalized economy, with some institutions now operating in more than 100 countries. Despite the thorough analyses of bank internationalization over the last decades, the literature has failed to provide clear evidence that crossborder...

Developing countries are the least to blame for the outbreak of the nancial crisis, but they are destined to suer the most dramatic and long-lasting consequences. This chapter focuses on the early responses of the International Monetary Fund to the present crisis in low- and middle-income...

This paper examines whether multinational banks have a stabilising or a destabilising role during times of financial distress. With a focus on Europe, it looks at how these banks' foreign affiliates have been faring during the recent financial crisis. It finds that retail and corporate lending...