In this paper, we analyse the incidence of zombie firms, how they have been affected by the pandemic, and their take-up of economic support measures. While balance sheet data for 2020 are not available yet, we find that in 2019, they represented 3 to 5 per cent of all corporations. In 2020, they...

Every year 400,000 entrepreneurs fail and 60,000 file for personal bankruptcy. The option to declare bankruptcy provides entrepreneurs with insurance against the financial consequences of business failures. However, it comes at the cost of worsened credit market conditions. In this paper, we...

Insufficient competition remains a major obstacle to growth in Italy. The main culprits include the institutional environment and the regulations governing some economic sectors subject to market failures. As to the former, relative neglect of economic efficiency has produced an unstable and...

Exploiting the timing of the 2005-2006 Italian bankruptcy law reforms, we disentangle the effects of reorganization and liquidation in bankruptcy on bank financing nd firm investment. A 2005 reform introduces reorganization procedures facilitating loan renegotiation. The 2006 reform subsequently...

Many theories study how firms'cost of funding depends on reorganization and liquidation in bankruptcy. However empirical evidence on this subject is scarce due to the difficulty in interpreting reforms that change different legal instruments at the same time. We take advantage of the timing of...

In this paper we describe the investment behavior of manufacturing firms in Italy between 1995 and 2013 and we investigate the most important factors leading to the decline in investment since 2008. We estimate an error correction model for investment using information on firms' demand...

Italian Abstract: Lo studio fornisce un ampio insieme di nuove evidenze empiriche sull'impiego e sul funzionamento delle procedure di concordato preventivo basate su un dataset, appositamente assemblato, che costituisce la più ricca base informativa al momento disponibile. I concordati sono...

This paper analyses empirically the effect of judicial efficiency on bank credit contractual terms for the universe of Italian corporations borrowing from the banking sector. Exploiting within-country variation in the length of bankruptcy proceedings across different jurisdictions, the paper...