A striking feature of financial market behaviour in recent years has been the low level of price volatility over a wide range of financial assets and markets. The issue has attracted the attention of central bankers and financial regulators due to the potential implications for financial...

We solve two robust portfolio selection problems, where a maxmin criterion is adopted to deal with parameter uncertainty. The two models, which yield closed formulae for the optimal allocation, lend themselves to be thoroughly analyzed both from a geometric and a game-theoretic point of view.

This work investigates the role of equity ownership for the purpose of committing the management to the pursuit of shareholder value in the presence of separation between ownership and control. By rooting the conflicts of interests between managers and shareholders upon the control of internal...

This paper presents a general test of contagion in financial markets based on bivariate correlation analysis � a test that can be interpreted as an extension of the normal correlation theorem. Contagion is defined as a structural break in the data generating process of rates of return....

This paper develops a methodology for identifying systemically important financial institutions based on that developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (2011) and used by the Financial Stability Board in its yearly G-SIBs identification. The methodology uses publicly available data...

The no-arbitrage affine Gaussian term structure model is used to analyse the impact of macroeconomic surprises on the nominal and the real term structure in the euro area and in the United States. We find that nominal rates are affected by surprises in economic growth, the labour market and the...

This paper introduces a coincident indicator of systemic liquidity risk in the Italian financial markets. In order to take account of the systemic dimension of liquidity stress, standard portfolio theory is used. Three sub-indices, that reflect liquidity stress in specific market segments, are...

The paper looks at the characteristics of Italian non-financial firms that accessed the bond market for the first time between 2002 and 2013. The results of logit estimations indicate that first-time bond issuers are significantly larger and more frequently listed on the stock exchange than...

We build a microsimulation model to monitor the financial vulnerability of Italian households. Starting from household-level data from the Survey on Household Income and Wealth and matching them with macroeconomic forecasts on debt and income, we project the future path of households’...

What kind of information do stock prices offer for predicting velocity? This paper develops previous work by Milton Friedman for the US economy and shows that a wealth effect derived from the stock market has negatively influenced the ratio of nominal income to a broad definition of money in a...