A new approach to search for structural breaks in the retail lending rA new approach is proposed for searching multiple unknown breaks, possibly associated with EMU, in the short term business lending rate pass-through. Multiple breaks are detected in five out of nine countries of the euro area....

A new approach to search for structural breaks in the retail lending rates pass-through in the wake of EMU is proposed and implemented for Italy and Portugal. The econometric exercise shows that breakpoints cluster in the second semester 1999 and that the pass-through on short term lending is,...

In the first detailed study of the trade debt own cost for the Italian manufacturing firms it is shown that, comparing also self-defined bank lending rationed and non rationed firms, interfirm credit received is, if ever, only slightly more expensive than bank credit. Besides establishing the...

The study, aimed at evaluating the likely effects of the EC Directive on late payments, provides direct evidence that interfirm credit received by Italian manufacturing firms is, if ever, only slightly more expensive than bank loans. An econometric exercise shows that financial determinants have...

The solution adopted in Basel II to deal with procyclicality of capital requirements (i.e. through the cycle ratings and long-run average estimates of default probabilities) implies a reduction in the risk-sensitivity that contradicts the original spirit of the new framework.In order to preserve...

We search for breaks in the short term business lending rate pass-through in euro countries, possibly associated with the introduction of the euro. One break is detected in six national retail rates among EMU countries; two breaks are found in other six cases, and in the UK as well. The last...

Italian firms are top users of trade credit in an international comparison. The paper offers some clues to the determinants of this stylised fact exploiting the answers of about 1900 manufacturing firms on a wide range of contractual features, separately for domestic and foreign counterparties....