What are the effects of local credit institutions on the distribution of income? Why should local banking development matter for the level of inequality? We focus on how different dimensions of banking development and other characteristics of 103 provinces in Italy affect the level of...

This paper tests the impact of an imperfect bank-firm type match on firms' financial constraints using a dataset of about 4,500 Italian manufacturing firms. We start considering an optimal matching of opaque (transparent) borrowing firms with relational (transactional) lending main banks. Next...

This paper tests the impact of family ownership on firms' export decisions using a rich data set of about 20,000 Italian manufacturers. The results reveal that family ownership increases the probability that firms export, although the effect weakens as ownership concentration rises. The benefit...

This paper investigates SME financing in Italy. The literature distinguishes between two main different lending technologies (LTs) for SMEs: transactional and relationship LTs. We find that banks lend to SMEs by using both LTs together, independently of the size and proximity of borrowers....