Recent empirical studies have shown that the structure of the legal system and the efficiency in law enforcement influence the financial structure of the firm, their ability to gain access to capital markets, and the growth rate of economic systems. This paper uses a simple banking model with...

This paper offers a methodological contribution to the empirical analysis of the relationships between banking and economic growth by suggesting a new indicator for the state of development of the banking system based on a measure of bank microeconomic efficiency. This choice helps to overcome...

Recent empirical findings by Elsas (2005) and Degryse and Ongena (2007) document a U-shaped effect of market concentration on relationship lending which cannot be easily accommodated by the investment and strategic theories of relationship lending. In this paper, we suggest that this...

One of the most lively debated effects of banking acquisitions is the change in lending and asset allocation of the target bank in favour of transactional activities, at the expense of small and informational opaque borrowers. These changes may be the result of two distinct restructuring...

A growing body of research is focusing on banking organizational issues, emphasizing the difficulties encountered by hierarchically organized banks in lending to informationally opaque borrowers. While the two extreme cases of hierarchical and non-hierarchical organizations are typically...

Bank deregulation and progress in information technology altered the geographical diffusion of banking structures and instruments, and reduced operational distance between banks and local economies. Although, the consolidation of the banking industry promoted the geographical concentration of...

We investigate the relationship between macroeconomic news and sovereign spreads in the euro area at weekly frequency. Our focus lies in the role played by macroeconomic announcements. To this aim we augment a standard GARCH model with a synthetic measure for macroeconomic surprises obtained by...

New opportunities and risks arise from the growing role of Italian local governments as public debt issuers on credit and financial markets. The paper analyzes the present institutional framework, and characterizes a reform implementing a stable and efficient "market" for the Italian local...