This book offers a comprehensive overview of the financial systems of major industrialized countries using the statistical framework of the financial accounts. After a discussion of how economists agreed to create a framework to monitor the financial linkages between surplus and deficit sectors,...

Many authors underlined the convergence of financial structures towards a model which combines elements of the Anglo Saxon one, where markets prevail, with characteristics of the continental European systems, where intermediaries are predominant. The goal of this paper is to study financial...

The origins of financial accounts in the United States and Italy: Copeland, Baffi and the institutions -- Private sector debt matters too: theoretical perspectives on credit and the building of financial accounts -- Household wealth in a cross-country perspective -- Should household wealth and...

In this paper, we present a set of specific measures to quantify the state and evolution of financial integration in the euro area. Five key markets are considered, namely the money, corporate bond, government bond, credit and equity markets. Building upon the law of one price, we developed two...

This paper provides an encompassing description of the various indicators compiled in the financial module of CompNet using balance sheet information of European firms. We investigate whether and to which extent the heterogeneous financial positions of firms have affected firms' investment...