The Italian banking system underwent major transformations during the 1990s. This book seeks to depict the effects of those changes on the Italian economy. Using credit rationing as an indicator of financial development, it also explores to what extent financial development serves as an...

We use a unique and unexplored dataset to investigate the determinants and effects of mafia firms in Italy. Mafia may use several tools to expand its firms. However, in this paper, we show that they prefer political corruption to violence to expand mafia firms. In particular, they use the latter...