Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of the 2007 Italian severance payment reform on the cost and the access to credit for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach – The authors study the implications of the reform adapting the theoretical...

We study the effects of the reform of the system of severance payments (TFR) of Italian employees on the cost and the access to credit for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). The most direct consequence of the reform is to reduce in the long run the amount of liquid assets available to...

Using the Bank of Italy's Survey of Households Income and Wealth (SHIW) covering a 5-years panel, we measure the impact of the degree of households' financial literacy on the quota of housing investment in their portfolio. We find that households with higher levels of financial literacy hold a...

This paper studies the effect of a change in real estate wealth on the consumption behaviour of Italian households, using the Bank of Italy's Survey of Household Income and Wealth dataset. We relate annual household consumption to capital gains in housing, controlling for characteristics such as...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of the 2007 Italian severance payment reform on the cost and the access to credit for small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach – The authors study the implications of the reform adapting the...