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...

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...

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...

By requiring individuals to decide whether to participate in (newly established) pension funds, how much to contribute and how to invest their retirement wealth, pension reforms have raised concerns about the ability of households to deal with financial decisions. Using the Bank of Italy's...