We investigate the reasons that induce policymakers to assign banking supervision to central banks rather than involving authorities outside the banking sector. On the one hand, empirical results provide evidence that policymakers prefer that, conditional on several known features affecting...

Using data at the bank‐firm level for a large sample of small firms collected through the 8th UniCredit Survey conducted in 2011, we investigate the extent to which banks of different size reward more innovative firms, in terms of both access to lending and volume of credit granted. First we...

We investigate the effect of kinship between borrowers and cosigners on repayment performance in microcredit, by using data coming from a leading Italian microfinance provider for the period 2009-2012. Estimates on a pool of 2,350 loans show that the presence of closely related cosigners tends...

This paper investigates the effects of the intra-European posting of workers on domestic labour markets in the years 2007-2009. Instrumental variables related to migrant labour and neighbouring countries' populations are used to address the endogeneity between posting and labour market features....

Excessive and useless reporting, called “crying wolf effect”, is a crucial shortcoming that any anti-money laundering (AML) design aims to address and fix. For this reason, in these years the AML policy has switched both in the US and in Europe from a rule- to a risk-based approach. This...

This study investigates the efficiency of the suspicious transaction reporting (STR) activity to a Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) as a means to deter money laundering (ML). Baseline and two-province theoretical models are used to frame the empirical analysis. The latter examines the...

This study is based on a randomized control trial (RCT) aimed at understanding the effectiveness of a financial literacy pilot program conducted in 2014-2016 at the Institute for Indian Mother and Child, a non-profit micro-finance institution based near Kolkata. Significant impacts are revealed...

We explore the combined effects of increasing both the efficiency of bankruptcy proceedings and the severity of expected sanctions on the probability that credit agreements involve usu-rious interest rates. Depending upon the institutional setup, we find that that either: a) marginal...

In recent years we have witnessed a deep change in the design of all the institutions that are responsible for supervising banking and financial markets. The financial supervision scenario is going through a deep evolution on all fronts, and many countries have made important changes in the...

Using data from a World Bank survey carried out in Bangladesh during the period 1991-1992, this paper compares the impact of microfinance programs and other types of credit agreements on households' investment in productive activities. We find that group-lending positively affects variable input...