The paper evaluates the impact of the guarantees provided by the Italian scheme Fondo di Garanzia on the access to credit for small and medium enterprises. The study exploits the mechanism that assigns the guarantees, which is based on a scoring system to assess eligibility. By using regression...

This paper examines the financial structure and the bank relationships of Italian multinational firms. We show that multinationals are on average more leveraged than non-internationalized firms. Moreover, they have a larger share of financial and bank debt out of total debt, maintain more bank...

We exploit Italian Central Credit Register data to investigate the effectiveness of subsidized credit programs for public financing to firms via the banking system. The effect of public incentives depends on the availability of financial resources for the beneficiary firms. Financially...

We evaluate the effectiveness of a partial credit guarantee program implemented in a large Italian region using unique microdata from a broad set of firms. Our results show that the policy was effective to the extent that it resulted in an improved financial condition for the beneficiary firms....

We analyse new survey data from a representative sample of about 2,000 Italian micro-entrepreneurs to assess their level of financial and digital competences and to investigate whether these skills help them cope with unexpected shocks. We find that the financial literacy and digital skills of...

We analyze the impact of immigration on voting. Using Italian municipality data and IV estimation strategy, we find that immigration generates a sizable causal increase in votes for the centre-right coalition, which has a political platform less favorable to immigrants. Additional findings are:...