Financial frictions may represent a severe obstacle to firms' innovativeness. This paper shows the existence and quantifies the effects of financial barriers to the innovation propensity of Italian companies. Employing direct measures of financial constraints and a credit-score estimated ad hoc,...

This paper contributes to the policy discussion on COVID-19 by presenting evidence on firms’ perceived shock in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic outbreak, and exploring heterogeneities in the associated disruption of longer-run R&D choices. We take advantage of unique panel data on...

We test whether financial fluctuations affect firms' decisions, through their impact on banks' cost of funding. We exploit two shocks to Italian bank CDS spreads and equity valuations: the 2007-2009 financial crisis and the 2010-2012 sovereign debt crisis. Using newly available data linking over...

We test whether adverse changes to banks' market valuations during the financial and sovereign debt crises, and the associated increase in banks'cost of funding, affected firms' real decisions. Using new data linking over 3,000 non-financial Italian firms to their bank(s), we find that increases...

We test whether adverse changes to banks' market valuations during the financial and sovereign debt crisis, and the associated increase in banks' cost of funding, affected firms' real decisions. Using new data linking over 3,000 non-financial Italian firms to their bank(s), we find that...

This paper contributes to the policy discussion on COVID-19 by presenting real-time evidence on the magnitude of the shock for Italian firms. We take advantage of unique panel data on 7,800 companies between January 2020 – right before the pandemic – and March of the same year – in the...