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 financial fluctuations affect firmsÕ decisions through their impact on banksÕ cost of funding. We exploit two shocks to Italian banksÕ CDS spreads and equity valuations: the 2007Ð 2009 financial crisis and the 2010Ð2012 sovereign debt crisis. Using newly available data...

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

The paper takes advantage of the Italian experience in the Lehman crisis to test the effects of banking shocks on the real decisions of client firms. The analysis exploits plant-level data and models the magnitude of the shock with banks' pre-crisis holding of Dollar-denominated assets and...

This paper documents the link between finance and informal competition. Using longitudinal firm-level data, we show that formal firms that are more exposed to the competition of informal firms are less likely to apply for a bank loan. This result is not due to sample selection, omitted variable...

This paper documents the link between finance and informal competition. Using longitudinal firm-level data, we show that formal firms that are more exposed to the competition of informal firms are less likely to apply for a bank loan. This result is not due to sample selection, omitted variable...

The lack of information is a relevant obstacle to the export activity of small and medium enterprises. This paper analyzes whether banks can support firms’ export by reducing informational asymmetries about foreign markets. We exploit a large sample of Italian firms for which we merge custom...

This paper takes advantage of the COVID-19 outbreak to explore the determinants of firms’ R&D choices around an exogenous shock. We make use of unique panel data on 7,800 Italian companies between January 2020 –right before the pandemic– and March of the same year –amid lockdown...

Starting in September 2007 the banking system worldwide was turned upside down; both level and volatility of banks' CDS spreads experienced an eightfold increase that can hardly be motivated by changes in fundamentals. The recent Global Games literature proposes a theory that explains banks'...

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...