We document that trust in public institutions – and particularly trust in banks, business and government – has declined …

We test whether financial fluctuations affect firms' decisions, through their impact on banks' cost of funding. We …-2012 sovereign debt crisis. Using newly available data linking over 3,000, mostly privately-held, non-financial firms to their bank(s …), we find that increases in Italian banks' CDS spreads and decreases in their equity valuations lead younger and smaller …