The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy Since Unification
The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy Since Unification

Author: Gianni Toniolo

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-01-04

Total Pages: 802

ISBN-13: 0199936706

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This Oxford Handbook provides a fresh overall view and interpretation of the modern economic growth of one of the largest European countries, whose economic history is less known internationally than that of other comparably large and successful economies. It will provide, for the first time, a comprehensive, quantitative "new economic history" of Italy. The handbook offers an interpretation of the main successes and failures of the Italian economy at a macro level, the research--conducted by a large international team of scholars --contains entirely new quantitative results and interpretations, spanning the entire 150-year period since the unification of Italy, on a large number of issues. By providing a comprehensive view of the successes and failures of Italian firms, workers, and policy makers in responding to the challenges of the international business cycle, the book crucially shapes relevant questions on the reasons for the current unsatisfactory response of the Italian economy to the ongoing "second globalization." Most chapters of the handbook are co-authored by both an Italian and a foreign scholar.

The Banks and the Italian Economy
The Banks and the Italian Economy

Author: Damiano Bruno Silipo

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2009-04-22

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 3790821128

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Damiano Bruno Silipo In the 1990s the Italian banking system underwent profound normative, institutional and structural changes. The Consolidated Law on Banking (1993) and that on Finance (1998) instituted the legal framework for a far-reaching overhaul of the Italian banking and ?nancial system: signi?cant relaxation of entry barriers, the liberalization of branching, the privatization of the Italian banks, and a massive process of mergers and acquisitions. Following the Bank of Italy’s liberalization of branching in 1990, in 10 years the number of bank branches increased by 70% in Italy, while in the rest of Europe it declined. Over the decade the average number of banks doing business in a province rose from 27 to 31, while a wave of mergers (324 operations) and acquisitions (137) revolutionized the Italian banking industry, reducing the overall number of Italian banks by 30%. To a signi?cant extent this concentration represented take-overs of troubled Southern banks by Central and Northern ones. As a result of these developments (plus a rise in banking productivity and a fall in costs), the spread between short-term lending and deposit rates fell from 7 percentage points in 1990 to 4 points in 1999. And despite an increase in concentration in a number of local credit markets, the interest-rate differential between the locally dominant and other banks generally narrowed.

Financial Crisis Management and Democracy
Financial Crisis Management and Democracy

Author: Bettina De Souza Guilherme

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-12-09

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 3030548953

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This open access book discusses financial crisis management and policy in Europe and Latin America, with a special focus on equity and democracy. Based on a three-year research project by the Jean Monnet Network, this volume takes an interdisciplinary, comparative approach, analyzing both the role and impact of the EU and regional organizations in Latin America on crisis management as well as the consequences of crisis on the process of European integration and on Latin America’s regionalism. The book begins with a theoretical introduction, exploring the effects of the paradigm change on economic policies in Europe and in Latin America and analyzing key systemic aspects of the unsustainability of the present economic system explaining the global crises and their interconnections. The following chapters are divided into sections. The second section explores aspects of regional governance and how the economic and financial crises were managed on a macro level in Europe and Latin America. The third and fourth sections use case studies to drill down to the impact of the crises at the national and regional levels, including the emergence of political polarization and rise in populism in both areas. The last section presents proposals for reform, including the transition from finance capitalism to a sustainable real capitalism in both regions and at the inter-regional level of EU-LAC relations.The volume concludes with an epilogue on financial crises, regionalism, and domestic adjustment by Loukas Tsoukalis, President of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). Written by an international network of academics, practitioners and policy advisors, this volume will be of interest to researchers and students interested in macroeconomics, comparative regionalism, democracy, and financial crisis management as well as politicians, policy advisors, and members of national and regional organizations in the EU and Latin America.

Cleaning-up Bank Balance Sheets
Cleaning-up Bank Balance Sheets

Author: José Garrido

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2016-07-11

Total Pages: 33

ISBN-13: 1498357032

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To stabilize and bring down nonperforming loans (NPLs) in the Italian banking system, the Italian authorities have been implementing a number of reforms, aimed among others at speeding up insolvency and enforcement proceedings, strengthening bank corporate governance, cleaning up balance sheets, and facilitating bank consolidation. This paper examines the Italian banking system’s NPL problem, which ties up capital, weighing on bank profitability and authorities’ economic reforms. It argues for a comprehensive approach, encompassing economic, supervisory, and legal measures. The authorities’ reforms are important steps toward this end. The paper describes measures that could further support their actions.

Italy
Italy

Author: International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2013-09-27

Total Pages: 60

ISBN-13: 1484311515

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This Financial System Stability Assessment report provides a review of .Italian financial system. The announcement of outright monetary transactions (OMT) and steps toward a banking union have blunted the impact of the sovereign debt crisis on banks, and the expansion of European Central Bank (ECB) liquidity facilities has temporarily shielded Italian banks from wholesale funding volatility. Stress tests suggest that the system as a whole is able to withstand both the already weak baseline macro outlook and the phase-in of Basel III requirements.

The Banks Did It
The Banks Did It

Author: Neil Fligstein

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2021-06-08

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 0674249356

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A comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the mortgage-securitization industry, which explains the complex roots of the 2008 financial crisis. More than a decade after the 2008 financial crisis plunged the world economy into recession, we still lack an adequate explanation for why it happened. Existing accounts identify a number of culpritsÑfinancial instruments, traders, regulators, capital flowsÑyet fail to grasp how the various puzzle pieces came together. The key, Neil Fligstein argues, is the convergence of major US banks on an identical business model: extracting money from the securitization of mortgages. But how, and why, did this convergence come about? The Banks Did It carefully takes the reader through the development of a banking industry dependent on mortgage securitization. Fligstein documents how banks, with help from the government, created the market for mortgage securities. The largest banksÑCountrywide Financial, Bear Stearns, Citibank, and Washington MutualÑsoon came to participate in every aspect of this market. Each firm originated mortgages, issued mortgage-backed securities, sold those securities, and, in many cases, acted as their own best customers by purchasing the same securities. Entirely reliant on the throughput of mortgages, these firms were unable to alter course even when it became clear that the market had turned on them in the mid-2000s. With the structural features of the banking industry in view, the rest of the story falls into place. Fligstein explains how the crisis was produced, where it spread, why regulators missed the warning signs, and how banksÕ dependence on mortgage securitization resulted in predatory lending and securities fraud. An illuminating account of the transformation of the American financial system, The Banks Did It offers important lessons for anyone with a stake in avoiding the next crisis.

The Architecture of Banking in Renaissance Italy
The Architecture of Banking in Renaissance Italy

Author: Lauren Jacobi

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781108716567

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"In this volume, Lauren Jacobi explores some of the repercussions of early capitalism through a study of the location and types of spaces that were used for banking and minting in Florence and other mercantile centers in Europe"--

A World of Public Debts
A World of Public Debts

Author: Nicolas Barreyre

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-10-26

Total Pages: 593

ISBN-13: 3030487946

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This book analyzes public debt from a political, historical, and global perspective. It demonstrates that public debt has been a defining feature in the construction of modern states, a main driver in the history of capitalism, and a potent geopolitical force. From revolutionary crisis to empire and the rise and fall of a post-war world order, the problem of debt has never been the sole purview of closed economic circles. This book offers a key to understanding the centrality of public debt today by revealing that political problems of public debt have and will continue to need a political response. Today’s tendency to consider public debt as a source of fragility or economic inefficiency misses the fact that, since the eighteenth century, public debts and capital markets have on many occasions been used by states to enforce their sovereignty and build their institutions, especially in times of war. It is nonetheless striking to observe that certain solutions that were used in the past to smooth out public debt crises (inflation, default, cancellation, or capital controls) were left out of the political framing of the recent crisis, therefore revealing how the balance of power between bondholders, taxpayers, pensioners, and wage-earners has evolved over the past 40 years. Today, as the Covid-19 pandemic opens up a dramatic new crisis, reconnecting the history of capitalism and that of democracy seems one of the most urgent intellectual and political tasks of our time. This global political history of public debt is a contribution to this debate and will be of interest to financial, economic, and political historians and researchers. Chapters 13 and 19 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

A History of Corporate Governance around the World
A History of Corporate Governance around the World

Author: Randall K. Morck

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2007-11-01

Total Pages: 700

ISBN-13: 0226536831

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For many Americans, capitalism is a dynamic engine of prosperity that rewards the bold, the daring, and the hardworking. But to many outside the United States, capitalism seems like an initiative that serves only to concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a few hereditary oligarchies. As A History of Corporate Governance around the World shows, neither conception is wrong. In this volume, some of the brightest minds in the field of economics present new empirical research that suggests that each side of the debate has something to offer the other. Free enterprise and well-developed financial systems are proven to produce growth in those countries that have them. But research also suggests that in some other capitalist countries, arrangements truly do concentrate corporate ownership in the hands of a few wealthy families. A History of Corporate Governance around the World provides historical studies of the patterns of corporate governance in several countries-including the large industrial economies of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States; larger developing economies like China and India; and alternative models like those of the Netherlands and Sweden.