Paolo Piselli | Bank of Italy (original) (raw)
Papers by Paolo Piselli
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2017
All rights reserved. No part o f this paper m ay be reproduced in any form w ithout perm ission o... more All rights reserved. No part o f this paper m ay be reproduced in any form w ithout perm ission o f the authors.
Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers), 2018
Il lavoro analizza l’evoluzione recente delle economie del Nord Ovest italiano, concentrandosi su... more Il lavoro analizza l’evoluzione recente delle economie del Nord Ovest italiano, concentrandosi sui fenomeni della deindustrializzazione e della terziarizzazione dell’economia. Dal confronto con un gruppo di regioni europee definibili come “industriali avanzate”, emerge come il ritardo di crescita economica del Nord Ovest, accentuatosi nel corso degli anni duemila, sia avvenuto in un contesto di cambiamenti strutturali per alcuni versi simili, ma per altri peculiari; in particolare, sembrano prevalere specificità che frenano la competitività del Nord Ovest, come una transizione troppo lenta verso i settori manifatturieri ad alta intensità tecnologica, e verso i servizi a elevato contenuto di conoscenza. Il confronto internazionale evidenzia il persistere di un divario che riguarda fattori importanti per la crescita e l’innovazione; tra questi si segnala la piccola dimensione delle imprese (che tende peraltro ad accentuarsi), i ritardi nella dotazione di capitale umano, la debolezza d...
Routledge eBooks, Mar 15, 2012
Large and growing international financial linkages between East and West have altered the nature ... more Large and growing international financial linkages between East and West have altered the nature of the stability risks faced by European banking systems, increasing susceptibility to contagion. This paper aims to identify potential risks of cross-border contagion using a sample of large Western and Eastern European banks. We assume that contagion risk is associated with extreme co-movements in a market-based measure of bank soundness, controlling for common underlying factors. We also find evidence that contagion risk across European banks heightened significantly during the recent crisis. Contagion among Western European banks with the highest market share in Eastern Europe and from this group to Eastern European banks shows the largest increase in our sample. We find also evidence of contagion spreading from Eastern European banks, but this effect seems to reflect a broader phenomenon of contagion from emerging markets to banks in advanced countries exposed to these markets. Finally, our findings offer only mixed evidence of the existence of a direct ownership channel in the transmission of contagion.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Oct 1, 2020
A few studies lately explored the relationship between changes in the demographic structure and i... more A few studies lately explored the relationship between changes in the demographic structure and inflation using mainly cross-country analyses. In this paper we investigate how the evolution in the age structure of the population affected price dynamics in Italy, using annual data for a panel of provinces in the period 1982-2016. The within-country approach allows us to wipe out the effects of supranational shocks, as well as to better take into account the effects of monetary policy, main common driver of price dynamics over the medium-term. We use a set of indicators, namely young age, old age and overall dependency ratios, and the share of working age population. Our results suggest that the ongoing ageing process likely contributed to dampening price dynamics.
MPRA Paper, 2019
A few studies lately explored the relationship between changes in the demographic structure and i... more A few studies lately explored the relationship between changes in the demographic structure and inflation using mainly crosscountry analyses. In this paper we investigate how the evolution in the age structure of the population affected price dynamics in Italy, using annual data for a panel of provinces in the period 1982-2016. The within-country approach allows us to wipe out the effects of supranational shocks, as well as to better take into account the effects of monetary policy, main common driver of price dynamics over the medium-term. We use a set of indicators, namely young age, old age and overall dependency ratios, and the share of working age population. Our results suggest that the ongoing ageing process likely contributed to dampening price dynamics.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015
Italian Abstract: Il lavoro analizza l’evoluzione recente delle economie del Nord Ovest italiano,... more Italian Abstract: Il lavoro analizza l’evoluzione recente delle economie del Nord Ovest italiano, concentrandosi sui fenomeni della deindustrializzazione e della terziarizzazione dell’economia. Dal confronto con un gruppo di regioni europee definibili come “industriali avanzate”, emerge come il ritardo di crescita economica del Nord Ovest, accentuatosi nel corso degli anni duemila, sia avvenuto in un contesto di cambiamenti strutturali per alcuni versi simili, ma per altri peculiari; in particolare, sembrano prevalere specificita che frenano la competitivita del Nord Ovest, come una transizione troppo lenta verso i settori manifatturieri ad alta intensita tecnologica, e verso i servizi a elevato contenuto di conoscenza. Il confronto internazionale evidenzia il persistere di un divario che riguarda fattori importanti per la crescita e l’innovazione; tra questi si segnala la piccola dimensione delle imprese (che tende peraltro ad accentuarsi), i ritardi nella dotazione di capitale umano, la debolezza della situazione economica e finanziaria delle imprese. Anche nella lunga recessione emergono, comunque, segnali di dinamismo, connessi ad alcune realta imprenditoriali altamente competitive, leader a livello internazionale.English Abstract: The paper analyzes the recent evolution of the economies of the Italian North West, focusing on the phenomena of de-industrialization and the transition to a service economy. The comparison is made with a group of European regions defined as "advanced industrial". Results show that the sluggish economic growth of the North West (which has worsened in the last decade) has taken place in a context of heavy economic structural changes. Some of these, which are specific to the North West, seem to have further hampered the competitiveness of the area, such as a too slow transition towards technology-intensive manufacturing sectors and to knowledge intensive services. The international comparison shows persistent gaps regarding important factors for growth and innovation; among these, the small firm size, delays in the human capital accumulation, the weakness of the economic and financial situation of enterprises. Even in the long recession, we observe signs of dynamism, like some highly competitive firms and territories, which are able to compete even at international level.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014
This paper evaluates the impact of an R&D subsidy program implemented in a region of northern Ita... more This paper evaluates the impact of an R&D subsidy program implemented in a region of northern Italy on innovation by beneficiary firms. In order to verify whether the subsidies enabled firms to increase patenting activity, we exploit the mechanism used to allot the funds. Since only projects that scored above a certain threshold received the subsidy, we use a sharp regression discontinuity design to compare the number of patent applications, and the probability of submitting one, of subsidized firms with those of unsubsidized firms close to the cutoff. We find that the program had a significant impact on the number of patents, more markedly in the case of smaller firms. Our results show that the program was also successful in increasing the probability of applying for a patent, but only in the case of smaller firms.
Journal of European Real Estate Research, 2022
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a dating system for the Italian residential real e... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a dating system for the Italian residential real estate market from 1927 to 2019 and investigate its interaction with credit and business cycles.Design/methodology/approachTo detect the local turning point of the Italian residential real estate market, the authors apply the honeycomb cycle developed by Janssen et al. (1994) based on the joint analysis of house prices and the number of transactions. To this end, the authors use a unique historical reconstruction of house price levels by Baffigi and Piselli (2019) in addition to data on transactions.FindingsThis study confirms the validity of the honeycomb model for the last four decades of the Italian housing market. In addition, the results show that the severe downsizing of the housing market is largely associated with business and credit contraction, certainly contributing to exacerbating the severity of the recession. Finally, preliminary evidence suggests that whenever a price bubbl...
This paper evaluates the impact of R&D public support on the innovation activities of a sample of... more This paper evaluates the impact of R&D public support on the innovation activities of a sample of Italian SMEs. Unlike most of the literature, the analysis focuses more deeply on the innovation output than on the innovation input. The innovation output is measured through patent data. By using a new data set obtained by combining information from EPO records and the Capitalia data set on Italian corporations, we find that publicly supported firms have similar patenting activity to other R&D performers, regardless of the type of policy tool used to foster innovation. However, as far as patenting is concerned, supported SMEs face higher R&D spending than others.
Bank of Italy Research Paper Series, 2018
This paper examines the contribution of demography to economic growth in Italy by comparing the c... more This paper examines the contribution of demography to economic growth in Italy by comparing the country’s past, present and future. We use an accounting framework to decompose GDP and per capita GDP growth, and we show how changes in the age structure of the population produced a positive demographic dividend in the past. By contrast, in the last twenty-five years and arguably in the future, demography has made and will continue to make a direct negative contribution to economic growth. Expected migration flows will noticeably limit the extent of this negative contribution, but they will not be able to reverse its sign. We analyze three possible developments, potentially driven by demography itself or fostered by policy actions –longer working lives, an increase in female labour market participation and higher education levels – which could counteract the pure negative accounting effects produced by the evolution of the age structure.
According to the European Regulatory Framework in Telecommunications sector, one of the main task... more According to the European Regulatory Framework in Telecommunications sector, one of the main tasks required from the NRAs is to promote efficient investment and innovation in the field. The aim of this paper is to estimate the relevance of regulation for the growth of investment across 16 EU Countries. This is done estimating how regulation affects revenues and investment elasticity to incumbents’ market power. To do so, we use the panel structure of our data and the timing of the introduction of regulation to carry out two “quasi experiments”, where incumbents are ideally splitted in two groups, according to whether they are subject to a specific regulation or not. We consider a sample of 16 EU countries from 1997 to 2011. The results seem to to suggest that New Regulatory Framework has little reduced the impact of market share on firm’s revenues and investment in the recent years. Over a longer time span instead, being a regulated country does not imply lower revenues and investme...
According to the European Regulatory Framework in Telecommunications sector, one of the main task... more According to the European Regulatory Framework in Telecommunications sector, one of the main tasks required from the NRAs is to promote efficient investment and innovation in the field. The aim of this paper is to estimate the relevance of regulation for the growth of investment across 16 EU Countries. This is done estimating how regulation affects revenues and investment elasticity to incumbents’ market power. To do so, we use the panel structure of our data and the timing of the introduction of regulation to carry out two “quasi experiments”, where incumbents are ideally splitted in two groups, according to whether they are subject to a specific regulation or not. We consider a sample of 16 EU countries from 1997 to 2011. The results seem to to suggest that New Regulatory Framework has little reduced the impact of market share on firm’s revenues and investment in the recent years. Over a longer time span instead, being a regulated country does not imply lower revenues and investme...
The recent empirical evidence documenting the presence of asymmetries in business cycles represen... more The recent empirical evidence documenting the presence of asymmetries in business cycles represents a challenge for the standard equilibrium models of real business cycle. These models successfully explain most first and second moments of the actual time series, but cannot replicate non-linear features of the data, unless a non-linear innovation is introduced. This paper aims at investigating the possible non-linearity in the technology shock, the basic innovation in Real Business Cycle models. In order to measure the unobservable technology shock, we derive some alternative measures of total factor productivity such as revenue-based and cost-based Solow residual and we also control for cyclical factor utilisation. We test for non-linearities and model a nonlinear SETAR model for the productivity shock as a natural extension of the autoregressive linear process, the standard way of representing technology shocks. Our findings suggest that, although the standard Solow residual turns ...
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2017
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2016
Italian Abstract: In questo lavoro viene presentato l’Archivio Storico del Credito in Italia (ASC... more Italian Abstract: In questo lavoro viene presentato l’Archivio Storico del Credito in Italia (ASCI) che raccoglie e armonizza i dati di stato patrimoniale di circa 2.600 aziende di credito operanti in Italia tra il 1890 e il 1973, per un totale di oltre 41.000 bilanci. La ricostruzione incorpora quella gia effettuata per il periodo 1890-1936 e pubblicata nel volume I bilanci delle aziende di credito 1890-1936 (Cotula et al. 1996) e prosegue per il periodo successivo, poggiandosi sull’informazione raccolta dalla Banca d’Italia nella sua attivita di vigilanza a partire dal 1936. L’ASCI permette una molteplicita di analisi dei fenomeni creditizi grazie alla lunghezza del periodo storico considerato, all’ampia rappresentativita del sistema bancario e all’elevato dettaglio delle voci di bilancio. Attraverso i nuovi dati, il presente studio delinea l’evoluzione del sistema bancario tra il 1890 e il 1973, soffermandosi sulle differenze nella composizione dei bilanci, sulla distribuzione regionale delle aziende di credito tra le diverse categorie di banche e sul grado di concentrazione.English Abstract: This paper presents the Archivio Storico del Credito in Italia (ASCI), a comprehensive database of balance sheet data for nearly 2,600 Italian banks on an annual basis for the period 1890-1973. The work draws on earlier work carried out by the Bank of Italy for the period 1890-1936 (published in 1996) and incorporates information collected by the Bank of Italy as part of its banking supervision activity from 1936 onwards. ASCI is suitable for analyzing a variety of credit phenomena, given the high representativeness of the banking system and the large amount of balance sheet data available. Based on this new data set, we provide a sketch of the evolution of the Italian banking system between 1890 and 1973, exploring the composition of the balance sheets across bank categories, the regional distribution of banks and the degree of concentration.
The recent empirical evidence documenting the presence of asymmetries in business cycles represen... more The recent empirical evidence documenting the presence of asymmetries in business cycles represents a challenge for the standard equilibrium models of real business cycle. These models successfully explain most first and second moments of the actual time series, but cannot replicate non-linear features of the data, unless a non-linear innovation is introduced. This paper aims at investigating the possible non-linearity in the technology shock, the basic innovation in Real Business Cycle models. In order to measure the unobservable technology shock, we derive some alternative measures of total factor productivity such as revenue-based and cost-based Solow residual and we also control for cyclical factor utilisation. We test for non-linearities and model a nonlinear SETAR model for the productivity shock as a natural extension of the autoregressive linear process, the standard way of representing technology shocks. Our findings suggest that, although the standard Solow residual turns out to be linear, the other measures of technology shock appear non-linear, as soon as non-technological cyclical components are ruled out.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2017
All rights reserved. No part o f this paper m ay be reproduced in any form w ithout perm ission o... more All rights reserved. No part o f this paper m ay be reproduced in any form w ithout perm ission o f the authors.
Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers), 2018
Il lavoro analizza l’evoluzione recente delle economie del Nord Ovest italiano, concentrandosi su... more Il lavoro analizza l’evoluzione recente delle economie del Nord Ovest italiano, concentrandosi sui fenomeni della deindustrializzazione e della terziarizzazione dell’economia. Dal confronto con un gruppo di regioni europee definibili come “industriali avanzate”, emerge come il ritardo di crescita economica del Nord Ovest, accentuatosi nel corso degli anni duemila, sia avvenuto in un contesto di cambiamenti strutturali per alcuni versi simili, ma per altri peculiari; in particolare, sembrano prevalere specificità che frenano la competitività del Nord Ovest, come una transizione troppo lenta verso i settori manifatturieri ad alta intensità tecnologica, e verso i servizi a elevato contenuto di conoscenza. Il confronto internazionale evidenzia il persistere di un divario che riguarda fattori importanti per la crescita e l’innovazione; tra questi si segnala la piccola dimensione delle imprese (che tende peraltro ad accentuarsi), i ritardi nella dotazione di capitale umano, la debolezza d...
Routledge eBooks, Mar 15, 2012
Large and growing international financial linkages between East and West have altered the nature ... more Large and growing international financial linkages between East and West have altered the nature of the stability risks faced by European banking systems, increasing susceptibility to contagion. This paper aims to identify potential risks of cross-border contagion using a sample of large Western and Eastern European banks. We assume that contagion risk is associated with extreme co-movements in a market-based measure of bank soundness, controlling for common underlying factors. We also find evidence that contagion risk across European banks heightened significantly during the recent crisis. Contagion among Western European banks with the highest market share in Eastern Europe and from this group to Eastern European banks shows the largest increase in our sample. We find also evidence of contagion spreading from Eastern European banks, but this effect seems to reflect a broader phenomenon of contagion from emerging markets to banks in advanced countries exposed to these markets. Finally, our findings offer only mixed evidence of the existence of a direct ownership channel in the transmission of contagion.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Oct 1, 2020
A few studies lately explored the relationship between changes in the demographic structure and i... more A few studies lately explored the relationship between changes in the demographic structure and inflation using mainly cross-country analyses. In this paper we investigate how the evolution in the age structure of the population affected price dynamics in Italy, using annual data for a panel of provinces in the period 1982-2016. The within-country approach allows us to wipe out the effects of supranational shocks, as well as to better take into account the effects of monetary policy, main common driver of price dynamics over the medium-term. We use a set of indicators, namely young age, old age and overall dependency ratios, and the share of working age population. Our results suggest that the ongoing ageing process likely contributed to dampening price dynamics.
MPRA Paper, 2019
A few studies lately explored the relationship between changes in the demographic structure and i... more A few studies lately explored the relationship between changes in the demographic structure and inflation using mainly crosscountry analyses. In this paper we investigate how the evolution in the age structure of the population affected price dynamics in Italy, using annual data for a panel of provinces in the period 1982-2016. The within-country approach allows us to wipe out the effects of supranational shocks, as well as to better take into account the effects of monetary policy, main common driver of price dynamics over the medium-term. We use a set of indicators, namely young age, old age and overall dependency ratios, and the share of working age population. Our results suggest that the ongoing ageing process likely contributed to dampening price dynamics.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015
Italian Abstract: Il lavoro analizza l’evoluzione recente delle economie del Nord Ovest italiano,... more Italian Abstract: Il lavoro analizza l’evoluzione recente delle economie del Nord Ovest italiano, concentrandosi sui fenomeni della deindustrializzazione e della terziarizzazione dell’economia. Dal confronto con un gruppo di regioni europee definibili come “industriali avanzate”, emerge come il ritardo di crescita economica del Nord Ovest, accentuatosi nel corso degli anni duemila, sia avvenuto in un contesto di cambiamenti strutturali per alcuni versi simili, ma per altri peculiari; in particolare, sembrano prevalere specificita che frenano la competitivita del Nord Ovest, come una transizione troppo lenta verso i settori manifatturieri ad alta intensita tecnologica, e verso i servizi a elevato contenuto di conoscenza. Il confronto internazionale evidenzia il persistere di un divario che riguarda fattori importanti per la crescita e l’innovazione; tra questi si segnala la piccola dimensione delle imprese (che tende peraltro ad accentuarsi), i ritardi nella dotazione di capitale umano, la debolezza della situazione economica e finanziaria delle imprese. Anche nella lunga recessione emergono, comunque, segnali di dinamismo, connessi ad alcune realta imprenditoriali altamente competitive, leader a livello internazionale.English Abstract: The paper analyzes the recent evolution of the economies of the Italian North West, focusing on the phenomena of de-industrialization and the transition to a service economy. The comparison is made with a group of European regions defined as "advanced industrial". Results show that the sluggish economic growth of the North West (which has worsened in the last decade) has taken place in a context of heavy economic structural changes. Some of these, which are specific to the North West, seem to have further hampered the competitiveness of the area, such as a too slow transition towards technology-intensive manufacturing sectors and to knowledge intensive services. The international comparison shows persistent gaps regarding important factors for growth and innovation; among these, the small firm size, delays in the human capital accumulation, the weakness of the economic and financial situation of enterprises. Even in the long recession, we observe signs of dynamism, like some highly competitive firms and territories, which are able to compete even at international level.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014
This paper evaluates the impact of an R&D subsidy program implemented in a region of northern Ita... more This paper evaluates the impact of an R&D subsidy program implemented in a region of northern Italy on innovation by beneficiary firms. In order to verify whether the subsidies enabled firms to increase patenting activity, we exploit the mechanism used to allot the funds. Since only projects that scored above a certain threshold received the subsidy, we use a sharp regression discontinuity design to compare the number of patent applications, and the probability of submitting one, of subsidized firms with those of unsubsidized firms close to the cutoff. We find that the program had a significant impact on the number of patents, more markedly in the case of smaller firms. Our results show that the program was also successful in increasing the probability of applying for a patent, but only in the case of smaller firms.
Journal of European Real Estate Research, 2022
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a dating system for the Italian residential real e... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a dating system for the Italian residential real estate market from 1927 to 2019 and investigate its interaction with credit and business cycles.Design/methodology/approachTo detect the local turning point of the Italian residential real estate market, the authors apply the honeycomb cycle developed by Janssen et al. (1994) based on the joint analysis of house prices and the number of transactions. To this end, the authors use a unique historical reconstruction of house price levels by Baffigi and Piselli (2019) in addition to data on transactions.FindingsThis study confirms the validity of the honeycomb model for the last four decades of the Italian housing market. In addition, the results show that the severe downsizing of the housing market is largely associated with business and credit contraction, certainly contributing to exacerbating the severity of the recession. Finally, preliminary evidence suggests that whenever a price bubbl...
This paper evaluates the impact of R&D public support on the innovation activities of a sample of... more This paper evaluates the impact of R&D public support on the innovation activities of a sample of Italian SMEs. Unlike most of the literature, the analysis focuses more deeply on the innovation output than on the innovation input. The innovation output is measured through patent data. By using a new data set obtained by combining information from EPO records and the Capitalia data set on Italian corporations, we find that publicly supported firms have similar patenting activity to other R&D performers, regardless of the type of policy tool used to foster innovation. However, as far as patenting is concerned, supported SMEs face higher R&D spending than others.
Bank of Italy Research Paper Series, 2018
This paper examines the contribution of demography to economic growth in Italy by comparing the c... more This paper examines the contribution of demography to economic growth in Italy by comparing the country’s past, present and future. We use an accounting framework to decompose GDP and per capita GDP growth, and we show how changes in the age structure of the population produced a positive demographic dividend in the past. By contrast, in the last twenty-five years and arguably in the future, demography has made and will continue to make a direct negative contribution to economic growth. Expected migration flows will noticeably limit the extent of this negative contribution, but they will not be able to reverse its sign. We analyze three possible developments, potentially driven by demography itself or fostered by policy actions –longer working lives, an increase in female labour market participation and higher education levels – which could counteract the pure negative accounting effects produced by the evolution of the age structure.
According to the European Regulatory Framework in Telecommunications sector, one of the main task... more According to the European Regulatory Framework in Telecommunications sector, one of the main tasks required from the NRAs is to promote efficient investment and innovation in the field. The aim of this paper is to estimate the relevance of regulation for the growth of investment across 16 EU Countries. This is done estimating how regulation affects revenues and investment elasticity to incumbents’ market power. To do so, we use the panel structure of our data and the timing of the introduction of regulation to carry out two “quasi experiments”, where incumbents are ideally splitted in two groups, according to whether they are subject to a specific regulation or not. We consider a sample of 16 EU countries from 1997 to 2011. The results seem to to suggest that New Regulatory Framework has little reduced the impact of market share on firm’s revenues and investment in the recent years. Over a longer time span instead, being a regulated country does not imply lower revenues and investme...
According to the European Regulatory Framework in Telecommunications sector, one of the main task... more According to the European Regulatory Framework in Telecommunications sector, one of the main tasks required from the NRAs is to promote efficient investment and innovation in the field. The aim of this paper is to estimate the relevance of regulation for the growth of investment across 16 EU Countries. This is done estimating how regulation affects revenues and investment elasticity to incumbents’ market power. To do so, we use the panel structure of our data and the timing of the introduction of regulation to carry out two “quasi experiments”, where incumbents are ideally splitted in two groups, according to whether they are subject to a specific regulation or not. We consider a sample of 16 EU countries from 1997 to 2011. The results seem to to suggest that New Regulatory Framework has little reduced the impact of market share on firm’s revenues and investment in the recent years. Over a longer time span instead, being a regulated country does not imply lower revenues and investme...
The recent empirical evidence documenting the presence of asymmetries in business cycles represen... more The recent empirical evidence documenting the presence of asymmetries in business cycles represents a challenge for the standard equilibrium models of real business cycle. These models successfully explain most first and second moments of the actual time series, but cannot replicate non-linear features of the data, unless a non-linear innovation is introduced. This paper aims at investigating the possible non-linearity in the technology shock, the basic innovation in Real Business Cycle models. In order to measure the unobservable technology shock, we derive some alternative measures of total factor productivity such as revenue-based and cost-based Solow residual and we also control for cyclical factor utilisation. We test for non-linearities and model a nonlinear SETAR model for the productivity shock as a natural extension of the autoregressive linear process, the standard way of representing technology shocks. Our findings suggest that, although the standard Solow residual turns ...
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2017
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2016
Italian Abstract: In questo lavoro viene presentato l’Archivio Storico del Credito in Italia (ASC... more Italian Abstract: In questo lavoro viene presentato l’Archivio Storico del Credito in Italia (ASCI) che raccoglie e armonizza i dati di stato patrimoniale di circa 2.600 aziende di credito operanti in Italia tra il 1890 e il 1973, per un totale di oltre 41.000 bilanci. La ricostruzione incorpora quella gia effettuata per il periodo 1890-1936 e pubblicata nel volume I bilanci delle aziende di credito 1890-1936 (Cotula et al. 1996) e prosegue per il periodo successivo, poggiandosi sull’informazione raccolta dalla Banca d’Italia nella sua attivita di vigilanza a partire dal 1936. L’ASCI permette una molteplicita di analisi dei fenomeni creditizi grazie alla lunghezza del periodo storico considerato, all’ampia rappresentativita del sistema bancario e all’elevato dettaglio delle voci di bilancio. Attraverso i nuovi dati, il presente studio delinea l’evoluzione del sistema bancario tra il 1890 e il 1973, soffermandosi sulle differenze nella composizione dei bilanci, sulla distribuzione regionale delle aziende di credito tra le diverse categorie di banche e sul grado di concentrazione.English Abstract: This paper presents the Archivio Storico del Credito in Italia (ASCI), a comprehensive database of balance sheet data for nearly 2,600 Italian banks on an annual basis for the period 1890-1973. The work draws on earlier work carried out by the Bank of Italy for the period 1890-1936 (published in 1996) and incorporates information collected by the Bank of Italy as part of its banking supervision activity from 1936 onwards. ASCI is suitable for analyzing a variety of credit phenomena, given the high representativeness of the banking system and the large amount of balance sheet data available. Based on this new data set, we provide a sketch of the evolution of the Italian banking system between 1890 and 1973, exploring the composition of the balance sheets across bank categories, the regional distribution of banks and the degree of concentration.
The recent empirical evidence documenting the presence of asymmetries in business cycles represen... more The recent empirical evidence documenting the presence of asymmetries in business cycles represents a challenge for the standard equilibrium models of real business cycle. These models successfully explain most first and second moments of the actual time series, but cannot replicate non-linear features of the data, unless a non-linear innovation is introduced. This paper aims at investigating the possible non-linearity in the technology shock, the basic innovation in Real Business Cycle models. In order to measure the unobservable technology shock, we derive some alternative measures of total factor productivity such as revenue-based and cost-based Solow residual and we also control for cyclical factor utilisation. We test for non-linearities and model a nonlinear SETAR model for the productivity shock as a natural extension of the autoregressive linear process, the standard way of representing technology shocks. Our findings suggest that, although the standard Solow residual turns out to be linear, the other measures of technology shock appear non-linear, as soon as non-technological cyclical components are ruled out.