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This study shows that interconnections in the global banking network decreased due to the global financial crisis and subsequent regulatory initiatives. It also proves the effectiveness of the regulations of global systemically important banks in inducing these banks to contain their systemic nature.

The focus of this study is on the organizational features of banks operating in the South of Italy, namely major Italian banking groups and local independent banks. In our opinion, in order to evaluate the allocative and operational efficiency of the Southern Italian banking system, the issue to be addressed relates to the potential heterogeneous behavior between banks which are “truly local” – i.e. those banks whose real decisional centres are located in the Southern regions – with respect to those banks operating in the South but which have their decisional centres located in the Centre-North of the country (“outer banks”). The fact that bank strategies are defined in decisional centres located outside the Southern area could indeed explain the reduced credit support perceived by Southern SMEs. Two are the main research questions of the study. First, have the benefits of localism and relationship lending been deeply and negatively affected by the transfer of control rights outside the area (Mezzogiorno)? Second, is the organizational model adopted by local and independent banks (i.e. truly local banks) more effective in dealing with the needs of the local customer base?. Such questions are relevant not only with specific reference to southern Italy, but also to any region which experienced a reduction of locally based banks in favour of foreign banks (i.e. Central Eastern European Countries).

This paper analyses the development of bank long-term funding at an international level. We consider about 16,000 debt issuances in the period 2006-2012 in Europe and US. We investigate the driving forces that helped banks to weather the storm during the financial crisis with a relatively stable cost of long term funding. Through the use of a Principal Component Analysis we represent bank business model and we show that different orientation towards the Originate-To-Hold (OTH) or the Originate-To-Distribute (OTD) business models had subsequently, during crisis times, diverse impact on the variability or stability of the cost of long-term funds. We document the relevance of the OTH bank business model in keeping these costs under control and to be a sustainable business model in crisis times

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Gender gap is a general outcome of financial literacy surveys, which also highlight that differences among men and women in the domain of financial capability are irrespective of country differences. However, when considering the young and, particularly, college students, empirical results are rather mixed. Further research is therefore needed on the factors explaining the young’s financial literacy; our study contributes to the literature investigating a homogeneous sample of freshmen of the same age and cohort enrolled in a large Italian Business School, where ex ante gender differences should not be expected. We deliberately concentrate on a sample of business students, i.e., a homogeneous sample of the youth population expected to exhibit a similar personal interest in economic and financial matters. No gender gap was found either considering an overall measure of financial literacy (Rasch measure) or considering the overall difficulty of the instrument (Differential Item Functioning). We argue that personal interests in financial matters overcome potential gender issues in financial literacy.

We investigate whether financial markets reacted to the regulatory changes implied by the publication of the list of systemically important financial institutions (SIFI) and the new rules designed to address the too-big-to-fail problem of systemic banks. By applying event study methodology to a sample of 70 of the world's largest banks, we assess whether the stock prices of SIFIs reacted significantly and differently from those of other large banks not deemed to be systemically important following the release of information regarding the methodology used to identify SIFIs and their new capital requirements; the disclosure of the first list of 29 SIFIs; and the publication of the updated list of 28 SIFIs. Overall, we determine that financial markets did not univocally react to the new regulation regarding SIFIs. However markets discriminated between high and low capitalized banks and they correctly estimated the probable effects of the additional capital requirements.

This work aims at providing an indication of the level of financial literacy of Italian adults. The meaning of competencies (literacy) is complex and therefore several indicators have been used in order to better understand this complexity but in such a way as to have a real indicator. The indicators have to evaluate the adequacy of the financial skills. The survey not only includes indicators but also an analysis underlining the differences between the categories of people and the connections with variables that can clarify the reasons or origins of these results. Thus the interpretations and the comparisons can be more widely understood.

The current international financial crisis, which started in 2007 in the US and soon spread to the rest of the world, has revealed that the failure of an interconnected and complex financial institution, even though not necessarily large in terms of total assets, can threaten the stability of the entire financial system and have serious negative consequences for the real economy. In this study, we survey the analytical framework for identifying systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) and discuss the various regulatory proposals that have been put forward at the national and global level to deal with SIFIs.

Il lavoro valuta se la concentrazione presso il sistema bancario italiano dei flussi finanziari verso le imprese renda più complessa la ripresa dell'economia italiana, nel momento in cui l'industria è entrata in crisi; oppure se, invece, tale concentrazione possa facilitare una ricomposizione e riqualificazione del rapporto banca impresa in una logica di Relationship Lending. L'obiettivo è valutare se e a quali condizioni banche di diverse dimensioni sono in grado e hanno convenienza ad operare secondo le logiche del Relationship Lending

This paper investigates the effects of the disclosure of the list published by the FSB/BCBS on SIFIs’ market equity value. Using event study methodology applied to a sample of 70 of the world’s largest banks, we assess whether following the release of information regarding the methodology used to identify SIFIs and the new capital requirements (July 19, 2011), and the disclosure of the list of 29 SIFIs (November 4, 2011), stock prices of SIFIs reacted significantly and differently from those of other large banks. Our work contributes to the ongoing debate concerning the regulation of SIFIs.

ll lavoro esamina il tema della supervisione delle banche aventi un'importanza sistemica (SIFI’s), un tema diventato di estrema attualità dopo lo scoppio della crisi finanziaria globale. Dopo aver provato a definire il concetto di intermediario "a rilevanza sistemica", lo studio si concentra sulle proposte di supervisione attualmente allo studio delle autorità nazionali e internazionali di regolamentazione finanziaria

il lavoro propone un quadro dell’evoluzione delle politiche di raccolta delle banche durante la recente crisi dei debitori sovrani e si concentra sulle caratteristiche delle emissioni obbligazionarie sul mercato domestico al dettaglio nel triennio 2009-2011, per verificare se il contesto di elevata turbolenza che ha caratterizzato i mercati dei titoli abbia indotto le banche a modificare le proprie politiche di offerta

We examine financial literacy among Italian college students using Rasch analysis. Our findings support the appeal of adopting such technique in measuring financial literacy: the provided set of information is not limited to a crude figure, indicating whether the population has passed or failed the test. On the contrary, the specific areas where deficiencies mostly occur are located. Among them, the group showing highest knowledge deficit can be determined.

I fondi pensione rappresentano la categoria di investitori istituzionali con il più lungo orizzonte temporale di investimento. Questa peculiarità ha importanti conseguenze dal punto di vista di policy. La presente ricerca si propone di contribuire alla letteratura sulla previdenza complementare indagando il ruolo svolto dai fondi pensione nei mercati finanziari e il loro impatto sullo sviluppo economico, ponendo particolare attenzione alle scelte operate in momenti di crisi finanziarie generalizzate. Il volume raccoglie i contributi di un gruppo di autori che vantano una rilevante esperienza nel settore della previdenza complementare in diversi contesti istituzionali. Esso è pertanto caratterizzato da un taglio comparativo e internazionale ed affronta i seguenti temi: - il nesso tra sviluppo di forme di previdenza complementare e crescita economica; l’impatto della crisi finanziaria del 2007-2009 sulla performance dei fondi pensione e sulle relative scelte di «asset allocation»; gli interventi delle autorità di regolamentazione e supervisione a seguito della crisi dei mutui subprime; infine, il tema della protezione dei lavoratori, analizzato in particolare dal punto di vista dell’offerta di forme di «life cycle investing».

Drawing on a large set of listed banks from Europe, the US and Japan we start noticing that smaller-sized banks suffered less than larger banks in conjunction with the unfolding of the Great Crisis of 2007-09. Was this a small-bank anomaly analogous to the classic small firm effect? We conjecture that what seems to be a small bank anomaly might, in fact, signal a generalized market reassessment of the banking business model and tested whether stock markets penalized less the banks that kept more rooted to the traditional “originate-to-hold” (OTH) model while forgoing the opportunities disclosed by the “originate-to-distribute” (OTD) model. Using an event study methodology, we focus our analysis on two specific events: i) August 9th 2007, when the main Central Banks were forced to intervene and the world at large learned about the subprime crisis; ii) September 15th 2008, the day in which the bankruptcy of the second largest Wall Street investment bank (Lehman Brothers) surprised many. Our results detect that, indeed, banks that had kept closer to the OTH model – as proxied by a higher net interest income/operating income – experienced less negative abnormal returns. The fact that size is still negative and significant seems to suggest that our proxy for the OTH model may be imperfect and size might still be capturing a residual effect stemming form the banks’ specialization model.

In this study we investigate the effects of financial innovation on performance and asset growth for a sample of EU large banks. The novel contribution of this study is the use of a unique dataset that identifies banks’ attitude towards innovation across time and the level of information conveyed to market participants in order to addresses two main questions. Firstly, whether financial innovation has still an important role to play in the decisional processes of European banks; secondly, which areas are involved and what the implications are for management processes. To provide answers to these questions we analysed the annual reports from a sample of European banks searching for indications of product and process innovations. First of all, our analysis reveals that sample banks show differing attitude towards innovation. On this basis we were able to draw up an initial ranking of banks both in terms of their interest for innovation and its pervasiveness. In parallel, in order to provide an answer to the second question, we sought to identify the areas of banks’ products and services or management in which innovation is most significant. It should be noted that studying corporate- culture via text analyses is a relatively recent area of research. It has, however, provided us with interesting results, particularly in the areas of organisation, market reporting and the presentation of strategies adopted and performances/results achieved. In the light of these insights, the same approach has been adopted in the present study regarding the subject of innovation. We then investigated possible links between the strategic importance of innovation and company performance.

This chapter provides insight into the main features and specificities of the Indonesian banking systems. The chapter moves on to study the recent evolution of the Indonesian financial system, ranging from the post-Asian crisis restructuring to the apparent resiliency to the current sub-prime crisis. It shows that the banking system still plays a central role in its domestic financial markets. Then, it discusses the most recent three-pillar strategies followed by Indonesia, like other emerging countries, to reform their banks, based on privatization, consolidation and increased access of foreign banks. Finally, given their increasing role, the chapter discusses in depth the role that foreign banks can play in the restructuring of the banking system.