This book looks at the banking and finance industries in Italy and how these industries contribute to the Italian economy. Could these industries be the solution to the contradiction in which the country's economy has been caught for several years: it is better governed than it has been in the past, but is not growing as much as it could. The book looks at how this solution might be achieved and what factors will govern the contribution of the banking and finance industries.

Following the outbreak of the international financial crisis, Southern Europe became an epicentre of economic instability and international concern. The prospect of a sovereign debt default in the eurozone’s ‘flaky fringe’ sent shock waves through the European and global economies. Examining the crucial initial phase, when the financial crisis was just beginning to spill over into the real economy, the volume surveys the impact of the September 2008 Lehman Brothers’ collapse across the EU’s southern periphery. The six South European eurozone members – Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta – are viewed in comparative perspective with EU candidate state and non-eurozone member, Turkey. In an era before the spectacular EU/IMF bailouts, the picture that emerges is one of national differentiation, illuminating these countries’ different starting points and varying policy responses in the face of the gathering financial storm. This book was published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

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.

An account of the principal phases in the development of the English banking system, and an analysis of the financial structure of the economy of the UK. The book focuses in detail on the regulatory and supervisory aspects of the UK banking system, and the interactions between the structural aspects of the banking and supervisory system.

This edited volume offers a study of national banking systems and explains how banking developed in the years preceding the international financial crisis that erupted in 2007. Its analysis of market-based banking shows the impact of the financial crisis in eleven developed economies, including all of the G7 economies.

Large or small, old EU member or new, and even EU member state or not – political economies across Southern Europe have been increasingly but distinctively ‘Europeanised’. In political, public and scholarly debates on processes of Europeanisation, Southern Europe invariably features as the area of concern. These concerns have been all the more heightened when the current sovereign debt crisis disproportionately hit this ‘flaky fringe’. This volume systematically investigates the dynamics of Europeanisation in the ‘Southern Periphery’ by tracing the domestic constellations of ideas, interests and institutions over the course of the 2000s which came to a close with the crisis. Bringing together a multidisciplinary team of leading specialists, the volume focuses on the political economy of public policy reform in Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain and Turkey. In order to allow for cross-case comparisons, these original country studies follow a common template framed by what the Editors call the ‘Europeanisation as research programme’. The volume casts empirical light on the causes of the crisis in these cases as well as the past legacies conditioning their responses to the crisis. Its conclusions point to variegated patterns of Europeanisation in different policy areas across Southern Europe. This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of European integration, European political economy, European public policy and comparative politics as well as specialists of Southern Europe. This book was published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

After decades of economic integration and EU enlargement, the economic geography of Europe has shifted, with new peripheries emerging and the core showing signs of fragmentation. This book examines the paths of the core and peripheral countries, with a focus on their diverse productive capabilities and their interdependence. Crisis in the European Monetary Union: A Core-Periphery Perspective provides a new framework for analysing the economic crisis that has shaken the Eurozone countries. Its analysis goes beyond the short-term, to study the medium and long-term relations between ‘core’ countries (particularly Germany) and Southern European ‘peripheral’ countries. The authors argue that long-term sustainability means assigning the state a key role in guiding investment, which in turn implies industrial policies geared towards diversifying, innovating and strengthening the economic structures of peripheral countries to help them thrive. Offering a fresh angle on the European crisis, this volume will appeal to students, academics and policymakers interested in the past, present and future construction of Europe.

National development banks (NDBs) have transformed from outdated relics of national industrial policy to central pillars of the European Union's economic project. This book explores why the EU has supported an increased role for NDBs, and how we might understand the dynamics between NDBs and European incentives and constraints.

Thanks to the collaboration with renowned economists and policymakers, the publication compares Italian and German macro-economic cultures and performances. When the Bretton Woods system crumbled and currencies lost their direct link to the dollar and their indirect link to gold, these two countries embarked upon strongly different monetary policies. This divergence was reflected in the evolution of the exchange rates: the value of one D-Mark increased from 170 Italian lira under Bretton Woods to 990 Italian lira at the start of European Monetary Union: an astounding devaluation of about 85 per cent for the lira! Firstly, the volume describes the German and the Italian economic and, specifically, monetary models, with major attention paid to institutions such as Deutsche Bundesbank and Banca d'Italia, analysing their development in a diachronic perspective. Secondly, these paradigms are contextualized within a broader European context, which is fundamental to reflect upon possible future scenarios. Das Buch versammelt renommierte Ökonomen und Politiker, hauptsächlich (aber nicht nur) aus Italien und Deutschland. Die Autoren vergleichen die makroökonomischen Kulturen und die Leistungsfähigkeit der beiden Länder. Seit dem Zusammenbruch des Bretton-Woods-Systems verfolgen beide Länder sehr unterschiedliche Geldpolitiken. Die Divergenz spiegelte sich auch in der Entwicklung der Wechselkurse: Der Wert der D-Mark stieg von 170 italienischen Lire unter Bretton Woods-Bedingungen auf 990 italienische Lire zu Beginn der Europäischen Währungsunion – eine atemberaubende Abwertung der Lira um rund 85 Prozent! Der Sammelband beschreibt das deutsche und das italienische Wirtschafts- und insbesondere das Geldmodell. Institutionen wie die Bundesbank und die Banca d'Italia stehen im Zentrum. Der historische Hintergrund wird ebenfalls ausgeleuchtet. In einem zweiten Schritt werden diese Modelle in einem breiteren europäischen Kontext analysiert, auch um mögliche künftige Szenarien aufzuzeigen. Mit Beiträgen von: Pierluigi Ciocca, Lorenzo Codogno, Fabio Colasanti, Federico Fubini, Daniel Gros, Otmar Issing, Harold James, Hans-Helmut Kotz, Ivo Maes, Klaus Masuch, Thomas Mayer, Stefano Micossi, Pier Carlo Padoan, Francesco Papadia, Lucio Pench, Tobias Piller, André Sapir, Gunther Schnabl, Ludger Schuhknecht, Sabine Seeger, Giulio Tremonti, Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell. Vorwort von Jean-Claude Trichet

This book compares the different expressions of, and outcomes from, banking nationalism in two European countries to draw wider conclusions about the consequences for Banking Union in Europe and to show how national governments deal (or fail to deal) with international commitments. It reveals how and why one case – Spain – managed to tackle failing banks within EU Banking Union regulations even before they became written in EU law, while the other – Italy – had more persistent problems. The book argues that Spain demonstrates a successful case of liberal economic nationalism, typified by aggressive, early state intervention to restructure Spanish banks, and help from the European Stability Mechanism even in the face of local political opposition. Italy, meanwhile, suffered from the weaker, delayed intervention which forced it to confront European institutions with demands for special treatment as a means of externalizing its own internal weakness. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and professionals in economic policy, Economic and Monetary Union and Banking Union in Europe, European and global governance, European/EU studies, European public policy, European public administration and EU law, as well as professionals working in the banking sector.