Strategic group lending for banks

Credit institutions often refuse to lend money to small firms. Usually, this happens because small firms are not able to provide collateral to lenders. Moreover, given the small amount of required loans, the relative cost of full monitoring is too high for lenders. Group lending contracts have been viewed as an effective solution to credit rationing of small firms in both developing and industrialized countries. The aim of this paper is to highlight the potential of group lending contracts in terms of credit risk management. In particular, this paper provides a theoretical explanation of the potential of group lending programs in screening good borrowers from bad ones to reduce the incidence of non-performing-loans (NPL). This paper shows that the success of firms involved in selected group lending programs is due to the fact that cosignature is an effective screening device: more precisely, if lenders make a proper use of co-signature to screen good firms from bad ones, then only firms that are good ex-ante enter group lending contracts. So, the main argument of this paper is that well designed group lending programs induce good firms to become jointly liable, at least partially, with other good firms and discourage other – bad-firms to do the same. Specifically, co-signature is proven to be a screening device only in the case of a perfectly competitive bank sector

A Methodological Toolkit to Reform Payment Systems: An Example of Applied Cost-Benefit Analysis

In principle, a careful evaluation of costs and benefits should be a wise rule for everyone who has to take any important decision. In particular, it is very important when a payment system reform is at stake. Since many stakeholders are involved in a payment system reform, the final decisions are going to be the result of several cost-benefit analyses and of “negotiation” among economic agents, in particular system providers, system participants, and end users. In this paper we will only focus on cost-benefit analysis, providing both theoretical guidelines and numerical examples. We conclude that past evaluations of payment system reforms mainly focused on qualitative assessments, hence overlooking quantitative ones. So, we suggest that it would be worthy for international institutions to spend some efforts to build, manage and make available to all countries a database on payments systems, with both relevant data and methods to assess costs and benefits

Is there a regulatory trade-off between stability and performance? Evidence from italian banks.

Disentangling the direct causal effect that sanctions exert on bank performance from the indirect through default risk, we show that a trade-off exists for regulators between banks’ performance and stability in Italy. Two key findings provide evidence for the nontriviality of the return-risk nexus: (i) banks’ liquidations are concentrated at the lower-end of the profitability distribution, resulting in (attrition) biased estimates; (ii) the drop-out is informative since it depends on the unobserved measurements of profitability. Despite this evidence, while returns are affected by sanctions and regulatory requirements, default risk is not. However, looking at growth of gross loans, enforcement actions reduce default risk though at a cost of a significant fall in lending, creating a regulatory tradeoff. In fact, through loans’ growth, we account for the key dynamics of intermediaries’ soundness, namely higher profits and less non-performing loans

SME Development Banks: Conceptual Framework and Empirical Analysis

In this paper we develop a conceptual framework to define small and medium-sized enterprise development banks (SMEDB). This conceptual effort is motivated by the lack of a clear definition of SMEDB. Once a consistent definition of SMEDB is provided, we compare a sample of banks that are SMEDB according to such definition with a sample of commercial banks. We conclude that it is possible to separate SMEDB from commercial banks in a statistically significant manner by taking into consideration a set of relevant financial indicators and we confirm the widespread idea that SMEDB play a crucial public/social role

Architettura - ri-Costruzione - Geometria: un percorso conoscitivo applicato allo studio delle volte "planteriane" in Torino

Le volte planteriane, dal nome dall'architetto Plantery attivo a Torino dai primi del ‘700, sono composte da una volta principale in cui si innestano voltine secondarie, assiali e angolari rispetto alla pianta, che consentono di coprire ambienti unitari ottenendo effetti di leggerezza e ariosità anche con frecce ridotte. La loro diffusione, fino agli anni ‘80 del secolo, in spazi di rappresentanza come gli atri dei palazzi, e la ricchezza delle variazioni sul tema legittimano una ricerca, che si avvale del rilevamento e della modellazione digitale, sulle relazioni fra i modelli geometrici e l'architettura realizzata, mediate dall'uso dei materiali, dalle tecniche costruttive e dagli stilemi decorativi. Plantery's vaults, by the name of the architect working in Turin since first years of ‘700, are composed by a main vault intersected by some axial and angular secondary vaults. Plantery's vaults allow to roof over unitary spaces obtaining effects of lightness also by small rises. Their diffusion, up to the ‘80s of the century, in boardrooms as palaces halls, and the richness of variations on the theme, justifies a research, that makes use of survey and digital modeling. This research is focused on the relationships between geometric models and built architecture, connected by use of materials, construction techniques and decorative styles

Parametric Thinking: Recognizing the "Architectural Formulas" in Cultural Built Heritage by Parametric Digital Modelling

Parametric digital modeling is today one of the most interesting tools on the international architectural design scene. At the same time it is one of the areas on which architectural criticism debates for some time. The use of parametric methods throughout the whole design process is favored by the rapid evolution of hardware and software devices and the everincreasing programming capabilities. However, the so-called Parametric Architecture has revealed its existence even before the digital revolution. Parametric Architecture is a definition coined by Luigi Moretti in the '40s. Furthermore, several scholars have found examples of parametric thinking from the origin of the history of Western architecture. The idea of verifying the existence of a "parametric thinking" in the Cultural Built Heritage, recognizing the parameters that could have guided the architectural composition and re-creating their relationships using tools of parametric digital modelling is the focus of the present proposal. It follows, deepens and develops a research carried out on the atria's vaults of several Baroque palaces in Turin

Design Drawing

At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the architectural field, we witness the break with the nineteenth century tradition produced by the season of historical avant-gardes, in contrast with the strict control exercised by the academies. The early stages of development of the Modern Movement, which start from it, encourage a further departure from the past and from tradition: architecture, abandoning all sorts of decoration, becomes a vehicle for progress and new social commitments, in a utopian and idealistic key. The Modern Movement, considered in its entire temporal development, is expressed in a very articulated way, to the point that we can speak of a sort of collection of movements, which produces a very wide and diversified architectural proposal, conveyed through a representation (sketches, drawings, etc.), which reflects the essence of protagonists, of their value systems, of the critical points on which they are questioned, of the materials used and of the formal appearance of the buildings

Texting and Driving Recognition leveraging the Front Camera of Smartphones

The recognition of the activity of texting while driving is an open problem in literature and it is crucial for the security within the scope of automotive. This can bring to life new insurance policies and increase the overall safety on the roads. Many works in literature leverage smartphone sensors for this purpose, however it is shown that these methods take a considerable amount of time to perform a recognition with sufficient confidence. In this paper we propose to leverage the smartphone front camera to perform an image classification and recognize whether the subject is seated in the driver position or in the passenger position. We first applied standalone Convolutional Neural Networks with poor results, then we focused on object detection-based algorithms to detect the presence and the position of discriminant objects (i.e. the security belts and the car win-dow). We then applied the model over short videos by classifying frame by frame until reaching a satisfactory confidence. Results show that we are able to reach around 90 % accuracy in only few seconds of the video, demonstrating the applicability of our method in the real world

Representing ideas by animated digital models in architectural competitions

This paper presents the results of the research and of related didactic activity, about digital representation in contemporary architectural competitions. 3D digital models, and more recently requested animations, represent a powerful tool for increasing evaluation capability by jury members as well as knowledge and comprehension by common people. The high complexity in creating and animating 3D digital models has to face an unusual separation of jobs and responsibilities between atelier activities and rendering works. The research constitutes one topic of a teaching, given in the 1st degree of Architecture Sciences (Polytechnic of Turin -Italy) and involves also continuous updating about software potentialities. Aim of the didactic activity is to provide the students some critical and operative tools in order to give them the whole mastery of synthetic representation of their design ideas. We can foresee, in future architectural competitions, the implementation of 4D representation, also referring to its progresses and applications to other media, like cinema and entertainment

3D Reconstruction, Digital Twinning, and Virtual Reality: Architectural Heritage Applications

Virtual Reality proposes different innovative solutions for the fruition of tangible, intangible, or no longer existing Cultural Heritage. The representation of architectural artifacts through virtual 3D models framed in immersive and interactive virtual environments allows building new paths of knowledge. This kind of narrative feeds the fruition, the understanding, and the involvement of the user. The article presents different examples of VR applied in the CH field, highlighting the VR capacities, foreshadowing possible future developments in the specific domain. The first case study describes the reconstructive digital modeling and the prototype application of VR aimed at rendering the interior space of the provisional hall of the First Italian Parliament, no longer existing, for the use of visitors to Palazzo Carignano in Turin. The second case study concerns the Charterhouse of Pisa in Calci and deals with two VR experiences realized for a new visit tour: 3D reconstruction of the illusory space depicted in a quadraturist frescoes and 3D representation of the layout of the cloister in its most important historical phases. The third case study deals with the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Carpi through a 3D interoperable BIM model and the new communication tool called “during time Digital Twin”, which uses a combination of VR and AR