The Credit Channel of Monetary Policy and Housing Markets: International Empirical Evidence

This paper tests for the presence of a credit channel (particularly a bank-lending sub-channel) for monetary policy in the housing market. We argue that the importance of this channel for investment in residential housing is highly dependent on the structural features, and particularly the efficiency and institutional organization, of housing finance. We employ a VAR methodology to analyse this issue with respect to the housing markets of four European countries (Finland, Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom), which differ greatly in terms of structural features. Our results are generally consistent with the existence of a broad credit channel, whereas the bank-lending channel seems to be operational only under certain conditions. More importantly, our results are consistent with previous analyses of housing market efficiency, which strongly suggests the existence of a clear relationship between the presence of a credit (bank lending) channel, the efficiency level of housing finance, and the type of institutions that are active in mortgage provision.monetary transmission; bank lending channel; house prices; vector autoregressions

The Structure of Multiple Credit Relationships: Evidence from US Firms

When firms borrow from multiple concentrated creditors such as banks they appear to differentiate their allocation of borrowing. In this paper, we put forward hypotheses for this borrowing pattern based on incomplete contract theories and test them using a sample of small U.S. firms. We find that firms with more valuable, more redeployable, and more homogeneous assets differentiate borrowing more sharply across their concentrated creditors. We also find that borrowing differentiation is inversely related to restructuring costs and positively related to firms’ informational transparency. This evidence supports the predictions of incomplete contract theories: the structure of credit relationships appears to be used as a device to discipline creditors and entrepreneurs, especially during corporate reorganizations.Credit Relationships, Multiple Creditors, Borrowing Allocation

Liquidity Cycles

We study an economy where firms face credit constraints tied to the value of their assets and financiers differ in their information on the market for firms' assets. Financiers with poor information on the asset market make mistakes in asset liquidation, hoarding assets during booms and trading them during recessions. We find that asset liquidity and the composition -informed versus uninformed- of firms' financiers breed each other in a cumulative fashion and that their interaction generates cycles in asset values and outputAsset Liquidity, Business Fluctuations, Firm Financing

Ownership structure, governance, and innovation: Evidence from Italy

-Ownership, Agency problems, Technological change

Credit and the real economy: Macroeconomic and microeconomic aspects.

In the last decades several economists and practitioners have pointed out the importance of financial markets for real economic activity. In this dissertation we analyse the interaction between credit, especially banking, and real activity. While we deal also with the interaction between credit and firms' behaviour at the microeconomic level, our main emphasis is on the impact of credit on aggregate variables. Our target is, taking as primitive distinguishing features of intermediaries (banks), to understand how these features affect the link between intermediation (banking) and real variables. In the dissertation we focus both on features of the financial structure of intermediaries, like the structure of banks' liabilities, and on features of their activity, like intermediaries' superior ability in gathering information and monitoring borrowers. The dissertation offers several policy implications. The banking sector is one of the most regulated sectors in modern economies: besides being subject to regulation directly, the activity of banks is also constrained by other branches of the legal framework like the bankruptcy law. Throughout the dissertation we devote particular attention to regulatory and legal prescriptions and to the way they are concretely implemented. Overall, the dissertation suggests several mechanisms of interaction between the credit sector and the real economy that deserve further attention in future research

Asset dynamics, liquidity and inequality in decentralized markets

The Kiyotakiand Wright model has exerted a considerable influence on the monetary search literature. We argue that the model also delivers important insights into abroader range of macroeconomic and development issues. The analysis studies howmarket frictions and the liquidity of assets affect the distribution of income. Experimentsillustrate how the economy adjusts to shocks to asset returns and to the matchingtechnology. They also deal with long-run transition. An experiment interprets thereversal of fortune hypothesis as a situation in which an economy with a low-returnasset takes over a similar economy with a high-return asset

Novel post-synthetic generation, isomeric resolution, and characterization of Fapy-dG within oligodeoxynucleotides: differential anomeric impacts on DNA duplex properties

Accumulation of damaged guanine nucleobases within genomic DNA, including the imidazole ring opened N6-(2-Deoxy-α,β-D-erythro-pentafuranosyl)-2,6-diamino-4-hydroxy-5-formylamidopyrimidine (Fapy-dG), is associated with progression of age-related diseases and cancer. To evaluate the impact of this mutagenic lesion on DNA structure and energetics, we have developed a novel synthetic strategy to incorporate cognate Fapy-dG site-specifically within any oligodeoxynucleotide sequence. The scheme involves the synthesis of an oligonucleotide precursor containing a 5-nitropyrimidine moiety at the desired lesion site via standard solid-phase procedures. Following deprotection and isolation, the Fapy-dG lesion is generated by catalytic hydrogenation and subsequent formylation. NMR assignment of the Fapy-dG lesion (X) embedded within a TXT trimer reveals the presence of rotameric and anomeric species. The latter have been characterized by synthesizing the tridecamer oligodeoxynucleotide d(GCGTACXCATGCG) harboring Fapy-dG as the central residue and developing a protocol to resolve the isomeric components. Hybridization of the chromatographically isolated fractions with their complementary d(CGCATGCGTACGC) counterpart yields two Fapy-dG·C duplexes that are differentially destabilized relative to the canonical G·C parent. The resultant duplexes exhibit distinct thermal and thermodynamic profiles that are characteristic of α- and β-anomers, the former more destabilizing than the latter. These anomer-specific impacts are discussed in terms of differential repair enzyme recognition, processing and translesion synthesis