An increasing number of countries show a trend towards a certain degree of consolidation of powers in financial supervision, which has resulted in the establishment of unified regulators, that are different from the national central banks. By contrast a high involvement of the central bank in supervision seems to be correlated with a multi-authorities regime (central bank fragmentation effect). This paper, using a simple application of a general common agency game, sheds light on which conditions the politicians prefer when implementing an unified sector supervision outside the central bank. From a theoretical point of view the quality of public sector governance plays a crucial role in determining the supervision unification. Focusing on the behaviour of the “good” policymaker (helping hand type), it will prefer a unified financial authority that is different from the central bank if the correspondent welfare gains-linked to at least one of the three effects: moral hazard, conflict of interest, bureaucracy—are considered higher respect to the information losses. The “bad” policymaker (grabbing hand type) will choose the single financial authority if the financial industry likes it, and the central bank is not a captured one. On the other hand, the paper tests the model, confirming the robustness of the institutional position of the central bank in explaining the recent trend in supervision consolidation, with an empirical analysis performed with ordered functions on an updated dataset.

Behavioral bias – loss aversion – can explain monetary policy inertia in setting interest rates. Economic literature has tended to explain inertia in monetary policymaking in terms of frictions and delays, or has stressed the role of governance rules. We introduce a new driver of inertia, independent from frictions and central bank governance settings. While the degree of conservatism doesn’t necessarily produce monetary inertia, we show that introducing loss aversion in individual behavior influences the stance of monetary policy under three different but convergent perspectives. First of all, a Moderation Effect can emerge, i.e. the number of pigeons increases. At the same time also a Hysteresis Effect can become relevant, whereby both doves and hawks soften their attitudes. Finally a Smoothing Effect tends to stabilize the number of pigeons. Together, the three effects consistently cause higher monetary policy inertia.

Since the mid-1990s worldwide efforts were undertaken to improve the effectiveness of financial supervision, through modifications in the architecture and governance. Did these improvements mitigate the 2008–2009 Crisis? This paper brings the first systematic analysis of the role of three main efforts: consolidation in supervision, decreasing central bank involvement and improving supervisory governance. The analysis employs a new and complex database on supervisory architecture and governance for 102 countries and uses two new indicators to evaluate the supervisory regime: the Financial Supervision Herfindahl Hirschman (FSHH) and the Central Bank Supervisor Share (CBSS) Indexes. The empirical tests allow us to disentangle the relative effects of the supervisory regimes on macroeconomic resilience. We conclude that two supervisory features—supervisory consolidation and supervisory governance—were negatively correlated with resilience, while central bank involvement in supervision did not have any significant impact. Our results show that the conditions under which micro-features of the supervisory design produce automatically macro-optimal outcomes are far from identified, and consequently contradict what was the generally accepted view before the crisis.

In the context of the proposed EU financial supervisory reforms, this paper focuses on the governance of the network of national supervisory banking agencies and the newly established Community supervisor (European Banking Authority, EBA). We assess to what extent lack of governance convergence nationally and with EBA could undermine the incentives for cooperation among supervisors. Convergence should particularly focus on (i) the issue of the presence of politicians on decision-making bodies; (ii) the need for clearly defining dismissal procedures of heads of supervision; (iii) autonomy from government in regulatory matters; (iv) supervisory autonomy in matters of licensing and withdrawing licenses; (iv) mechanisms for judicial accountability; (v) legal protection for supervisors handling in good faith. In the absence of full centralization of prudential supervision, early harmonization of national governance arrangements towards best practice would better align supervisors’ incentive structures and, hence, be beneficial for the effectiveness of European supervision.

We investigate how connections to organized crime manifest on firms' financial statements and analyze the impact of these connections on firm performance outcomes. Using a unique dataset that identifies Italian firms connected to organized crime, we find that connected firms have lower profitability, even though they report higher sales and lower labor cost. Connected firms also have higher bank debt, report lower cash holdings, experience quicker operating cycles and are more likely to file for bankruptcy. Further, we find that connected firms are more tax aggressive and engage in downward earnings manipulation. To corroborate our results, we exploit an amendment to the Italian Anti-Money Laundering regulation as a shock to the extent to which criminal organizations could expropriate connected firms' resources through money laundering. Our collective evidence suggests that connections to organized crime can drain a firm's resources, possibly through money-laundering schemes, and jeopardize its existence, thereby harming its shareholders. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.

The attention paid to the role of money as a store of privacy is increasing. In a monetary transaction, full privacy protection coincides with anonymity. In such situations, an empirical question arises: Is anonymity relevant in shaping the demand for money? We attempt to answer this question through laboratory experiments. The results show that anonymity matters and increases the overall appeal of a medium of payment, and that this effect is stronger for risk-prone individuals. Moreover, the trade-off between the two properties of liquidity and return is relatively high – to accept higher illiquidity risks, individuals require a more-than-proportional increase in the expected return. In general, the experiments suggest that the future attractiveness of alternative currencies depends on whether the three properties of money are mixed in a way that is consistent with the individual’s preferences.