The Italian financial system between 1861 and today: a statistical reading

This work aims at a statistical reading of the Italian financial evolution between 1861 and the recent past. There are lots of scientific works on this argument which are based on Raymond W. Goldsmith’s financial indicators (integrated by some other authors such as Ross Levine). These indicators refer to the financial dimension of the economic system (“financial iterrrelations ratio”, FIR); the distinction between the systems bank or market oriented; the incidence of banking system’s financial assets (i.e. loans by the banks and by the issuing banks) in comparison with financial markets’ assets (i.e. shares and bonds); the comparison between public and private debt; and finally the distinction of companies’ debts between shares, bonds and bank’s loans. The statistical series that my work proposes have both important analytic and interpretative aims. Together with the individuation of the age-old topic of the correlation between financial development and economic growth, the aim is that of analyzing if and at what degree the stages of Italian economic growth – where the innovation in economic structure was very important (i.e. railways, large technological systems, and so on) – were accompanied by forms of financial system structure “market oriented”, with a high degree of securities placement directly to final investors. While, other stages, when economic growth became routine, were characterized by “bank oriented” financial structures.