The financial crisis renewed the debate on the bailout of financial institutions, questioning the effectiveness of such an intervention in restoring normal economic conditions. This paper analyzes the effect of State aids to distressed banks on the real economy, using a panel approach that covers all countries in the EU throughout the financial crisis. Results show that State aids were able to enhance economic conditions by restoring trust in financial markets. State aids boosted the ongoing substitution between securities and bank lending as the main financing channel of non-financial firms.

One of the pillar of the European integration process is the development of a common financial system: this entails both a reduction of the cross-country heterogeneity of financial architectures as well as convergence toward this reference system. Several pieces of legislation and regulation are intended to favor this process, including harmonization of financial standards, dismantlement of barriers among national markets, as well as the single currency. However, the financial/euro crisis marked a turning point that is likely to have deeply affected this process.In this paper, we investigate the evolution of European financial systems and their convergence throughout the financial crisis. First, we investigate possible breaks in the variables' trends, and select endogenously three distinct subperiods, one that preceeds the crisis, a second that covers the debt crisis in the European Union (EU), and a third one that spans through the aftermath of the crisis. Second, we analyze the evolution of convergence patterns along the identified subperiods through a dynamic panel regression approach that allows for breaks in the regression parameters. Combining these two

We investigate the drivers of lapses in life insurance contracts of a large Italian insurance company. We consider both traditional (with profit or participating) and unit-linked policies. We develop two different types of analyses. First of all, we investigate the determinants of lapse decisions by policyholders looking at microdata on each contract. Then, through a panel study, we include macroeconomic variables. We show that the determinants of lapses for the two types of contracts are quite different. No evidence supporting the Interest Rate Hypothesis, i.e. a positive correlation between interest and lapse rates, is detected. Instead some evidence that a positive correlation of lapse rates with personal financial/economic difficulties, also known as the Emergency Fund Hypothesis, emerges. Some behavioral finance insights come out.

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