This paper investigates the impact of relationship lending on innovation (the probability to innovate and the intensity of innovation). Using a unique dataset providing detailed information on bank–firm relationships across European firms, we relate different proxies of relationship lending (soft information, long-lasting relationships, number of banks and share of the main bank) to innovation. We find a very strong and robust positive effect of ‘soft-information-intensive’ relationships, a less robust positive effect of long-lasting relationships and a negative effect of credit concentration as measured by the number of banking relationships. We also find that ‘soft-information-intensive’ relationships reduce credit rationing for innovative firms, while long-lasting relationships seem to favour innovation via other relational channels. These results raise some concern on the impact of screening processes based on automatic procedures, as those suggested by the Basel rules, on firms' capability to finance innovative activities in Europe

Bank of Italy (ALAMPI and MESSINA, 2012) provides an index that uses transport time as an instrument to measure infrastructural endowment at the provincial level. Without transport infrastructure linking the different regions, the only factor determining an area's capacity to have access to relevant markets is geographic distance. The potential market for an area i (i.e. the geographic accessibility index A i ) depends on the geographic distance with respect to all the other areas.and  C ij /  d ij <0

Despite the growing theoretical literature on multiple banking relationships, empirical studies investigating the determinants of the number of bank-lending relationships are very scant. The purpose of this paper is to ¢ll this gap. Using a new data set provided by a large Italian bank we provide econometric evidence that the number of banking relationships is increasing in ¢rms' leverage and in the riskiness of the sector in which the ¢rm operates. This evidence suggests that ¢rms must engage in multiple banking relationships in order to satisfy their demand for leverage and is consistent with an interpretation of the multiple banking relationship`puzzle' based on the behaviour of the bank. A large bank may ¢nd it optimal to ¢nance many ¢rms for a small share of their total leverage rather than fully ¢nancing a smaller number of ¢rms in order to share risk and to maximize the number of customers.

This article is intended to study, by means of both a nonparametric and a parametric approach to convergence, whether after the latest enlargements of the European Union the traditional twofold spatial regime of regional per capita income growth, predicting a north/south and/or a cohesion/non-cohesion countries divide, should be replaced by an alternative east/west spatial pattern. A second relevant issue is whether new member regions where capital cities are located are benefiting from the same “network effect” that enhanced growth in old member capital regions during the 1980s and early 1990s. We find evidence, by means of spatial econometrics tools, of significant spatial effects in the enlarged Europe which seems to be formed by a group of old member regions, slowly becoming more homogeneous, and a newcomers group which represents a separate “convergence club” but whose capital regions are rapidly integrating into the west. The European regional policy may play a crucial role in this context

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