Luigi Guiso

The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development

To identify the effect of social capital on financial development, we exploit social capital differences within Italy. In high-social-capital areas, households are more likely to use checks, invest less in cash and more in stock, have higher access to institutional credit, and make less use of informal credit. The effect of social capital is stronger where legal enforcement is weaker and among less educated people. These results are not driven by omitted environmental variables, since we show that the behavior of movers is still affected by the level of social capital of the province where they were born.

Multiple versus Single Banking Relationships: Theory and Evidence

A theory of the optimal number of banking relationships is developed and tested using matched bank-firm data. According to the theory, relationship banks may be unable to continue funding profitable projects owing to internal problems and a firm may thus have to refinance from nonrelationship banks. The latter, however, face an adverse selection problem, as they do not know the quality of the project, and may refuse to lend. In these circumstances, multiple banking can reduce the probability of an early liquidation of the project. The empirical evidence supports the predictions of the model. Copyright The American Finance Association 2000.

Investment and Demand Uncertainty

Theoretical models of investment under uncertainty predict that the sign and the strength of the investment-uncertainty relationship is in principle ambiguous and can vary greatly across groups of firms depending on the degree of irreversibility of investment and the market power of the firm. This paper investigates the effects of uncertainty on the investment decisions of a sample of Italian manufacturing firms, using information on the subjective probability distribution of future demand for firms’ products according to entrepreneurs. The results support the view that uncertainty slows down capital accumulation. Consistent with the predictions of the theory, there is considerable heterogeneity in the effect of uncertainty on investment: it is stronger for firms that cannot easily reverse investment decisions and for those with substantial market power. We show that the negative effect of uncertainty on investment cannot be explained by uncertainty proxying for liquidity constraints, credit rationing being more likely among riskier firms. Evidence of a negative effect of past uncertainty on hours currently worked reinforces the conclusion of a negative relationship between uncertainty and investment.

Culture, Gender, and Math

Analysis of PISA results suggests that the gender gap in math scores disappears in countries with a more gender-equal culture.

Earnings uncertainty and precautionary saving

We test for the presence of precautionary saving using a self-reported measure of earnings uncertainty drawn from the 1989 Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth. The effect of uncertainty on saving and wealth accumulations is consistent with the theory of precautionary saving and with decreasing prudence. Earnings uncertainty, however, explains only a small fraction of saving and asset accumulation. The results cast doubt on the empirical relevance of precautionary saving as a response to earnings uncertainty, but not on the importance of the precautionary motive per se. Besides earnings uncertainty, other major risks such as health and mortality risks may be important determinants of wealth accumulation.

Household Stockholding in Europe: Where Do We Stand and Where Do We Go?

We discuss the current state of stockownership among households in major European countries (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK), drawing parallels and contrasts with the US experience. We use detailed microeconomic datasets and explore the extent to which observed international differences in stockholding can be attributed to differences in household characteristics. Statistical analysis finds (1) an increase in stock market participation in all countries; (2) persistent differences across countries, with the US, the UK and Sweden having considerable more participation than France, Germany, Italy; (3) a robust correlation between the participation decision on the one hand, and wealth and education on the other; (4) a relatively small effect of education and wealth on the asset share invested in stocks, conditional on participation. Interestingly, international differences in stock market participation remain large even when we control for household characteristics. As our empirical results point to the relevance of participation costs, we probe into a number of indicators of such costs, and we find that these are consistent with the observed pattern of participation across countries. Since the lowering of such costs brings into the market households with different characteristics than incumbents, we discuss their likely impact, policy concerns, and types of policies that could mitigate their adverse impact on the future workings of the market.

Alfred Marshall lecture: social capital as good culture

To explain the extremely long-term persistence (more than 500 years) of positive historical experiences of cooperation (Putnam 1993), we model the intergenerational transmission of priors about the trustworthiness of others. We show that this transmission tends to be biased toward excessively conservative priors. As a result, societies can be trapped in a low-trust equilibrium. In this context, a temporary shock to the return to trusting can have a permanent effect on the level of trust. We validate the model by testing its predictions on the World Values Survey data and the German Socio Economic Panel. We also present some anecdotal evidence that these priors are reflected in novels that originate in different parts of the country. (JEL: 04, 016, 043, P16) (c) 2008 by the European Economic Association.

The Demand for Money, Financial Innovation, and the Welfare Cost of Inflation: an Analysis with Household Data

We use microeconomic data on households to estimate the parameters of the demand for currency derived from a generalized Baumol‐Tobin model. Our data set contains information on average currency, deposits, and other interest‐bearing assets; the number of trips to the bank; the size of withdrawals; and ownership and use of ATM cards. We model the demand for currency accounting for adoption of new transaction technologies and the decision to hold interest‐bearing assets. The interest rate and expenditure flow elasticities of the demand for currency are close to the theoretical values implied by standard inventory models. However, we find significant differences between individuals with an ATM card and those without. The estimates of the demand for currency allow us to calculate a measure of the welfare cost of inflation analogous to Bailey’s triangle, but based on a rigorous microeconometric framework. The welfare cost of inflation varies considerably within the population but never turns out to be very large (about 0.1 percent of consumption or less). Our results are robust to various changes in the econometric specification. In addition to the main results based on the average stock of currency, the model receives further support from the analysis of the number of trips to and average withdrawals from the bank and the ATM.

High-tech firms and credit rationing

Informational frictions between borrowers and lenders differ across classes of borrowers. Innovative firms undertake high-risk-high-return projects which are likely to be little understood by financial intermediaries. As a consequence, they may end up allocating too large a share of funds to traditional, low-risk-low-return projects. This proposition finds some support in a cross-section of Italian manufacturing firms. Using several proxies to classify firms into high-tech and low-tech groups and direct information on each firm’s access to bank credit, high-tech firms are found to be more likely to be credit-constrained than low-tech firms. The results suggest that the responsiveness of R&D expenditure to cash flow found in the literature is likely to be due to pervasive credit constraints on innovative firms rather than to cash flow proxying for future expectations. The paper also sheds light on the main factors affecting the probability of a firm being rationed in the credit market.

Time Varying Risk Aversion

We use a repeated survey of an Italian bank’s clients to test whether investors’ risk aversion increases following the 2008 financial crisis. We find that both a qualitative and a quantitative measure of risk aversion increases substantially after the crisis. After considering standard explanations, we investigate whether this increase might be an emotional response (fear) triggered by a scary experience. To show the plausibility of this conjecture, we conduct a lab experiment. We find that subjects who watched a horror movie have a certainty equivalent that is 27% lower than the ones who did not, supporting the fear-based explanation. Finally, we test the fear-based model with actual trading behavior and find consistent evidence.