ECONOMIA
FINANZIARIA
Prof. Giuseppe Garofalo
Programma
Testi di riferimento
Materiale di
approfondimento
Ulteriori letture
Siti web consigliati
Aspetti macroeconomici: il finanziamento dell’economia; mercati finanziari perfetti e
imperfetti; gli intermediari finanziari.
Aspetti microeconomici: utilità attesa; rischio e avversione al rischio; scelte in condizioni
di incertezza; mercato dei titoli e scelte di portafoglio; criterio media-varianza;
Capm; principio di non arbitraggio
Aspetti applicativi: mercati finanziari e intermediari in Italia, nell’UE e nelle principali
aree geo-economiche
- G.Garofalo, Economia politica. Corso intermedio con esercitazioni, Torino,
Giappichelli, 1998
- Materiale elaborato dal docente disponibile su Internet:
1. Modelli macroeconomici: un riepilogo
2. Barro-Gordon, crescita etc.
3. Il sistema finanziario
4. Appunti di Economia finanziaria
5. L’ipotesi dei mercati efficienti
6. Il moltiplicatore delle attività finanziarie
7. Decisioni di investimento e variabili finanziarie
8. Sviluppi in ambito keynesiano
9. Scelte in condizioni di incertezza: Appunti
10. Riflessioni sulla crisi del 2007-….
- Economia e finanza dopo la crisi, Conferenza del Governatore della Banca d'Italia
I.Visco all'Accademia nazionale dei Lincei (8 marzo 2013)
- Interazione fra gli intermediarti finanziari e impatto sull’analisi monetaria, a c. di
Banca centrale europea, “Bollettino mensile”, gennaio 2012, pp. 61-76
- Microeconomia e scelte finanziarie di A.Beltratti e M.Manera
- Utilizzare le news sul Web per prevedere eventi futuri, di E.Horvitz (Centro di ricerche
di Microsoft) e K.Radinsky (Technion-Israel Institute of Technology)
- Influenze comportamentali nelle decisioni finanziarie, di J.S.Lerner (Harvard
University), Y.Li (Columbia University) e E.U.Weber (Columbia University)
- The financial cycle and macroeconomics:What have we learnt?, di C.Borio (BIS)
- Una riedizione del Chicago plan, working paper del Fondo monetario internazionale
- Il mercato delle commodities, a c. di G.Garofalo
- R.Tamborini, Mercati finanziari e attività economica, Padova, Cedam, 2001
- E.Saltari, Introduzione all’economia finanziaria, Roma, La Nuova Italia Scientifica,
1997
http://www.bancaditalia.it/
http://www.bis.org/
http://www.cesifo.de/CESifoPortal
http://www.ecb.int/ecb/html/index.it.html
http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/
http://unctadstat.unctad.org/ReportFolders/reportFolders.aspx
http://web.worldbank.org/
- Finance resources on the web [General Finance and The Economy; Financial Markets;
Company, Fund and Investment Research; Corporate Finance; Risk Management;
International Finance; Newspapers & Magazines; US Governmental Resources;
Financial Associations; On-Line Learning]  http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~igiddy/
- http://www.quandl.com/about/overview/academics [a platform for data; the site is
Contatto e-mail
Giorno, Orario e luogo di
Ricevimento
open and free]
- http://www.gfmag.com/ [in particolare http://www.gfmag.com/tools/globaldatabase/economic-data.html#axzz2x4fBveZ1]
- http://www.weforum.org/issues/financial-development/index.html [Financial
Development Report del World economic forum, con l'indice di sviluppo finanziario]
garofalo@unitus.it
Prima e dopo lezione. Si consiglia di prendere appuntamento via e-mail o telefonando
allo 0649766374
FINANCIAL ECONOMICS
The first part of the course deals with the link between national accounting procedures and financial accounting.
The second part of the course examines the characteristics of the financial systems of the major countries and their
links.
The third part of the course aims at defining from a theoretical point of view the choice of the operators: money savers /
investors (portfolio choices), companies (financing decisions), intermediaries (provision and use of funds), public sector
(budgetary policy), as well as at showing how their interaction affects pricing of financial assets.
The fourth part of the course examines financial performances from a global perspective, and the role played by
national and international authorities.
Textbook:
G.Garofalo, Economia politica. Corso intermedio con esercitazioni, Torino, Giappichelli
Readings are available on the site:
http://www.unitus.it/dipartimenti/distateq/garofalo/Ecomonfin_Programma07-08.doc
Here Erasmus students will find readings in English [look down], starting from which they have to write a short but
well-framed paper that addresses both the theoretical and empirical issues (especially comparisons between the
financial systems of different countries and economic policy interventions by policy makers of different countries)
MATERIALS in English
for Erasmus students
G.S.Thomson This document presents a taxonomy of selected finance
theories developed in past 5
decades by academics, practitioners and scholars in the
United States, Europe, Asia and Latin
America. A total of 14 theories and models are
synthesized in this work, organized in five tables
with the same structure: Theories of capital structure;
capital budgeting and cost of equity; asset
valuation, financial behavior and international finances.
Each table contains theories organized alphabetically with
an indication of its germinal or
current character. The description of the theory is
accompanied by current examples of empirical
research that updates or contradicts the theory and
additional information about limitations,
scope and opportunities of research.
The efficient markets theory reached the height of its
From Efficient Market R.J.Shiller
dominance in academic circles
Theory to Behavioral
Finance [2002]
around the 1970s. Faith in this theory was eroded by a
succession of discoveries of anomalies,
many in the 1980s, and of evidence of excess volatility of
Finance Theories
Taxonomy [2008]
The Financial
Instability Hypothesis
[1992]
H.P.Minsky
Banks and Markets:
R.G.Rajan
The Changing
and
Character of European L.Zingales
Finance [2003]
returns. Finance literature in this
decade and after suggests a more nuanced view of the
value of the efficient markets theory, and,
starting in the 1990s, a blossoming of research on
behavioral finance. Some important
developments in the 1990s and recently include feedback
theories, models of the interaction of
smart money with ordinary investors, and evidence on
obstacles to smart money.
The Financial Instability Hypothesis (FIH) has both
empirical and theoretical aspects that challenge the
classic precepts of Smith and Walras, who implied that
the economy can be best understood by assuming that it is
constantly an equilibrium-seeking and sustaining system.
The theoretical argument of the FIH emerges from the
characterization of the economy as a capitalist economy
with extensive capital assets and a sophisticated financial
system.
In spite of the complexity of financial relations, the key
determinant of system behavior remains the level of
profits: the FIH incorporates a view in which aggregate
demand determines profits. Hence, aggregate profits
equal aggregate investment plus the government deficit.
The FIH, therefore, considers the impact of debt on
system behavior and also includes the manner in which
debt is validated.
Minsky identifies hedge, speculative, and Ponzi finance
as distinct income-debt relations for economic units. He
asserts that if hedge financing dominates, then the
economy may well be an equilibrium-seeking and
containing system: conversely, the greater the weight of
speculative and Ponzi finance, the greater the likelihood
that the economy is a "deviation-amplifying" system.
Thus, the FIH suggests that over periods of prolonged
prosperity, capitalist economies tend to move from a
financial structure dominated by hedge finance (stable) to
a structure that increasingly emphasizes speculative and
Ponzi finance (unstable). The FIH is a model of a
capitalist economy that does not rely on exogenous
shocks to generate business cycles of varying severity:
business cycles of history are compounded out of (i) the
internal dynamics of capitalist economies, and (ii) the
system of interventions and regulations that are designed
to keep the economy operating within reasonable bounds.
In the last two decades the European financial markets
have become more market oriented. We
analyze the economic and political forces that have
triggered these changes as well as their likely
welfare implications. We also try to assess whether this
trend will continue. Based on our
analysis, we conjecture that even if Europe might benefit
from a continuation of the trend, in the
near future political support for it is likely to become
much weaker. Furthermore, without serious
reforms, the trend is likely to benefit Southern Europe
less than Northern Europe.
Finance, Investment
W.Carlin and This paper proposes an empirical approach to
and Growth [2000]
investigating how the structure of
C.Mayer
countries’ financial and ownership systems and the
characteristics of industries relate to
industry activity in different countries. Activity is
measured in “abnormal” rather than
absolute terms by the growth, fixed investment shares and
R&D shares of particular
industries in different countries relative to their industry
and country averages. Using
data on 27 industries in 14 advanced OECD countries
from 1970-1995, we regress
activity on a set of variables that interact country
financial and ownership structures with
industry characteristics. We find evidence of a relation
and that there are similarities in
the combinations of country structure and industry
characteristic associated with growth
and R&D (but not fixed investment). Consistent with
theories of financial development,
the relations are sensitive to stages of economic
development. For example, the
interaction of bank-oriented system with external-finance
dependent industries is
associated with abnormal growth in low but not high
GDP per capita countries.
Theoretical and empirical research has shown that a
The Role of Finance in T.Beck
sound and effective financial system is critical for
Economic
economic development and growth. The financial system,
Development: Benefits,
however, is also subject to boom and bust cycles and
Risks, and Politics
[2011]
fragility, with negative repercussions for the real
economy. Further, the political structure of societies,
often pre-determined by historic experience, is critical for
the structure and development of the financial system.
This paper is a critical survey of three related strands of
literature – the finance and growth literature, the literature
on financial fragility, and the politics and finance
literature
It is high time we rediscovered the role of the financial
The financial cycle and C. Borio
cycle in macroeconomics. In the environment that has
macroeconomics:
prevailed for at least three decades now, it is not possible
What have we learnt?
[2012]
to understand business fluctuations and the corresponding
analytical and policy challenges without understanding
the financial cycle. This calls for a rethink of modelling
strategies and for significant adjustments to acroeconomic
policies. This essay highlights the stylised empirical
features of the financial cycle, conjectures as to what it
may take to model it satisfactorily, and considers its
policy implications. In the discussion of policy, the essay
pays special attention to the bust phase, which is less well
explored and raises much more controversial issues.