Credit expansion, leverage, and banking distress: the puzzle of interwar Italy
研究两次世界大战期间意大利银行层面的贷款增长、杠杆与困境关系，发现杠杆和贷款增长并非困境的预测指标，信贷扩张实为金融发展过程而非杠杆驱动的信贷繁荣。
Abstract This study analyses the relationship between lending growth, leverage, and distress at the individual bank level for interwar Italy, which experienced remarkable credit expansion in the 1920s. Novel data from archival research based on banking supervision classified documents reveals a large, albeit forgotten, crisis. A puzzle emerges: regression analysis on individual bank balance sheets indicates that leverage and lending growth are not predictors of distress. Complementary indicators show that the features highlighted in the literature on leveraged credit booms do not apply to Italy. Italy’s credit expansion was not a leverage-fuelled credit boom but a process of financial development.