This book provides a critical evaluation of the literature on finance, investment and innovation and proposes new research methods for evaluating the comparative performance of financial systems in supporting innovation. The comparative advantage of this book is that of being directly focused on one of the main unsolved issues in monetary and financial economics: the relative effectiveness of national financial systems in supporting innovation. It proposes various theoretical and empirical contributions that, taken together, allow to evaluate the relative effectiveness of some of the most important country systems such as Japan, and the UK and Italy.

Theoretical and empirical research of these last decades is working on the positive and normative side in order to deepen its understanding of financial market dynamics and to tackle new and old challenges with the ambitious goal of limiting fragilities and inefficiencies. Contributions collected in this book represent a valuable and remarkable endeavour in this direction covering different topics. A first one is related to the aggregate relationship between development of financial markets and economic growth. A second topic covered is credit risk. A third important topic is related to the measure of risk in equity and bond markets. Finally, a fourth field covered is the one investigating behavior and efficiency of banking intermediaries. Overall, contributions collected in the book provide updated evidence and cover new theoretical issues arising in the field. Providing some new solutions but also highlighting new and emerging problems and creating new questions for further theoretical and empirical research
*Highlights new and emerging problems
*Provides up-to-date edvidence and solutions
*Serves as an invaluable reference for all those interested in financial market dynamics

This volume contains contemporary analysis of three key developments in financial economics: financial integration; the dynamics of financial markets; and the information, computer, and technology revolution and its impact on markets and the economic performance, among others. With regard to financial integration, the contributions focus on three streams in international finance: the impact of increased financial integration on credit risk and on the required regulatory arrangements needed to reduce the probability of welfare reducing bank failures, the creation of new international currencies, and the relationship between finance and growth. With regard to the dynamics of financial markets, specific attention is devoted to the complex interaction of different sets of traders with heterogeneous beliefs and information sets. Finally, with respect to the ICT revolution, attention is focused on its impact on: foreign direct investment across countries, competition in the banking industry, consolidation in the financial services industry including its effects credit availability for small and medium sized enterprises, and the capital structure decisions of financial firms.

This book provides a critical evaluation of the literature on finance, investment and innovation and proposes new research methods for evaluating the comparative performance of financial systems in supporting innovation. The comparative advantage of this book is that of being directly focused on one of the main unsolved issues in monetary and financial economics: the relative effectiveness of national financial systems in supporting innovation. It proposes various theoretical and empirical contributions that, taken together, allow to evaluate the relative effectiveness of some of the most important country systems such as Japan, and the UK and Italy.

Several interesting results on the economics of industrial districts are collected in this book. The first part investigates over internal determinants of industrial district competitiveness looking at internal productivity, at patterns of innovation and at those factors which create a favorable industrial atmosphere. The second part of the book investigates over foreign competitiveness of industrial districts focusing on the performance of export and of other forms of internationalisation.