Pierluigi Ciocca is Deputy Director General of the Bank of Italy. He holds appointments in Committees and Working Groups within the OECD, the G-10 and the European Union as the Bank of Italy representative. He is the author of two books in monetary economics and economic history and several articles in Italian and foreign economic journals.

• List of Tables List of Figures Preface PART 1: A MUTATION The New Forms of the Italian Financial System Finance and the Sectors of the Economy A Tendency to Converge? PART 2: THE INSTITUTIONAL AND ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK The Legal Order Taxation Supervision Competition PART 3: THE LEGAL ORDER The Amendments to the Legal Framework of Banking and Finance The Legal System: An Overview The Adequacy of the Legal System The Legal Order and Change PART 4: TAXATION The Fiscal Burden and Tax Neutrality for the Financial Sector Taxation and the Structure of the Financial System The Revised Model Taxation and Change PART 5: SUPERVISION Independent Authorities The Bank of Italy: Monetary Management and Supervision The Bank of Italy's Supervisory Activities Supervision and Change PART 6: COMPETITION The Initial Conditions and the Turning-point of the Seventies Up to 1990 After 1990 Competition and Change PART 7: PERFORMANCE Banks Institutional Investors and Markets The Financial Industry: Advances and Lags PART 8: A STAGNANT ECONOMY The Stagnation of the Italian Economy in the 1990s The Causes: 'Real', Not Financial PART 9: FINANCE AND GROWTH Schumpeter Revisited Better Finance, More Growth Quid Agendum PART 10: THE OUTLOOK Notes References Index