The banking-industry relationship in Italy: large national banks and small local banks compared (1913-1936)

Rinaldi, A. and Spadavecchia, A. (2021) The banking-industry relationship in Italy: large national banks and small local banks compared (1913-1936). Business History, 63 (6). pp. 988-1006. ISSN 1743-7938 doi: 10.1080/00076791.2019.1598975

Abstract/Summary

Using a large dataset of Italian joint-stock companies, this article analyses the networks of corporate interlocks of the major universal banks and twenty most ‘central’ local banks in a critical period of Italian industrialisation. The networks of the two types of banks were largely independent, with universal banks being affiliated principally to larger concerns in electricity, transport and storage, and financials; and local banks to riskier, younger and smaller firms in light manufacturing. The article then explores whether the bank-industry relationship in Italy reflected the hegemony of banks and followed a bank-control model. Our analysis does not support that view. It rather indicates that interlocking directorates were driven principally by a convergence of interests between banks (monitoring customers) and industrial firms (interested in tapping capital and credit flows), with the latter exerting a slightly higher influence over the former. This significantly differentiates Italy from Germany and the USA, where banks had a more dominant position in the corporate system.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/83203
Identification Number/DOI	10.1080/00076791.2019.1598975
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Henley Business School > Leadership, Organisations and Behaviour
Uncontrolled Keywords	universal banking; local banks; interlocking directorates; Italy; networks
Publisher	Taylor & Francis
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