The Bank of Italy has published two Economic History Working Papers examining the central bank’s postwar development and Italy’s management of banking crises from 1970 to 1996. The first study concludes that Luigi Einaudi’s 1945-1948 governorship restored the Bank’s autonomy, strengthened its monetary and supervisory functions and prepared it for a central role in Italy’s subsequent economic development. The second finds that banking crises during the later period generally had limited systemic repercussions and imposed relatively low costs on general taxation by international standards. The Einaudi study covers the Bank’s postwar reorganization, renewed control over monetary issuance and banking supervision, reintegration into the international monetary system and the 1947 stabilization program. It argues that stabilization relied on flexible reserve requirements, moral suasion and improved expectations rather than a severe credit squeeze, allowing inflation to fall without undermining longer-term economic growth. The banking crisis study identifies 177 extraordinary administrations and 79 compulsory administrative liquidations initiated from 1970 to 1996. It also identifies 43 mergers or control acquisitions, among 465 transactions reviewed, that addressed crises not formally declared. Extraordinary administration predominated through the 1980s, while changing market conditions later led to greater use of compulsory liquidation, including during the crisis affecting southern Italian banks in the first half of the 1990s.

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