Strategie di speculazione, di sopravvivenza e frodi bancarie prima della grande crisi

The paper analyses the causes of the wildcat banking in Italy after the First World War. The hypothesis is that financial instability in banking sector increased after the monetary deflation and the resumption of gold standard. Two levels of analysis are considered: a macroeconomic one and a microeconomic one. A faulty regulation and a sticky transmission of monetary policy retarded the effects of monetary deflation on the credit expansion because of the ineffectiveness of this policy in reversing expectations. Wildcat banking booming in more local banks with "non profit" organization in which corporate control schemes took responsability away from managers or majority shareholder groups. Also a new national regulation on the banking sector, enacted in 1926, was defective owing to many overlappings between the regulation agencies (Tresury and central bank). Both a loss of monetary policy credibility and an incomplete system of regulation clashed with the spur of looting. The case of the Marinelli's banking group is a typical example of overfinancing supported by a lot of politicians. In this turbid business of looting are included both profiteers and tentatives of acquisition in small and large banks trough a financial watering of social capital. The rise of such business depends on a loss of confidence in monetary policy, also after Pesaro's announcement.