An Evaluation of the Policies on Repayment of Government’s Trade Debt in Italy

Since 2012 the Italian Government made several steps to repay its commercial debts. By using a composite dataset, we evaluate the effect of these policies on the financial performances of a representative sample of Italian firms. We distinguish between firms beneficiaries of these repayments, those that were not repaid, although they had a legitimate right, and those that did not have commercial relations with the General Government. We find that receiving money had a significant positive impact on firms’ financial position.