Another field of research in which Franco sought to involve me concerned the relationship between demographic structure and formation of savings; we pursued a line of thought initiated by Giorgio Mortara, an author I had also studied for my thesis. I never had any doubt, thanks also to Guido Carli’s encouragement, that I wanted to work for Italy’s central bank.
Following a decade and a half of significant consolidation, the percentage of banking assets held by the top ten banking organizations more than doubled, from about 22 percent in 1980 to about 45 percent in 2001, while the share held by the top twenty-five organizations increased from about 33 percent to 61 percent.