*  *  *  The social costs of the financial crisis – such as the losses in the GDP and the increases in unemployment – have been very high. If policymakers – in central banks and in governments – had not learned from the policy mistakes made during the Depression in the 1930s, the crisis could have been even more destructive.
The management of savings by institutional investors benefits from the development of the securities markets and, at the same time, contributes to their efficiency. It does not necessarily imply the disintermediation of banks. In Italy, the supply policies of the major banking groups have sustained the expansion of management services.