The total market value of Italy’s non-financial corporations is less than 20 per cent of GDP, compared with 75 per cent in France and 45 per cent in Germany (Figure 3). Bond financing is also limited, outstanding issues now amounting to less than 8 per cent of firms’ total financial debt (Figure 4).
Just a few Italian corporations make bond issues on the capital market (an average of ten a year over the past decade). Here, again, Italy lags significantly behind, and in recent years the gap has widened (Figure 5).2 The same pattern holds for other instruments of direct or indirect recourse to the market, such as asset securitizations.