Part I. Households and Firms; Section 1. The Evolution and Allocation of Financial Wealth:a cross-country comparison Claudio Giraldi, Rony Hamaui and Nicola Rossi; 2. Credit, money and consumption: time-series evidence for Italy Orazio P. Attanasio and Guglielmo Weber; Discussion Luigi Spaventa; Section 2. Financial Choices of Industrial Firms: The Italian Case: 3. Empirical determinants of corporate debt decisions: some evidence for Italy Leo Bonato, Riccardo Faini and Marco Ratti; Discussion Pippo Ranci; Part II. Financial Markets; Section 3. The Exchange Rate Market: 4. Financial liberalisation and exchange rate volatility Vittorio Grilli and Nouriel Roubini; 5. Capital mobility, vehicle currencies and exchange rate asymmetries in the EMS Vittorio Grilli and Nouriel Roubini; Discussion Rudiger Dornbusch; Section 4. The Equity Market: 6. Shifting gears: an economic evaluation of the reform of the Paris Bourse Marco Pagano and Ailsa Roell; 7. Front running and stock market liquidity Marco Pagano and Ailsa Roell; 8. Auction markets, dealership markets and execution risk Marco Pagano and Ailsa Roell; Discussion Robert J. Schiller; Section 5. The Bond Market: 9. The impact of a new futures contract on risk premia in the term structure: an APT analysis for French government bonds Alessandro Citanna and Riccardo Rovelli; Part III. Banks; Section 6. Issues in Asset Management: 10. The role of banks as investors in securities: theoretical and empirical features in an international perspective Umberto Cherubini, Massimo Ciampolini and Gregorio de Felice; 11. Loan sales and balance sheet assets Paolo Fulghieri; Discussion Mervyn King; Section 7. The Liability Side: 12. A comparative analysis of the liabilities structure in seven banking systems Mauro Maccarinelli / 1. Marketable and non-marketable assets in households' portfolios.