La valutazione della redditività e del rischio degli strumenti di debito

[Autom. eng. transl.] In the main Western countries, government bonds represent a very significant share of the stocks of debt securities. The need for their issuance arises from the need to finance the greater expenses compared to the revenues that ordinarily characterizes the States; the current global financial crisis has accentuated this need and put the States in the condition of real competition in the collection of savings and consequently made the comparisons between the characteristics of the securities and between the methods adopted for their issue ever more relevant . In the chapter, after having briefly outlined the methods of formation of the needs of the States and of their public debt and having highlighted the elements that best express the level of competition in the search for savings, ample space is given to the characteristics of public debt securities Italian, both by examining the different types of securities that make it up and by focusing on the prevailing methods through which it is placed among investors. A summary picture of the technical characteristics of «sovereign debt securities» and their methods of issuing is outlined for 7 countries of the European Monetary Union (whose debt represents almost all of the euro area), to Great Britain and to the United States. From the reconstruction it will be possible to observe that, despite the considerable differences resulting from the history and peculiarities of each of the countries considered, it is possible to glimpse elements of uniformity both with regard to the structure of the securities and with regard to the prevailing methods of their issue. Finally, an analysis of the main aspects of the secondary market of Italian government bonds is carried out by identifying the size of the exchanges carried out in the various possible trading venues.