European Financial Management, 2012 doi: 10.1111/j.1468-036X.2012.00659.x Risk Management for Italian Non-Financial Firms: Currency and Interest Rate Exposure Gordon M. Bodnar School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), The Johns Hopkins University, 1740 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington DC 20036 USA E-mail: bodnar@jhu.edu Costanza Consolandi Universit` a degli Studi di Siena, Italy E-mail: costanza.consolandi@unisi.it Giampaolo Gabbi Universit` a degli Studi di Siena, Italy and SDA Bocconi Milan Italy E-mail: giampaolo.gabbi@sdabocconi.it Ameeta Jaiswal-Dale Opus College of Business University of St. Thomas, 1000 LaSalle Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55403 USA EDHEC Business School E-mail: a9jaiswal@stthomas.edu Abstract This paper surveys risk management practices among Italian non-financial firms. This paper’s contribution lies in investigating derivative usage particular to Italian businesses, a group whose public disclosure of derivative instruments is not routine. Italy is characterised by a high percentage of small and medium sized family run firms. The survey examines determinants of currency and interest rate derivative use with respect currency and to firm size, geographical location, rating, industry, access to capital markets and educated management. The results from the logistic We thank the editor (John Doukas) and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. We also thank Riccardo Bramante, Marco Tucci and Roberto Ren` o for very helpful discussions and a careful reading of the manuscript. We are grateful to Carefin, Centre for Applied Research in Finance of Universit` a Bocconi for its financial support. We thank ANRA, the Italian Association of Risk Managers for its help to select and collect data and to Davide Scialdone for its assistance to contact firms and fill the questionnaires. All remaining errors are our own. C  2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd