Is the market swayed by press releases on corporate governance? Event study on the Eurostoxx banks

Are press releases on Corporate Governance price sensitive? What is the impact of Corporate Governance information on stock prices of banks? This paper addresses these questions by applying an event study methodology on 70 press releases published by the Euro area banks listed on the Eurostoxx banks Index, from 2007 to 2016. Systemic shocks are explored as well idiosyncratic ones. Our results show that investment decisions are significantly but negatively influenced by the disclosure of a press release on corporate governance as if this kind of news leads investors to perceive the banks’ prospects negatively. The best of our knowledge this is the first paper that investigates European banks press releases on corporate governance. Findings are relevant for banks’ management and their disclosure policy. Nonetheless, further research is needed to investigate differences and similarities between an area of governance disclosure and another

What does really matter in the internationalization of small and medium-sized family businesses?

During the last decades considerable academic attention has been given to the internationalization of family businesses, as it is often considered a way to revitalize both the family and the business. Despite this increasing attention, the debate on its drivers, challenges and constraints is still inconclusive. The aim of this study is to explore whether incoming generations’ involvement impact the decision to exploit and explore international opportunities and to what extent altruism and competence-based trust mediate that relationship. Three propositions are formulated drawing from international entrepreneurship literature and stewardship theory. To validate this framework, a multiple case study on four Italian family firms has been conducted. The main findings suggest that timing, scope and internationalization modes change in relation to specific family firms’ features. When “epochal” changes (e.g. incoming generation) suddenly break down they contribute positively to the exploration and exploitation of international entrepreneurial activities. Moreover, the existence of interpersonal ties based on altruism and competence-based trust between senior and incoming generations mitigates this relationship

The effect of cyber-attacks on stock returns

A widely debated issue in recent years is cybercrime. Breaches in the security of accessibility, integrity and confidentiality of information involve potentially high explicit and implicit costs for firms. This paper investigates the impact of information security breaches on stock returns. Using event-study methodology, the study provides empirical evidence on the effect of announcements of cyber-attacks on the market value of firms from 1995 to 2015. Results show that substantial negative market returns occur following announcements of cyber-attacks. Financial entities often suffer greater negative effects than other companies and non-confidential cyber-attacks are the most dangerous, especially for the financial sector. Overall findings seem to show a link between cybercrime and insider trading

Does the banks’ performance improve after share buybacks?

Share buybacks have become a popular way for companies to return capital to shareholders. However, there is an ongoing debate regarding the impact of share buybacks on the performance and shareholder value. This paper starts by examining the literature on share buybacks and aims at testing the signalling hypothesis (ie share buybacks are carried out to signal undervaluation of the stock) on share repurchases performed by banks. More specifically, the analysis conducted measured the impact of share buybacks on banks’ performance as measured by the return on equity (ROE). The results show that there is low significant positive linear relationship between banks’ share buybacks and their RO

Systemic risk measurement: bucketing global systemically important banks

The general consensus on the need to enhance the resilience of the financial system has led to the imposition of higher capital requirements for certain institutions, supposedly based on their contribution to systemic risk. Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) are divided into buckets based on their required additional capital buffers ranging from 1% to 3.5%. We measure the marginal contribution to systemic risk of 26 G-SIBs using the Distressed Insurance Premium methodology proposed by Huang et al. (J Bank Financ 33:2036\u20132049, 2009) and examine ranking consistency with that using the SRISK of Acharya et al. (Am Econ Rev 102:59\u201364, 2012). We then compare the bucketing using the two academic approaches and supervisory buckets. Because it leads to capital surcharges, bucketing should be consistent, irrespective of methodology. Instead, discrepancies in the allocation between buckets emerge and this suggests the complementary use of other methodologies

Does the banks’ performance improve after share buybacks?

Share buybacks have become a popular way for companies to return capital to shareholders. However, there is an ongoing debate regarding the impact of share buybacks on the performance and shareholder value. This paper starts by examining the literature on share buybacks and aims at testing the signalling hypothesis (ie share buybacks are carried out to signal undervaluation of the stock) on share repurchases performed by banks. More specifically, the analysis conducted measured the impact of share buybacks on banks’ performance as measured by the return on equity (ROE). The results show that there is low significant positive linear relationship between banks’ share buybacks and their ROE

NON-DAMAGE BUSINESS INTERRUPTION INSURANCE POLICIES DURING THE COVID 19 PANDEMIC

Pandemic risks, such as Covid-19, are difficult to insure as they are characterized by multiple factor risks and losses and involve different types of businesses and people simultaneously. The scarcity of time series and statistical data prevents insurers from developing correct pricing. We propose a model of catastrophe risk with Non-Damage Business Interruption (NDBI) policies to manage the pandemic risk due to the spread of Covid-19. The model employs a Monte Carlo simulation of different lockdown scenarios: the frequency and severity distributions of losses of Italian SMEs. The main results show the importance of a Covid-19 lockdown exposure NDBI policy, which benefits not only SMEs but also the insurer

How does cyber crime affect firms? The effect of information security breaches on stock returns

Abstract A widely debated issue in recent years is cyber crime. Breaches in security of accessibility, integrity and confidentiality of information involve potentially high explicit and implicit costs for firms. This paper investigates the impact of information security breaches on stock returns. Using event-study methodology, we provide empirical evidence on the effect of announcements of cyber attacks on the market value of firms from 1995 to 2015. We show that substantial negative market returns occur following announcements of cyber attacks. We find that financial entities often suffer greater negative effects than other companies. We also find that non-confidential cyber attacks are the most dangerous, especially for the financial sector. Our results seem to show a link between cyber crime and insider trading

Constraints on atmospheric water abundance and cloud deck pressure in the warm Neptune GJ 3470 b via CARMENES transmission spectroscopy

Observations of cooler atmospheres of super-Earths and Neptune sized objects often show flat transmission spectra. The most likely cause of this trend is the presence of aerosols (i.e. clouds and hazes) in the atmospheres of such objects. High-resolution spectroscopy provides an opportunity to test this hypothesis by targeting molecular species whose spectral line cores extend above the level of such opaque decks. In this work, we analyse high-resolution infrared observations of the warm Neptune GJ 3470 b taken over two transits using CARMENES (R ∼ 80,000) and look for signatures of H2O (previously detected using HST WFC3+Spitzer observations) in these transits with a custom pipeline fully accounting for the effects of data cleaning on any potential exoplanet signal. We find that our data are potentially able to weakly detect (∼

A chemical survey of exoplanets with ARIEL

Thousands of exoplanets have now been discovered with a huge range of masses, sizes and orbits: from rocky Earth-like planets to large gas giants grazing the surface of their host star. However, the essential nature of these exoplanets remains largely mysterious: there is no known, discernible pattern linking the presence, size, or orbital parameters of a planet to the nature of its parent star. We have little idea whether the chemistry of a planet is linked to its formation environment, or whether the type of host star drives the physics and chemistry of the planet’s birth, and evolution. ARIEL was conceived to observe a large number (~1000) of transiting planets for statistical understanding, including gas giants, Neptunes, super-Earths and Earth-size planets around a range of host star types using transit spectroscopy in the 1.25–7.8 μm spectral range and multiple narrow-band photometry in the optical. ARIEL will focus on warm and hot planets to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres which should show minimal condensation and sequestration of high-Z materials compared to their colder Solar System siblings. Said warm and hot atmospheres are expected to be more representative of the planetary bulk composition. Observations of these warm/hot exoplanets, and in particular of their elemental composition (especially C, O, N, S, Si), will allow the understanding of the early stages of planetary and atmospheric formation during the nebular phase and the following few million years. ARIEL will thus provide a representative picture of the chemical nature of the exoplanets and relate this directly to the type and chemical environment of the host star. ARIEL is designed as a dedicated survey mission for combined-light spectroscopy, capable of observing a large and well-defined planet sample within its 4-year mission lifetime. Transit, eclipse and phase-curve spectroscopy methods, whereby the signal from the star and planet are differentiated using knowledge of the planetary ephemerides, allow us to measure atmospheric signals from the planet at levels of 10–100 part per million (ppm) relative to the star and, given the bright nature of targets, also allows more sophisticated techniques, such as eclipse mapping, to give a deeper insight into the nature of the atmosphere. These types of observations require a stable payload and satellite platform with broad, instantaneous wavelength coverage to detect many molecular species, probe the thermal structure, identify clouds and monitor the stellar activity. The wavelength range proposed covers all the expected major atmospheric gases from e.g. H2O, CO2, CH4 NH3, HCN, H2S through to the more exotic metallic compounds, such as TiO, VO, and condensed species. Simulations of ARIEL performance in conducting exoplanet surveys have been performed – using conservative estimates of mission performance and a full model of all significant noise sources in the measurement – using a list of potential ARIEL targets that incorporates the latest available exoplanet statistics. The conclusion at the end of the Phase A study, is that ARIEL – in line with the stated mission objectives – will be able to observe about 1000 exoplanets depending on the details of the adopted survey strategy, thus confirming the feasibility of the main science objectives.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio