The Wall Street Walk when Blockholders Compete for Flows

Publicly traded corporations are a¤ected by a core agency problem: managers pay the full cost of e¤ort in running the corporations but shareholders enjoy most of the bene?ts. When ownership is dispersed individual shareholders have little incentive to monitor managers and little ability to in?uence them. Holders of equity blocks (?blockholders?) are a natural solu- tion to this problem. Because they own many shares they have both the incentive to monitor and the ability to in?uence management. Several well-known papers (e.g. Grossman and Hart (1980), Shleifer and Vishny (1986), Admati, P?eiderer, and Zechner (1994) and Kahn and Winton (1998)) have shown that blockholders can increase ?rm value through monitoring and activism. Activism can take the form of bringing forth shareholder proposals, proxy voting against management, informal negotiations with management, jawboning etc. These activities are collectively referred to as the use of ?voice?by blockholders.

Theories of the effects of delegated portfolio managers' incentives

Delegated portfolio managers, such as hedge funds, mutual funds and pension funds, play a crucial role in financial markets. While it is well-known that their incentives are misaligned with those of their clients, the consequences of this misalignment are understudied. This thesis studies the effects of delegated portfolio managers' incentives in the real economy, in corporate governance and in portfolio allocation. In the first paper, 'Do institutional investors improve capital allocation?', I show that delegated portfolio managers' misalignment of incentives - which I model as their career-concerns - has real and positive economic effects. I find that delegated portfolio managers allocate capital more efficiently than other investors who do not face similar incentives; this promotes investment, fosters firms' growth, and enriches shareholders. In the second paper, 'The Wall Street walk when investors compete for flows"', Amil Dasgupta and I show a negative side of delegated portfolio managers' career concerns. When delegated portfolio managers hold blocks of shares in firms, the more they care about their careers, the less effectively their exit threats discipline firm managers. Our result generates testable implications across different classes of funds: only those funds who have relatively high-powered incentives will be effective in using exit as a governance mechanism. Finally, the third paper, 'Investment mandates and the downside of precise credit ratings', co-authored with Jason Roderick Donaldson, studies whether the misalignment of incentives between delegated portfolio managers and their investors are tempered with contracts based on precise credit ratings. Surprisingly, we find that while, at equilibrium, portfolio managers write contracts making reference to credit ratings, this is inefficient; in particular, as the rating's precision increases everyone is worse off

Restructuring vs. Bankruptcy

We develop a model of a firm in financial distress. Distress can be mitigated by filing for bankruptcy, which is costly, or preempted by restructuring, which is impeded by a collective action problem. We find that bankruptcy and restructuring are complements, not substitutes: Reducing bankruptcy costs facilitates restructuring, rather than crowding it out. And so does making bankruptcy more debtor-friendly, under a condition that seems likely to hold now in the United States. The model gives new perspectives on current relief policies (e.g., subsidized loans to firms in bankruptcy) and on long-standing legal debates (e.g., the efficiency of the absolute priority rule)

Guidelines on the diagnosis, treatment and management of visceral and renal arteries aneurysms: a joint assessment by the Italian Societies of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery (SICVE) and Medical and Interventional Radiology (SIRM)

: The objective of these Guidelines is to provide recommendations for the classification, indication, treatment and management of patients suffering from aneurysmal pathology of the visceral and renal arteries. The methodology applied was the GRADE-SIGN version, and followed the instructions of the AGREE quality of reporting checklist. Clinical questions, structured according to the PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparator, Outcome) model, were formulated, and systematic literature reviews were carried out according to them. Selected articles were evaluated through specific methodological checklists. Considered Judgments were compiled for each clinical question in which the characteristics of the body of available evidence were evaluated in order to establish recommendations. Overall, 79 clinical practice recommendations were proposed. Indications for treatment and therapeutic options were discussed for each arterial district, as well as follow-up and medical management, in both candidate patients for conservative therapy and patients who underwent treatment. The recommendations provided by these guidelines simplify and improve decision-making processes and diagnostic-therapeutic pathways of patients with visceral and renal arteries aneurysms. Their widespread use is recommended

The Wall Street Walk when Blockholders Compete for Flows

Publicly traded corporations are a¤ected by a core agency problem: managers pay the full cost of e¤ort in running the corporations but shareholders enjoy most of the bene?ts. When ownership is dispersed individual shareholders have little incentive to monitor managers and little ability to in?uence them. Holders of equity blocks (?blockholders?) are a natural solu- tion to this problem. Because they own many shares they have both the incentive to monitor and the ability to in?uence management. Several well-known papers (e.g. Grossman and Hart (1980), Shleifer and Vishny (1986), Admati, P?eiderer, and Zechner (1994) and Kahn and Winton (1998)) have shown that blockholders can increase ?rm value through monitoring and activism. Activism can take the form of bringing forth shareholder proposals, proxy voting against management, informal negotiations with management, jawboning etc. These activities are collectively referred to as the use of ?voice?by blockholders.

The Paradox of Pledgeability

We develop a model in which collateral serves to protect creditors from the claims of competing creditors. We find that borrowers rely most on collateral when cash flow pledgeability is high, because this is when it is easy to take on new debt, diluting existing creditors. Creditors thus require collateral for protection against being diluted. This causes a collateral rat race that results in all borrowing being collateralized. But collateralized borrowing has a cost: it encumbers assets, constraining future borrowing and investment, i.e. there is a collateral overhang. Our results suggest that the absolute priority rule, by which secured creditors are senior to unsecured creditors, may have an adverse effect — it may trigger the collateral rat race

Restructuring vs. Bankruptcy

We develop a model of a firm in financial distress. Distress can be mitigated by filing for bankruptcy, which is costly, or preempted by restructuring, which is impeded by a collective action problem. We find that bankruptcy and restructuring are complements, not substitutes: Reducing bankruptcy costs facilitates restructuring, rather than crowding it out. And so does making bankruptcy more debtor-friendly, under a condition that seems likely to hold now in the United States. The model gives new perspectives on current relief policies (e.g., subsidized loans to firms in bankruptcy) and on long-standing legal debates (e.g., the efficiency of the absolute priority rule)

Sexual health and quality of life assessment among ovarian cancer patients during chemotherapy

During the last decades many successful efforts have been made in order to increase life expectancy in ovarian cancer (OC) patients. However, just a few studies have investigated the impact of OC on quality of life (QoL) and sexual function in OC cases during treatment. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the QoL and sexual function of OC patients during chemotherapy (CT). Patients and Methods: Forty-nine subjects were enrolled and filled in the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QLQ-OV28, Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) and Female Sexual Distress Scale (FSDS) questionnaires. The results were evaluated globally and consequently stratified into several groups: single surgery versus multiple surgeries, age ≤48 years versus >48 years, and first-line CT versus multiple lines of CT. Results: Menopause-related symptoms, body image and attitude toward the disease were significantly worse during first-line CT (p = 0.018, p = 0.029 and p = 0.006, respectively). Sexual outcomes resulted in better scores in younger patients in all questionnaires (FSFI: p = 0.001; FSDS: p = 0.048; specific EORTC QLQ-OV28 items: p = 0.022). Scores concerning body image, attitude toward the disease and CT-associated symptoms resulted worse in patients after the first surgery (p = 0.017, p = 0.002 and p = 0.012, respectively). Conclusion: Our study confirms that OC has a detrimental impact on QoL and intimacy, particularly in younger patients, during the first course of CT and after the first cytoreductive surgery. © 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel

Neuroendocrine carcinoma of the urinary bladder: CT findings and radiomics signature

Background: We present a case series of Neuroendocrine Carcinoma of the Urinary Bladder (NECB) to analyse their radiologic appearance on CT, find a "Radiomic signature", and review the current literature. Methods: 14 CT cases of NECB were reviewed and compared with a control group of 42 patients with high-grade non-neuroendocrine bladder neoplasm for the following parameters: ring enhancement; implantation site; dimensions; density; margins; central necrosis; calcifications; number of lesions; wall thickness; depth of invasion in the soft tissue; invasion of fat tissue; invasion of adjacent organs; lymph-node involvement; abdominal organ metastasis. To extract radiomic features, volumes of interest of bladder lesions were manually delineated on the portal-venous phase. The radiomic features of the two groups were identified and compared. Results: Statistical differences among NECB and control group were found in the prevalence of male sex (100% vs. 69.0%), hydronephrosis (71.4% vs. 33.3%), mean density of the mass (51.01 ± 15.48 vs. 76.27 ± 22.26 HU); product of the maximum diameters on the axial plane (38.1 ± 59.3 vs. 14.44 ± 12.98 cm2) in the control group, trigonal region involvement (78.57% vs. 19.05%). About the radiomic features, Student's t-test showed significant correlation for the variables: "DependenceNonUniformity" (p: 0.048), "JointAverage" (p: 0.013), "LargeAreaLowGrayLevelEmphasis" (p: 0.014), "Maximum2DDiameterColumn" (p: 0.04), "Maximum 2DDiameterSlice" (p: 0.007), "MeanAbsoluteDeviation" (p: 0.021), "BoundingBoxA" (p: 0.022) and "CenterOfMassB" (p: 0.007). Conclusions: There is a typical pattern (male patient, large mass, trigonal area involvement) of NECB presentation on contrast-enhanced CT. Certain morphological characteristics and encouraging results about Radiomic features can help define the diagnosis