Positive or negative voting premium: what happened to private benefits in Italy?

A large body of research deals with voting premium as a proxy of private benefit of control. Almost all of them find positive voting premium, in particular in Italy. Therefore appears interesting to ask what is the current status of private benefits of control in Italy in the last decade (2007-2017). Surprisingly, we show three major findings: i) reduction of non-voting share in the Italian scenario; ii) prevalence of negative voting rights premium more than positive ones, thus conflicting with the assumption and the observations by other researchers; iii) limits of the voting premium method. Our aim is that this study, despite its limitations, may encourage further researches focused on the analysis of the improvement and the change in the Italian corporate governance. The article points out that interesting evidence already exists, although still much remains to do in the future

Financial Stability in European Banking: The Role of Common Factors

In this paper, I investigate the development and determinants of CDS spreads for 18 major European banks between December 2001 and January 2004 using daily data. I demonstrate that two nonstationary common factors can be extracted from the data that together explain most CDS spread variation across time and across banks. The group of German banks plus a few Southern-European banks appear to systematically have high CDS spreads and to be relatively sensitive to changes in the underlying factors. The dominating first common factor impacts on all banks in a similar direction, suggesting strong market integration. However, the quantitatively less important second factor has opposite effects on credit spreads of Southern European versus Northern European banks, suggesting some remaining country-specific or region-specific credit risk. Finally, I show that the first common factor may indeed be interpreted as a measure of market conditions as it is cointegrated with the European P/E ratio and the 2-year nominal interest ratecredit default swap spreads, contagion, cointegration, factor analysis

Doing Philanthropy at the Time of the Sustainable Development Goals: The Case of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo

This article outlines how strategic philanthropy can align its mission with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by describing the experience of the most important foundation of banking origin in Italy. Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo marked a milestone in 2020 in aligning with the Agenda, applying the Sustainable Development Goals as a rigorous, internationally shared methodological framework and restructuring its operations to focus on three programmatic efforts — Planet, People, and Culture — aligned with those goals. To complete our examination of this transformation, we conducted a benchmark analysis involving nine case studies of foundations in Europe and the United States to identify the level of engagement and convergence of each with the 2030 Agenda framework. This article begins with an introduction to the topic of sustainability in the philanthropic sector, which is followed by a case study of the Compagnia di San Paolo’s path to adoption of the framework. It then measures the impact of its activities through quantitative indicators, highlighting the foundation’s transformation, and concludes with a comparison between Compagnia di San Paolo’s approaches and some international best practices to provide a better understanding of our long-term positioning in the international context

Business Strategies of the Companies listed on the FTSE MIB index of Borsa Italiana Stock Exchange

The aim of the research is to provide a gross evaluation of the entrepreneurial system’s ability to create new industries.The research focuses on the most important Italian firms: the companies listed on the FTSE MIB index of Borsa Italiana.The way to comprehend the entrepreneurial system’s capability to create new industries, is by understanding the innovation level they are able to generate by the strategic planning activity. The model used for this research is the “Value Life Cycle Model” developed by Mr Francesco Zanotti.The overall result shows that the FTSE MIB Companies don’t have a strategic goal of creating new industries. The innovation level inside the business strategies designed by the FTSE MIB companies is generally very low

Banking System Stability: A Cross-Atlantic Perspective

This paper derives indicators of the severity and structure of banking system risk from asymptotic interdependencies between banks%u2019 equity prices. We use new tools available from multivariate extreme value theory to estimate individual banks%u2019 exposure to each other (%u201Ccontagion risk%u201D) and to systematic risk. Moreover, by applying structural break tests to those measures we study whether capital markets indicate changes in the importance of systemic risk over time. Using data for the United States and the euro area, we can also compare banking system stability between the two largest economies in the world. Finally, for Europe we assess the relative importance of cross-border bank spillovers as compared to domestic bank spillovers. The results suggest, inter alia, that systemic risk in the US is higher than in the euro area, mainly as cross-border risks are still relatively mild in Europe. On both sides of the Atlantic systemic risk has increased during the 1990s.

Market microstructure, bank's behaviour and interbank spreads

We present an empirical analysis of the European electronic interbank market of overnight lending (e-MID) during the years 1999–2009. The main goal of the paper is to explain the observed changes of the cross-sectional dispersion of lending/borrowing conditions before, during and after the 2007–2008 subprime crisis. Unlike previous contributions, that focused on banks’ dependent and macro information as explanatory variables, we address the role of banks’ behaviour and market microstructure as determinants of the credit spreads

Are European Banks Opaque? Evidence from Trades by Corporate Insiders

Trades by EU corporate insiders are used to investigate bank opacity, both in absolute terms and relative to other type of firms. The average bank insider’s transaction does not earn abnormal returns, neither on purchases nor on sales. Examination of insider trades’ profitability variation along the time dimension and within the banking sector finds no evidence of a greater degree of bank opacity versus other firms. These findings question whether banks should be regarded as intrinsically opaque type of firms, while pointing out how, to evaluate bank opacity, the employed method is crucial especially with respect to the benchmark and the type of information adopted.Trades by EU corporate insiders are used to investigate bank opacity, both in absolute terms and relative to other type of firms. The average bank insider’s transaction does not earn abnormal returns, neither on purchases nor on sales. Examination of insider trades’ profitability variation along the time dimension and within the banking sector finds no evidence of a greater degree of bank opacity versus other firms. These findings question whether banks should be regarded as intrinsically opaque type of firms, while pointing out how, to evaluate bank opacity, the employed method is crucial especially with respect to the benchmark and the type of information adopted

Reconstructing argumentative interactions in M&A offers

This paper brings to light the important but insufficiently recognized role played by argumentation in financial activities and, more in particular, in corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&A). This role shows to be crucial in many phases of the M&A process, in particular in the public offer phase, when corporate managers have to convince shareholders of the expediency of the proposed deal but also need to show the acceptability of the transaction to a wide public of stakeholders (employees, customers, politicians, analysts, investors, regulators, media), involved in the discussions surrounding a deal. The paper intends to show how the pragma-dialectical model of critical discussion (Van Eemeren & Grootendorst 1984, 1992a, 1993) can be applied for reconstructing the argumentative interactions entailed by M&A offers. The purpose is to specify the different scenarios within which the discussions are structured and to single out the main arguments put forward by the participants in the discussion. This reconstruction shows, on the one side, the relevance of argumentation in this type of interaction and constitutes, on the other side, the fundamental basis for realizing a consistent evaluation of the argumentative strategies that support (or reject) the expediency and acceptability of a proposed transaction

The determinants of non-performing loans' evolution in the european banking system: the role of corporate governance

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