Italian Open End Mutual Fund Costs

We investigate the costs investors incur when they hold shares of Italian open end mutual funds. The overall explicit cost can range from less than 50 to well over 250 basis points in terms of assets under management. Nevertheless, mutual funds investors seem to be almost unaware of the importance of costs and tend to focus mainly on the net return when making their investment decisions. We measure the overall costs of a large sample of mutual funds managed by Italian intermediaries in the period 2000-2003 and also evaluate the determinants of cost efficiencies for the period 2000-2003.mutual fund expenses, total expense ratio, mutual fund transaction costs, economies of scale

Qualità della negoziazione e tutela dell'investitore

MiFID regulation aims at protecting investors and promoting competition across securities markets in the European Union. The measurement of trade execution quality is crucial to achieve such goals. Traders will direct order flow towards more efficient venues only if compare trade execution quality across markets based on methodologically sound execution quality metrics. We discuss the concept of best execution as ruled by MiFID and present two frameworks to estimate trade execution quality: price benchmark and econometric transaction cost estimation methods. No execution quality metric is preferable in every market condition and for every trader. We thus provide some clues to appropriately choose execution quality measures.

Are European banks too big? evidence on economies of scale

In light of the policy debate on too-big-to-fail we investigate evidence of economies of scale for 103 European listed banks over 2000 to 2011. Using the Stochastic Frontier Approach, the results show that economies of scale are widespread across different size classes of banks and are especially large for the biggest banks. At the country level, banks operating in the smallest financial systems and the countries most affected by the financial crises realize the lowest scale economies (including diseconomies) due to the reduction in production capacity. As for the determinants of scale economies, these mainly emanate from banks oriented towards investment banking, with higher liquidity, lower Tier 1 capital, those that contributed less to systemic risk during the crises, and those with too-big-to-fail status

Influence of Voice Intonation on Understanding Irony by Polish-Speaking Preschool Children

The main aim of the presented study was to investigate the influence of voice intonation on the comprehension of ironic utterances in 4- to 6-year-old Polish-speaking children. 83 preschool children were tested with the Irony Comprehension Task (Banasik & Bokus, 2012). In the Irony Comprehension Task, children are presented with stories in which ironic utterances were prerecorded and read by professional speakers using an ironic intonation. Half of the subjects performed the regular Irony Comprehension Task while the other half were given a modified version of the Irony Comprehension Task (ironic content was uttered using a non-ironic intonation). Results indicate that children from the ironic intonation group scored higher on the Irony Comprehension Task than children who heard ironic statements uttered using a neutral voice. Ironic voice intonation appeared to be a helpful cue to irony comprehension

Italian Open End Mutual Fund Costs

We investigate the costs investors incur when they hold shares of Italian open end mutual funds. The overall explicit cost can range from less than 50 to well over 250 basis points in terms of assets under management. Nevertheless, mutual funds investors seem to be almost unaware of the importance of costs and tend to focus mainly on the net return when making their investment decisions. We measure the overall costs of a large sample of mutual funds managed by Italian intermediaries in the period 2000-2003 and also evaluate the determinants of cost efficiencies for the period 2000-2003

Italian Open End Mutual Fund Costs

We investigate the costs investors incur when they hold shares of Italian open end mutual funds. The overall explicit cost can range from less than 50 to well over 250 basis points in terms of assets under management. Nevertheless, mutual funds investors seem to be almost unaware of the importance of costs and tend to focus mainly on the net return when making their investment decisions. We measure the overall costs of a large sample of mutual funds managed by Italian intermediaries in the period 2000-2003 and also evaluate the determinants of cost efficiencies for the period 2000-2003

A Two-Stage Non Discretionary Trading Suspension Mechanism: Effects on Market Quality

This paper investigates the intraday effects on market quality of a unique trading suspension mechanism in place at the Italian stock market (Borsa Italiana) in case of price limit hit. Specifically, when prices hit the limit, Borsa Italiana halts trading for 5 minutes ('freeze phase') and removes the order that caused the limit to be hit. If trading regularly resumes after the freeze phase, exchange officials make no other intervention and we call this sequence of events 'Type 1' halt (i.e., freeze-only halt). Alternatively, if a second limit hit occurs after the freeze phase, an intraday call auction replaces the continuous trading. We name this sequence 'Type 2' halt (i.e., intraday auction halt). We examine both the general effects of trading halts and the specific effects of Type 1 and Type 2 trading suspensions on three dimensions of market quality: trading activity, return volatility, and price discovery. The full sample results reveal mixed evidence about the usefulness of price limit hit trading halts: trading volume and return volatility after the halt are abnormally high (trading interference hypothesis for volume and spillover hypothesis for volatility), whereas prices converge towards equilibrium values (cool off hypothesis for price discovery). When we partition the sample by type of halt three main results arise. First, Type 2 halts always show larger abnormal volume measures than Type 1 and this indicates a greater interference on the normal trading process of Type 2 relative to Type 1 halts. Second, Type 2 halts show lower post-halt abnormal volatility than Type 1. This might be explained by the difference in the way the market restarts after the halt. The call auction procedure associated with Type 2 allows for wider information dissemination, whereas the price discovery process in Type 1 trading halts takes place only through the tâtonnement process in continuous trading. Third, for the price discovery process, the call auction reopening procedure of Type 2 halts also has a stronger cool off effect relative to the Type 1 continuous trading

Are European banks too big? evidence on economies of scale

In light of the policy debate on too-big-to-fail we investigate evidence of economies of scale for 103 European listed banks over 2000 to 2011. Using the Stochastic Frontier Approach, the results show that economies of scale are widespread across different size classes of banks and are especially large for the biggest banks. At the country level, banks operating in the smallest financial systems and the countries most affected by the financial crises realize the lowest scale economies (including diseconomies) due to the reduction in production capacity. As for the determinants of scale economies, these mainly emanate from banks oriented towards investment banking, with higher liquidity, lower Tier 1 capital, those that contributed less to systemic risk during the crises, and those with too-big-to-fail status

Dispositional optimism as a correlate of decision-making styles in adolescence

Despite the numerous psychological areas in which optimism has been studied, including career planning, only a small amount of research has been done to investigate the relationship between optimism and decision-making styles. Consequently, we have investigated the role of dispositional optimism as a correlate of different decision-making styles, in particular, positive for effective styles and negative for ineffective ones (doubtfulness, procrastination, and delegation). Data were gathered through questionnaires administered to 803 Italian adolescents in their last 2 years of high schools with different fields of study, each at the beginning stages of planning for their professional future. A paper questionnaire was completed containing measures of dispositional optimism and career-related decision styles, during a vocational guidance intervention conducted at school. Data were analyzed using stepwise multiple regression. Results supported the proposed model by showing optimism to be a strong correlate of decision-making styles, thereby offering important intervention guidelines aimed at modifying unrealistically negative expectations regarding their future and helping students learn adaptive decision-making skills

How does banking market power affect bank opacity? Evidence from analysts' forecasts

Whilst the ongoing banking regulatory reforms towards a comprehensive Basel III framework emphasise bank transparency, disclosure and a competitive banking market environment, very little is known about the empirical relationship between bank opacity and banking competition. We investigate the impact of competition, as measured by the individual bank's pricing power in the banking market, on bank opacity using a large sample of US bank holding companies over the 1986–2015 period. We uncover new evidence, on the competition-bank opacity nexus, which suggests that banks with higher market power and operating in less competitive banking markets have lower analysts' forecast errors and dispersions and may thus be less opaque. This effect is more pronounced for the 2007–09 global financial crisis period. Our evidence is robust to controlling for analysts' characteristics, bank fixed-effects and endogeneity problems