Characterising exoplanets and their environment with UV transmission spectroscopy

Exoplanet science is now in its full expansion, particularly after the CoRoT and Kepler space missions that led us to the discovery of thousands of extra-solar planets. The last decade has taught us that UV observations play a major role in advancing our understanding of planets and of their host stars, but the necessary UV observations can be carried out only by HST, and this is going to be the case for many years to come. It is therefore crucial to build a treasury data archive of UV exoplanet observations formed by a dozen "golden systems" for which observations will be available from the UV to the infrared. Only in this way we will be able to fully exploit JWST observations for exoplanet science, one of the key JWST science case

Family ownership, financing constraints and investment decisions

This article provides an empirical answer to the question of how the unique incentives of founding families influence investment decisions. Contrary to theoretical considerations, the results indicate that family firms are not more susceptible to external financing constraints. When compared to companies of similar size and dividend payout ratio, the investment outlays of family firms are consistently less sensitive to internal cash flows. Family businesses are more responsive to their investment opportunities and seem to invest irrespective of cash flow availability. The findings suggest that founding family ownership is associated with lower agency costs and can help to diminish information asymmetries with external suppliers of finance.family firms, ownership structure, investment policy, corporate governance,