The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to test a sample of companies listed on the Milan stock exchange from 2000 to 2006, which comparables selection method generates the most precise forecasts when appraising with price/earnings, price/book value, price/sales, enterprise value/EBIT and...

Corporate financial performance measured in terms of accounting-based ratios has been viewed as inadequate as firms began focusing on shareholder value as the primary long-term objective of the organization. Corporate managers have been facing a period where a new economic framework that better...

Italian Abstract: Gli npl (non performing loans) sono argomento di grande attualità per le banche italiane. La Banca d'Italia, nell'ultima Relazione Annuale, ha evidenziato un certo ottimismo sul tasso di recupero delle sofferenze bancarie, suggerendo la via interna piuttosto che la loro...

The Italian mutual fund industry is in a severe crisis: its net assets have been experiencing a constant decrease since 1999, from 42% of GDP to 8% in 2011. Its returns are poor, too. An investment in mutual funds has accumulated in its 28-year life a loss larger than the initial asset value, if...

This paper aims at empirically supporting, in a cross-country and cross-industry analysis, the instrumental role of stakeholder management by adopting a disaggregated approach to the corporate social performance measurement. By using a sample of 250 European industrial listed firms, from 10...

Recent international financial research finds that a firm's capital structure is not only influenced by firm- and industry-specific determinants, but also by country-specific factors. A brief review of the last decade's studies on the country effect identifies some areas of potential development...

From the agency perspective, literature studying links between investor protection and governance profiles argues that family is more disposed than other shareholders to divert private benefits in countries with a poor legal framework: the question is empirically puzzling. From the stewardship...

Which factors determine the systematic risk of European banks? The issue is very important for regulators and decision-makers in financial markets. This study follows the Beaver-Kettler-Scholes (1970)'s pioneering approach, which estimates true betas of not-financial firms by correcting the...

The medium-sized firms (MEs) are the cutting edge of the Italian manufacturing sector. They have a crucial role in influencing the behavior of the local systems whose they are part (2/3 of the total firms are located in industrial districts). This study investigates the drivers of Italian MEs'...

G-pillar seems to be the underdog of the fashionable ESG paradigm: old topic, no longer in fashion, over-analysed and time-worn matter (except when instrumental to E- and S- pillars). Under this perspective, companies might appear fully compliant to Corporate Governance (hereinafter CG) best...