Conventional explanations of diversification and multinationality both point to size/growth related motives and firm-specific intangible assets as the driving forces. However, previous empirical studies have rarely exploited this commonality by investigating multinationality and diversification...

This paper provides empirical evidence on how EU leading firms adjusted to European economic integration with respect to the following strategic variables: entry/exit decisions in the product/geographic space (diversification/multinationality). A novel dataset, including detailed information on...

This paper investigates whether financial pressure has an impact on the performance of state-owned firms. By combining different theoretical frameworks, we explore the conditions under which debt discipline becomes effective even for state firms. Using a panel of 1318 Italian state and private...

Conventional explanations of diversification and multinationality both point to the existence of intangible assets as a driving force. Using a new database of leading EU firms in 100 NACE 3-digit industries, we devise a classificatory scheme which allows us to analyze multinationality and...

We investigate implications for the cost of capital in a model with agency conflicts between inside and outside shareholders, where the severity of agency costs depends on a parameter representing investor protection. Using firm-level data for Italy and Germany we find significant differences in...

According to ex-ante expectations, one effect of the increased competitive pressure within the Single Market was to drive firms to reduce diversification and refocus on their core business. This paper addresses two main questions: the extent and the purpose of multi-product strategies. Using a...

The new CERIS panel on Italian firms covers the period from 1977 to 1997. The panel is unbalanced and includes 1710 manufacturing firms with at least five consecutive years. It contains condensed balance sheet and profit and loss data (collected from Mediobanca annual directory "Le Principali...

In this paper we extend to state-owned enterprises the empirical work on investment-cash flow sensitivities. Our sample is a panel of Italian state-owned manufacturing firms over the period 1977-1993. The distinctive element of public firms’ financial environment is the budget regime under...

Italian industrial structure and financial markets have several distinct features. Italian firms are relatively small, few trade publicly and no corporate bond market exists. The limited types of external funds available to Italian firms makes them prone to financing constraints. We examine a...