This paper addresses the questions whether European mutual fund managers rely on sell-side analyst information with respect to their investment decisions and whether this behavior impacts fund performance. Based on a sample of over 4,300 European mutual funds and around 1.2 million portfolio...

The purpose of this paper, structured in three Sections, is twofold: (a) The first is to analyse the conditions under which a group of financial firms is considered to be a ‘financial conglomerate' in accordance with the (complex) definition of this term in Article 2 (point (14)) of the...

The aim of this paper is to briefly present and assess the institutional framework governing the (and some main legal aspects related to the) European Banking Union (EBU), as in force, and the proposals made or suggested in order to enhance it. The paper is structured in three (3) Sections: (1)...

This study is aiming to present (and to a certain extent analyse) the provisions of Articles 24-30 of Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 “on markets in financial instruments (…)” (‘MiFID II') – including the relevant provisions of the...

This paper analyzes Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) in Europe. We document various aspects associated with European SPACs by using a unique and hand-collected data sample encompassing all 19 SPACs which have been listed on European stock exchanges since 2005. The paper shows that...

Post-crisis European reforms have focused on 'micro' measures, like shoring up financial institutions, ensuring their solvency and sound supervision, and the resolution to deal with them in a crisis. However, bold 'macro' measures to deal with problems that cut across the whole financial sector...

After a crisis, broad and sweeping reforms are enacted to restore trust. Following the 2007-2008 Great Financial Crisis, the European Union has engaged in an ambitious overhaul of banking regulation. One of its centerpieces, the 2013 Fourth Capital Requirements Directive (CRD IV), tackles,...

Common ownership fundamentally upsets the well-settled merger enforcement ecosystem. Not only it challenges basic principles informing merger policy such as the presumed profitability of mergers for the merging firms and the merger-specificity of potential efficiencies but also it works against...

The modern stakeholder movement in the U.S. is arguably an attempt to import European corporatism into U.S. corporate practice and public policy. Hence, it is useful to ask (i) do European firms really invest in stakeholder welfare; and (ii) are such investments accomplished at the cost of lower...

In this article, in addition to understanding what are the elements and stages that have guided the formation of a corporate culture in the ESG area, we focus on two specificities: the distinctive traits of the board of directors, on the one hand, and the relationship between ESG performance and...