Building on the pecking order theory of Myers and Majluf, (1984) and Myers (1984), the present study empirically analyses the association between the board of directors’ composition and firm financing policies. Particularly, the fraction of independent directors on the board, the fraction of...

In this article, we provide an interpretation for the voluntary independence requirements contained in the Italian Corporate Governance Code (Preda Code) checking them against a proxy for international best practice, the independence criteria provided in the EC Recommendation on non-executive...

In this article we have expanded the analysis of the new dataset we created in Santella, Paone, Drago (2005) which analysed and quantified corporate disclosure on directors formally identified as independent by the forty Italian Blue Chips. We find here a general low level of compliance with...

Companies are required to have a reliable system of corporate governance in place at the time of IPO in order to protect the interests of public company investors and stakeholders. Yet, relatively little is known about the process by which they implement one. This Closer Look, based on detailed...

The hallmark of good corporate governance is an independent board of directors to oversee management. However, it is not clear that independent directors receive the information they need to make fully informed decisions on all key matters. Partly, this is due to an information gap, whereby...

We develop and test the hypothesis that private information incorporated into stock prices affects the structure of corporate boards. Stock price informativeness may be a complement to board monitoring, because the information revealed by prices can be used by directors to monitor management....

After the financial crisis, the necessity to support large inefficient banks had a crucial impact on a number of economies in Europe. This paper focuses on the effect that corporate governance mechanisms has on performance for commercial banks operating in developed and emerging European...

This paper investigates the financing conditions of non-financial corporations in theeuro area. We develop a new firm classification based on micro data by distinguishingbetween three groups of firms: unconstrained, relatively and absolutely constrainedfirms. We also provide further evidence on...

This study investigates the relationship between institutional ownership and dividend payout behavior of the firm in Germany. Using a propensity scoring method estimator to control for endogeneity problems, we find evidence that neither institutional ownership nor bank control is statistically...

What factors drive the valuation of Bitcoin and other crypto-assets? We use a novel measure and show that [1] Sentiments in Bitcoin drive the price action and have a material effect on returns [2] Sentiments in Bitcoin drive the valuation of other cryptocurrency assets [3] Sentiments in Bitcoin...