This paper is part of general debate about corporate governance and focuses on a mechanism of self-regulation suggested to Italian firms to avoid market abuses: the use of black-out periods during which insiders are temporarily prohibited from trading on the market. The study shows that although...

Entrepreneurship and the creation of new businesses are two key drivers of economic growth and innovation of industries, regions and countries. The paper presents a model of entrepreneurial choice based on the modern portfolio theory. The model has been further developed to take account of the...

We assess how owner's commitment to a firm influences the firm cost of capital, and whether the relation between the former and the latter is the consequence of the owner's higher opportunity cost of capital resulting from under-diversification. Using data on private Mediterranean firms and...

Purpose This paper examines if gender diversity on corporate boards promotes corporate social performance (CSP) across industries and across countries. Design/methodology/approach Fixed-effect panel models are estimated using Europe-wide data from 2002 through 2013. Instrumental variable...

Using a unique hand-collected data set, we investigate the effectiveness of internal dealing regulation and self-imposed blackout periods on companies in Italy. While insiders comply with the internal dealing regulation in reporting their transactions, managers are still able to realize abnormal...

Using a unique hand-collected data set that comprises the 2009 balance sheets of all Italian listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), we test whether Net Asset Value (NAV) discount can be explained by expert assessor overestimations. Our results suggest that expert assessors make...

Using data on private firms in the EU-15 area over the period 2004-2011, we investigate the determinants of firm profitability. We extend existing models by considering possible nonlinear effects of typical micro-level determinants as well as the effect of additional micro-level and macro-level...

We propose a model to show how the fee structure of listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) can increase instead of decrease Management Company opportunistic behaviors. Distinguishing between performance fees paid on the fund market value and management fees paid either on the Net Asset...

We assess how owner's commitment to a firm influences the firm cost of capital, and whether the relation between the former and the latter is the consequence of the owner's higher opportunity cost of capital resulting from under-diversification. Using data on private Mediterranean firms and...