Cost of entrepreneurial capital and under-diversification: A Euro-Mediterranean perspective

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 clustering projects by country, industry, and Initial Public Offering-year, we show that the cost of capital is magnified by entrepreneur's commitment, project total risk, and correlation between project and market return.     

Supply uncertainty of the bond investor base and the leverage of the firm

We examine the effect of the bond capital supply uncertainty of institutional investors (e.g., mutual bond funds and insurance companies) on the leverage of the firm using a novel data set. Our main finding is that the supply uncertainty of the firm's bond investor base — measured as (i) the average portfolio turnover, or (ii) the average flow volatility of investors holding the firm's bonds, or (iii) the prevalence of mutual funds among the firm's bondholders as opposed to insurance companies — has a negative and significant effect on the leverage of the firm. The supply uncertainty of the firm's bond investor base also has a negative and significant effect on the firm's probability of issuing bonds, and a positive and significant effect on the firm's probability of issuing equity and borrowing from banks. We take a multi-pronged approach to address potential endogeneity issues, including use of geography-based instruments and firm fixed effects, subsample analyses, and a placebo test. Our results highlight the fragility of access to the bond market for companies that depend on mutual funds with high turnover/ flow volatility as primary bond investors.     

Vertical Integration in International Telecommunication System

The process of liberalization and privatization is drastically altering the links among international telecommunications carriers. The model presented in this paper analyses the international telecommunications market illustrating the effects of vertical mergers, under symbiotic production conditions, when vertically integrated and unintegrated carriers coexist. The effect of competition is analysed both in the final market and in the intermediate one where carriers compete over tariffs to get an appropriate distribution of profits. In particular, the results show the relations between final market prices, intermediate tariffs and market dimensions and their implications on profits.     

Stock prices and money velocity: a multi-country analysis

What kind of information do stock prices offer for predicting velocity? This paper develops previous work by Milton Friedman for the US economy and shows that in a panel of 25 countries a wealth effect derived from the stock market has negatively influenced the ratio of nominal income to a broad definition of money. Taking quarterly data for the period 1961–1998, the relationship holds in Japan, the UK and Switzerland; in Italy a substitution effect (away from money) has also been operating. Overall, these empirical findings indicate the presence of systematic influences of stock price fluctuations on money velocity and suggest that the repercussions of asset inflation and deflation on the behavior of monetary aggregates should be monitored. First version received: July 1998/Final version received: November 2000     

Modelling the implied volatility surface: Does market efficiency matter?: An application to MIB30 index options

We analyze the volatility surface vs. moneyness and time-to-expiration implied by MIBO options written on the MIB30, the most important Italian stock index. We specify and fit a number of models of the implied volatility surface and find that it has a rich and interesting structure that strongly departs from a constant volatility, Black-Scholes benchmark. This result is robust to alternative econometric approaches, including generalized least squares approaches that take into account both the panel structure of the data and the likely presence of heteroskedasticity and serial correlation in the random disturbances. Finally we show that the degree of pricing efficiency of this options market can strongly condition the results of the econometric analysis and therefore our understanding of the pricing mechanism underlying observed MIBO option prices. Applications to value-at-risk and portfolio choice calculations illustrate the importance of using arbitrage-free data only.     

Home Bias and High Turnover in an Overlapping-generations Model with Learning

This paper develops a two‐country overlapping‐generations (OLG) model under the assumption that investors are on a learning path. While investors from both countries receive identical information flows, domestic investors start off with less precise prior beliefs concerning foreign fundamentals. On a learning path, differences in beliefs and estimation risk generate portfolio biases that match the empirical evidence: home bias in equity portfolios and trend‐chasing in international flows. In addition, due to the higher volatility of the estimates of foreign state variables, our model produces excessive turnover in foreign securities. We calibrate the model on the historical path of quarterly real GDP data for the US and Europe. Under the assumption of a financial liberalization in the 1970s, the model produces preference for domestic securities and turnover.     

Does Privatisation Matter? The Long‐Term Performance of British Telecom over 40 Years

In this paper, we offer and discuss new evidence on the performance of British Telecom (BT) before and after privatisation. We use a unique data‐set based on company accounts over 40 years (1960–99) and original additional company data on several variables. We focus particularly on output, prices, revenues, costs, employment, productivity, profits and investment. Our key findings are that operating profits (i.e. gross profits before interest and tax) were remarkably stable before and after divestiture, and that ownership change per se had little discernible impact on productivity trends, particularly between 1984 and 1991. Major changes in performance after 1991 were, however, related to variations in financial arrangements, competition and regulatory pressure. This allows us to regard the BT case history as a natural experiment on the relative importance of privatisation, liberalisation and regulation.     

Reforming Business Taxation: Lessons from Italy?

We carefully review the recent Italian reform of business taxation, compare it with other international experiences and theoretical proposals, and calculate its effects on the cost of capital and on the effective average corporate tax rate. We argue that the Italian reform is an original attempt to find a compromise between two conflicting aims, both of which are unavoidable in an open economy: the first is to reduce the average rate of taxation on profits, and the second is to reduce the financial and real distortions produced by corporate taxation. In assessing the initial evidence in the Italian case, we argue that too much weight has been given to the latter objective, and that further reductions in average taxation on profits may be needed.     

Managerial Incentives for Takeovers

The paper studies managerial incentives in a model where managers choose product market strategies and make takeover decisions. The equilibrium contract includes an incentive to increase the firm's sales, under either quantity or price Competition. This result contrasts with previous findings in the literature, and hinges on the fact that when managers are more aggressive, rival firms earn lower profits and thus are willing to sell out at a lower price. However, as a side effect of such a contract, the manager might undertake unprofitable takeovers.