Equity Markets Do Not Fit All: an Analysis of Public‐to‐Private Deals in Continental Europe

Concentration of family‐based ownership and recent development of private equity companies in Continental Europe suggest that the motivations and results of public‐to‐private (PTP) deals may differ from well‐studied cases in the USA and the UK. We overview the PTP market and measure the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) of 106 PTP deals concluded in Continental Europe from 2000 to 2005, introducing a model to explain the abnormal returns. Our results partially confirm findings of previous studies, namely, that undervalued and smaller firms register higher CARs. We additionally find that deals promoted by family owners register higher abnormal returns, whereas financial investors and private operating firms show no impact.     

An Exploration of the Conceptual and Empirical Basis of the Environmental Kuznets Curve

We examine the conceptual and empirical basis of the environmental Kuznets curve. From both perspectives, the relationship lacks firm foundations. In particular, the empirical relationship is shown to be highly sensitive to the choice of pollutant, sample of countries and time period. This strongly suggests that there is an omitted variables problem. We find that two important omitted variables are education and inequality. Also, we show that the observed relationship is sensitive to the measure of income/welfare used. The paper concludes with a discussion of some policy implications of our findings. ( JEL O13, Q21, Q28, Q32)     

Privatization and stock market liquidity

This paper shows that share issue privatization (SIP) is a major source of domestic stock market liquidity in 19 developed economies. Particularly, privatization IPOs have a negative effect on the price impact – measured by the ratio of the absolute return on the market index to turnover. This result is robust to the inclusion of controls for other observable and unobservable factors, having also considered the endogenous nature of the decision to privatize.     

On Measuring Inequity in Taxation Among Groups of Income Units

In this paper a method for analyzing the fairness of an income tax system when portioning the population into heterogeneous socio‐economic groups is proposed. The equitable tax system is defined by the three axioms given by Kakwani and Lambert in 1998 and, as they suggest, inequity is evaluated by the negative influences on the redistributive effect of the tax associated with axiom violations. Measuring the extent of axiom violations among households belonging to different groups, we improve the Kakwani and Lambert analysis, which is able to detect only the existence of overall inequities. We propose a method that allows for evaluation of the contribution of each group to the overall inequity. Moreover, the adopted method enables disentangling the directions of violations. The obtained results allow us to judge how axiom violations discriminate among groups in their reciprocal relationships. An application to the 2010 Italian income tax reveals that inequities disproportionately penalize the household typologies. More precisely, unfairness affects households with children more severely than the other household groups.     

Small caps in international equity portfolios: the effects of variance risk

We show that predictable covariances between means and variances of stock returns may have a first order effect on portfolio composition. In an international asset menu that includes both European and North American small capitalization equity indices, we find that a three-state, heteroskedastic regime switching VAR model is required to provide a good fit to weekly return data and to accurately predict the dynamics in the joint density of returns. As a result of the non-linear dynamic features revealed by the data, small cap portfolios become riskier in bear markets, i.e., display negative co-skewness with other stock indices. Because of this property, a power utility investor ought to hold a well-diversified portfolio, despite the high risk premium and Sharpe ratios offered by small capitalization stocks. On the contrary, small caps command large optimal weights when the investor ignores variance risk, by incorrectly assuming joint normality of returns.      

The role of controls in the international financial crisis

The impact of the great financial crisis that started in the United States with the implosion of “subprime” loans has drawn the public’s attention on one of the most innovative branches of financial market, the famous derivatives. The financial crisis and the involvement of major banking institutions thus call for some thinking about the concept of control in Italy and in a globalized world. In Italy, even though the scale of the risks connected with transactions in derivatives is limited, some banks may have damaged their reputations by pushing complex derivative products onto unwitting clients. Apart from reassurance and all kinds of justifications, and without arguing whether this was deliberate or not, the monetary authorities, Consob, and ABI have clearly reported the risk of a world financial crisis too late.

Risk assessment and profit sharing in business networks

Nowadays network is the preferred governance form to conduct economic transactions. Network solution allows to reach flexibility maintaining cost and quality level. Since network concept refers to a great variety of organizational hybrids it is possible to choose the one that fits better market requirements. The new trends in inter-organization relationships push towards network solutions: companies are interested in relationships with partners and customers to overcome resource dependence, to enter too risky market or simply differentiate their business portfolio. The proposed research focuses on the network concept aiming at highlighting threats and opportunities to investigate the double nature of the risk concept. Network structures offer flexibility and higher profit as a consequence and business risk sharing opportunity.These two aspects (profit and risk) are strictly related and have to be considered together to depict a complete scenario; this implies that risk assessment and management in network environment cannot neglect profit sharing or, in other words, that profit sharing mechanisms should use risk as driver. In this context our research proposes a methodology to measure risk taking into account network peculiarities; risk estimation is a basic step to evaluate the opportunity cost of capital needed to compute the network Net Present Value (NPV) that is assumed as base in the profit sharing process. The profit sharing process has been tackled using the Shapley value approach that is inspired to the fairness principle while the opportunity cost of capital is assessed using the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM).     

Banking business models and risk: Findings from the ECB's comprehensive assessment

We use the results of the ECB's comprehensive assessment to evaluate the importance of the bank business model on risk assessment and the persuasive effectiveness of different supervisory styles on banks’ recapitalization. Our analysis reveals inconsistencies in the information content provided by the various regulatory measures used for assessing bank stability. Moreover, opposite to CET1 ratio, the leverage ratio provides assessments on business models more consistent with a market-based measure of bank risk exposure and Z-SCORE. Accounting for several control variables both at the bank and country level, we also find evidence that the effectiveness of the supervisory action depends on the specific type of supervisory model. In particular, countries adopting the hybrid model seem more effective in persuading banks to recapitalize preventively. Differently, countries adopting the integrated and the sectorial model seem less effective in their requests.     

Technical Change in the Peruvian Regulated Microfinance Sector

This study evaluates and quantifies the technical change in the Peruvian regulated microfinance sector during the period 2003–2015 estimating a translog cost function. We found technical deterioration between 2005 and 2015 due to the differentiated effects that the technical innovations, implemented by the MFIs, had on their production costs. In the analysis by groups of MFIs, all groups converged at a technical deterioration rate between 8.6 and 9.13% in the last year. Problems in the implementation, execution, and/or management of the new technologies as well as the difficulty in achieving reductions in the variable costs may explain these results.     

On the relationship between absolute prudence and absolute risk aversion

Abstract For a utility function , the functions and are the Arrow-Pratt coefficient of absolute risk aversion (ara) and the coefficient of absolute prudence (ap). They measure respectively an agent’s sensitivity to risk and the strength of the precautionary saving motive under income uncertainty.