Barbara Petracci

• University of Bologna

Frequent natural disasters caused by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic have increased global awareness of sustainability issues with a consequent focus on sustainable finance. This study disaggregates the exposures of mutual funds to environmental, social, and governance risks using data from 18,648 investment funds. We find that investment...

We undertake a systematic literature review and a bibliometric analysis of sustainable finance instruments. We reviewed 303 articles from 119 journals published from 2007 to 2022 listed in the Web of Science database. Our review provides a state-of-art overview of the current evolution of the sustainable finance literature over time and across acad...

This study investigates investors’ reaction to good/bad earnings news when faced with market- and industry-wide uncertainties. Our results provide little support for the discount rate explanation that investors’ reaction to good news is dampened during high market volatility. However, the results strongly support the learning hypothesis that earnin...

In this paper, we investigate characteristic differences between Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds and conventional funds across 35 different categories, including previously unexplored areas, such as fund manager skills and investment strategies. Further, we examine SRI and conventional funds globally rather than from just one country (e...

Based on a large panel of listed firms from 52 countries in the period 2002–2020, we investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and equity risk. We confirm previous evidence that higher CSR scores are related to lower risk measures, considering all types of risks: total, systematic, and idiosyncratic. Analyzing a lar...

The growing attention to sustainability has generated increasing interest in its relevant determinants and a possible relationship with economic growth’s main drivers. Our paper contributes to this literature in three ways, by proposing the following empirical analysis of most innovative companies listed worldwide (909 firms over the 2013–2017 time...

How does investors' aversion to environmental risk affect their reaction towards firms' earnings announcements? We explore this by analyzing earnings announcements made by U.S. firms between 2002 and 2016. The results show that environmental performance at the firm level is important for investors as this influences the investment behaviors of inve...

This study examines how the market reacts to earnings surprises with different characteristics such as future earnings prospects and historical surprises embedded in the earnings announced. We also explore the effect of corporate governance on market reaction to earnings information disseminated through earnings announcements. The sample comprises...

In this paper, we focus on the precautionary motive for holding cash in private firms. We check novel implications of such motive that arise under conditions that are typical of private firms. Because of the incomplete separation of the finances of these firms from the finances of the owner, we also complement the traditional precautionary motive w...

Research Question/Issue Our study examines whether international corporate governance systems shape the relationship between a firm's engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and their cost of financing (both equity and debt). Research Findings/Insights Using a large international sample, our findings reveal that although the link betwe...

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 estimation and propensity score matching are also used to...

This study examines the influence of the institutional framework of European countries: more specifically coordinated market economies and liberal market economies on the earnings management and corporate social performance nexus. Employing econometric models impervious to endogeneity, our results show that socially responsible firms (particularly...

The Islamic Financial Services (IFS) sector has experienced wider consumer acceptance and rapid growth since its commercial launch in the 1970s. This growth has primarily been in countries in Asia such as Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan and the Middle East region. Although non-Muslim majority countries like Hong Kong and Singapore have taken positive stri...

We examine the effect board gender diversity has on earnings management in European countries. The findings reveal that a gender diverse board mitigates earnings management in countries where gender equality is high. This provides an explanation to the inconclusive findings in the literature.

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to focus on different compensation structures for real estate mutual fund Management Companies and assess whether management fees paid on either Net Asset Value (NAV) or Gross Asset Value (GAV) generate distorted incentives relative to those generated by performance fees paid on the market value of the fund. Desi...

The growth of the Islamic Financial Services (IFS) sector has received much attention recently due to the resilience demonstrated by the sector during the financial crisis. While IFS continue to grow rapidly in much of Asia, there has been limited institutional support for the development of the sector in Europe, which has historically been slow to...

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 variables. Our findings – obtained using a plethora of...

In private firms, there is an incomplete separation of the finances of influential stakeholders, especially the controlling shareholders, from the finances of the firm. We therefore complement the traditional precautionary motive with an additional, novel precautionary motive that takes into account stakeholders’ risk attitudes. Under this motive,...

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 returns from their trades. We find that company self-...

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 conservative assessments of NAV values; thus, they are not respo...

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 non-marketable nature of business opportunities, given...

Listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) share several characteristics with bonds. Modified duration and convexity – interest rate risk measures generally applied in bond analyses – could therefore be natural candidates to measure the REIT price sensitivity to interest rate changes. In this paper, we propose a theoretical model that relates the...

We propose a simple model that shows how the fee structure of listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) can increase instead of decrease the incentive for Management Company opportunistic behavior. Distinguishing between fees paid on the fund market value and fees paid on either the Net Asset Value (NAV) or the Gross Asset Value (GAV), we show t...

In recent years, a large number of companies on the Italian stock market have been delisted. Several of these companies implemented a “Hit and Run” strategy, choosing to go private only a few years after their IPO. In this study, we focus specifically on all Italian companies listed for less than 10 years between 1998 and 2010 and we calculate 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 clustering projects by country, industry, and Initial Publ...

In recent years, a large number of companies on the Italian stock market have been delisted. Several of these companies implemented a “Hit and Run” strategy, choosing to go private on-ly a few years after their IPO. In this study, we focus specifically on all Italian companies listed for less than 10 years between 1998 and 2010 and we calculate the...

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 companies with a high percentage of independent direc...

This paper is part of the general debate concerning corporate governance. It focuses on a mechanism of self-regulation geared at avoiding market abuses: the use of blackout periods during which insiders are temporarily prohibited from trading on the market. Data concerning corporate characteristics, blackout periods, and internal dealing, seem to i...

This paper investigates the determinants of regulatory compliance in corporate organizations. Exploiting a unique enforcement and reporting framework for insider trading in Italy, we present three main findings. First, board governance, such as chief executive–chairman duality and the proportion of non-executive directors, does not increase the pro...

This paper investigates the determinants of regulatory compliance and its effect on informational efficiency. Exploiting a unique enforcement and reporting framework for corporate insider trading in Italy, we present three main findings. First, board governance, such as chief executive-chairman duality and the proportion of non-executive directors,...

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the main motivations for Italian insiders to trade relevant stakes of their companies, specifically assuming that most transactions are driven by speculative intents. According to an information asymmetry hypothesis, insiders, having a superior information set, may better detect the temporary under or overvalu...

This paper applies a recent approach, developed in the entrepreneurial finance literature, to estimate opportunity cost of capital for Italy. Specifically, the cost of capital is analyzed both for under-diversified entrepreneurs and for well diversified investors. Classifying entrepreneurial projects by industries, three main results are obtained:...