Carlo Bellavite Pellegrini

Microfinance institutions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America: an empirical analysis of operational efficiency, institutional context and costs

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the operational efficiency of microfinance institutions. Using a cross section of 750 microfinance institutions operating in Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, the analysis shows that operating costs and efficiency are negatively related. More specifically, operating costs are lower when institutions are more focused on traditional financial aspects of commercial banking, thereby improving their efficiency, and enhancing the development of the sector and the quality of offered services. Successively, the study takes into consideration how these above described relationships are declined in different geographical areas. Additional explanations to the observed outcome highlight the importance of different legal and institutional frameworks and of features of macro-governance.

The Effect of the Adoption of an Alternative Corporate Governance System on Firms' Performances. The Case of Italian Unlisted SMEs

Purpose – Alternative corporate governance systems (CGSs) have attracted a significant bulk of research recently. While the connection between the adoption of an alternative system (one tier board or two tier board system) and firms’ performances has not been fully analysed yet, the purpose of this paper is to analyse whether companies which have turned into an alternative board system have eventually improved their performance over time. Design/methodology/approach – Using a sample of more than 15,000 Italian unlisted joint stock companies, the authors compare performance outcomes in 2009 of firms adopting alternative systems with performances of firms that maintained the system in force before the 2003 Corporate Law Reform (defined as “traditional”). Because of the choice of an alternative system (one tier or two tier board) instead of a traditional one is not random, the authors reduce selection bias implementing matching methods and comparing firms that are close in terms of propensity score measured ...

Interconnectedness and Systemic Risk of European Banks Over the Recent Crises

The recent financial turmoil has stimulated a rich debate in the banking and financial literature on the identification of the determinants of systemic risk, as well as of devices to forecast and prevent crises. In this paper, we explore the contribution of corporate variables on the systemic risk in a CoVar approach, as recently proposed by Adrian and Brunnermeier (2010, 2011, 2014). Using a unique sample of 141 European banks belonging to 24 European countries, continuously listed from 2006Q1 to 2012Q4, we investigate the impact of corporate variables over several regimes that characterised the European context in recent years, namely the subprime crisis (2007Q3-2008Q3), the European Great Financial Depression (2008Q4-2010Q2) and the sovereign debt crisis (2010Q3-2012Q4). There is evidence that size has not played a significant role in spreading systemic risk, the contrary holds true for maturity mismatch. However, the nature and the intensity of these two determinants vary across the three crises.

AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF “CORPORATE ITALY”: LEGAL ENTITIES, FINANCIAL AND OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE 2004-2012

This study provides an overall evidence related to the Italian corporate system, ranging from consistency and dynamics of the different forms of legal entities managing business and economic activities since the introduction of the Vietti’s Reform in 2004, to their corporate governance and ownership structures. This research has a twofold target. For one extent it embraces and completes on a wider historical period previous analyses related to the innovative bodies of law introduced by the above mentioned Vietti’s Reform, giving full evidence about stocks and dynamics of the different features of Italian corporations. These innovative datasets may be useful both for scholars and practitioners in order to have a clear comprehension of the different corporate phenomena and of their relevance. For another extent this paper proposes further completely new data about other patterns of “Corporate Italy�? which have never been enquired in a systematic way before. More specifically the paper provides a wide analysis of the ownership structures of unlisted joint stock Italian companies and of the limited liability companies. Moreover it is possible to describe the number of all the mergers and acquisitions deals or corporations’ transformation or liquidation of any sort of legal entities in the year 2012.

Do Productivity and Governance Matter? Their Impact in Stock Returns in European Industrial Companies

We take into consideration an innovative database of observations, focusing its attention on European data of different countries since the beginning of the Euro area. Our study introduces new control variables to the state variables used by Fama and French. This research considers the impact of specific control variables: the Productivity Index and the Corporate Governance Index on the total annual investment return of 1,058 the listed European industrial companies from January 1st 1996 to December 31st 2006. Both indices have a positive and statistically significant impact on stock returns. Dividing our sample into five different portfolios, both according to market capitalization and equal number of companies, we have clear evidence that lower market capitalization companies receive more benefits from a better level of productivity and governance. While higher capitalization companies have got stronger tools, like market power or political relevance in order to influence their performances and, consequently, their stock returns.

Microfinance Institutions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America: Empirical Analysis of Operational Efficiency and Costs

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the significance of operational efficiency on MFIs operating costs using both a cross-section and a balanced panel data approach. Using a sample of 750 microfinance institutions operating in Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, the analysis shows that operating costs and efficiency are negatively related and, more importantly, operating costs are lower when these institutions focus more on traditional financial aspects of commercial banking, thereby improving their efficiency, and enhancing the development of the sector and the quality of offered services. The paper shows that the connections between microfinance and commercial banking activity are closer than usually thought.

Does Corruption Matter? The Impact of Corruption in Share Returns of Listed Industrial Companies in Euro Area

Corporate finance literature has devoted much effort in analysing stock returns and in developing models in order to precisely forecast their yields on the market, because of the different useful purposes of these forecasts that animate economic life of countries and corporations. Following a new approach (Bellavite Pellegrini, 2008) in order to measure the relevance of impact of control variables on returns of European stocks since the introduction of Euro and sharing the sample in different portfolios according to different capitalization, this research develops the issues underlined contributing to the identification of a further control variable affecting stock performances: corruption. The goal of this study is an enquiry about the connections between European industrial stock returns and a macroeconomic index of corruption in order to assess the impact of corruption in the performances of listed European industrial companies. This paper is organized as follows: the first paragraph is a brief introduction with an outline of surveys in the Law and Economics literature, paragraph two focuses its attention on data and methodology and paragraph three implements an empirical analysis in order to verify the importance of the above mentioned control variable of corruption in industrial listed companies of European countries. Concluding remarks and some suggestions in order to develop this issue will follow in the last paragraph.