Elisa Giaretta

Regulating High Frequency Trading: An Examination of European, US and Australian Equity Market Structures

Equity trading in the world is dramatically changing and at the same time raising doubts as to both its quality (liquidity, price efficiency and volatility) and its integrity; the change is mainly due to two factors: the first is fiercer competition, both among trading venues and between trading venues and intermediaries; the second is the increasingly significant role of technology in trading processes. Fiercer competition has primarily been the result of regulation. The second factor, technology, is significant in so far as the algorithms used by some traders have changed the operating procedures underlying the execution of orders. While advances in technology are a natural evolution of the market, they have a major impact on market structures. In particular, in the event of network outages or flash crashes, doubts arise in relation to the market integrity and the existence of a level playing field, since technology is expensive and not equally accessible to all traders.

Moving towards a Pan-European Deposit Guarantee Scheme: How Bank Riskiness Is Relevant in the Scheme

The recent global financial crisis has highlighted clearly the need for better regulation and supervision of the financial sector. As far as deposits are concerned, savers suddenly realized that different levels and forms of depositor protection co-existed in the EU and following the Northern Rock bank run in September 2007, it was clear that deposit-protection systems in the EU did not function as they should.

Analysis of the Main Trends in European and US Banks and Their Impact on Performance

This chapter focuses on banks in Europe and the USA, investigating how the new trends affecting banking business affect bank profitability. In order to analyse this phenomenon, we take into consideration a particular sample composed of the banks included in two relevant indexes for the period 2006–2016. We then extract the balance sheet data on these banks from the Bloomberg database. Using cluster analysis, we identify three clusters of banking groups based on the number of employees and the number of branches. Subsequently, we analyse how the two major drivers of the evolution of bank activities, that is, technological advances (digital banking) and the need to comply with increasingly stronger prudential regulation, have changed the ways banks operate and are able to be profitable.

New Financing Instruments to Bridge the Funding Gap: The Lesson from Italy

The funding gap occurs when deserving companies do not get the amount of loans that they would get in an efficient market, making obstacles to the birth and growth of companies. This research analyzes the ability of two funding instruments that have been identified as alternatives to bank debt, to bridge the funding gap that followed the sovereign debt crisis in Italy: mini-bonds and companies’ networks. Studying a sample of 216 companies funded in 2013–14, the analysis is carried out by a Student’s T test and a regression model. The results suggest that mini-bond’s issuers present a better financial structure when compared to networked companies, despite the extra cost of financing on companies’ revenues.

The Drivers of Dividend Policies in Europe

Dividend policy theories have been extensively studied by academics and practitioners, from the irrelevance theory of Miller and Modigliani (J Bus 34(4):411–433, 1961) to other complementary or conflicting theories. This paper aims to understand which dividend policies theories drive the distribution of dividends for listed companies traded on the main European markets. Through an OLS regression model, we study the determinants of dividend payments for companies included in nine European stock market indexes for the period 2001–14 (panel data). The results of the analyses suggest that there are still many drivers of companies’ dividend policies, confirming the Black’s “dividend puzzle” (J Portf Manag 2(2):5–8, 1976). Whilst the agency cost theory does not explain European dividend policy, we provide evidence that pecking order theory, signaling theory, and bird-in-the-hand theory complementarily explain dividends’ payments.

Financing Firms’ Networks: The Italian Case

The recent financial crisis has highlighted that enterprises, in particular small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), need to become more competitive, to expand internationally and to have access to new funding channels.

Does the Team Manager Earn More than His Coached Players? Analysis of the Earnings of Italian Asset Management Companies, and their Portfolio Companies, in the Field of Private Equity

In association football, a team manager is responsible for running a football club and coaching the players. The team manager’s responsibilities in a professional football club include selecting the players for matches, scouting for young, talented players, buying and selling players in the transfer market, planning strategies, delegating duties to the first team coach, facing the media in pre-match and post-match interviews and maintaining the profitability of the club.

Does Private Equity Investment Positively Impact on Firm Profitability and on the Growth of the Target Company

Private Equity (PE), with around 45.5 billion invested in target companies in Europe in 2011, is a core tool that allows the funding of businesses with high potential. The amount of the funds invested in the PE industry grew during that year, as investments slightly increased, that is by 6 per cent, over 2010 (EVCA Yearbook 2012).