Journal of Business Accounting and Finance Perspectives

This paper attempts to empirically investigate and interpret the NPLs of EU countries based on a combination of economic and socio-cultural characteristics, as depicted by Hofstede’s “6 Cultural Dimensions”. Estimates are made for the period 2000–2019 for eight EU countries, four of which are in Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal) and four are in Central Europe (Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium). Special emphasis is placed on Greece, due to the importance of NPLs in this country. The findings are in accordance with those of previous relevant research, and the combination of economic and cultural characteristics provided a more in-depth NPL analysis. Full article

In September 2018, Danske Bank, the largest bank in Denmark and one of the largest in the Nordic region, published a report which detailed that the bank’s board had fallen into lapses in Anti-Money Laundering/Counter Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) policies at the bank, in particular, within its Estonian subsidiary. The report was devastating in its criticism of AML processes in the Estonian branch, stating that, over a period of several years, “all lines of defence failed” to manage money laundering risks. Soon after the publication of this report, the CEO of Danske resigned, causing the details of the underlying scandal to become public knowledge (although some the issues involved had been aired publicly on a number of occasions previously). It was also revealed that the bank had become the subject of criminal investigations by US authorities. While the events that are covered in the initial report related to failures to manage AML risks, the situation is more complex than merely deficient AML controls in a remote branch. There was a failure to manage a smorgasbord of different types of risks at both the local and group (i.e., headquarters) level, including: strategic risks; technology risks; and especially operational risks. As befits a sophisticated modern financial institution, Danske Bank operates a group-wide enterprise risk management (ERM) framework covering multiple types of risk (credit, market operational, etc.). The fact that the failure to manage the AML risks took several years to come to light casts doubts on the efficacy of their ERM framework and its implementation. Using Turner’s case study approach, this paper considers the Danske Bank case from the perspective of operational risk management with a view to identifying lessons that can be learned from the scandal that can be applied to future, large-scale operational risk events. Full article

From a theoretical point of view, corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure actions have associated a large list of benefits as a result of the lower information asymmetry problems that provoke firms to enjoy better financial conditions and higher market value. However, empirically there is no unanimity in the academy about these positive impacts. In this paper, we consider that the possible discretionary decision that managers could have in the elaboration of CSR reporting implies distrust about the credibility and utility of sustainability information. In this regard, the presence of independence in boards and directors that ensure better control of management decision could moderate the relationship between the quality of CSR reports and their benefits. Independent directors, in their decision-making process, associate their personal image, reputation, and career with CSR disclosures. For an international sample of analysis, our empirical evidence supports the premise that the market only positively assesses the utility and comparability of corporate social responsibility information, giving firms a superior value when there is a complementary mechanism that guarantees information credibility. Full article

The spread and mortality rate of the COVID-19 virus has created enormous strains on global healthcare systems and driven governments to take extreme measures to contain the virus, including the lock down of most citizens and shutting down most economic sectors. Due to these unique challenges and coming from an economy that was weak already in 2018 and 2019, the world faces a global crisis of unprecedented impact and high uncertainty about the recovery process. In this paper, we analyze how the world economy is addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. We start with the situation of the main economic regions at the end of last year to understand the tools available to fight against what could be the worst crisis since World War II, according to the IMF¹. Moreover, we review the estimated economic impact of COVID-19, as well as the expected recovery and its time frame. Additionally, we reflect on the fiscal and monetary measures adopted by different countries, especially G7 economies, to tackle the crisis. Finally, we discuss the optimal policies to overcome the situation and advance towards economic recovery and the stabilization of public finances. This crisis is a supply shock added to a forced shutdown of the economy. As such, traditional tools to boost credit demand and usual demand-side policies alone are likely to generate little positive effect, as any aggregate demand that may be incentivized will not likely be followed by aggregate supply. A combination of demand-side and supply-side measures may prove to be more effective to boost the recovery after the pandemic. Full article

This review surveys the existing empirical literature on the real effects of short selling on firms, addressing them through three main perspectives: corporate governance, financial decisions, and performance. The results of the (too) few empirical studies under scrutiny converge to a common rationale: a positive impact as a disciplinary mechanism on corporate governance and corporate investment policy and a positive impact on operating and corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance, even if some results are still puzzling. It appears that further investigations are necessary and should test the consequences of short selling on firms from a broader and more systematic perspective, with different theoretical and methodological approaches. Full article

The academic literature indicates that “glamour” influences the investor’s behaviour. This article analyses the performance and value creation of the glamorous operations of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the telecommunications sector, trying to understand if these operations are conducive to stockholder wealth maximization. To conduct this analysis, the telecommunications M&A that occurred in the convulsed period of the internet bubble were counted as samples (1995–2010). The research concludes that glamour tends to be opposite to value creation in the long run: the glamour firms show significant value destruction and worse performance than non-glamour firms. Certain acquirers’ characteristics, such as size, are determinant in the glamour behaviour. This paper combats the shortage of research of a quantitative sectoral nature on telecommunications M&As, when leading international companies like Vodafone, Cable and Wireless, France Telecom or Telecom Italia are very active in this kind of operations. Full article

Mainstream economists concede that finance tests the deductive powers of the microfoundations model. Accordingly, we attempt to derive a structural model inductively through use of empirical studies and history. Culture is the means by which a task is set about. The term consists of the following elements. The unit of analysis is groups or classes as found in National Income accounts. The connection between them does not consist of substitution effects or conflict but complementarities and cooperation. Secondly, the economy is defined as the inseparable composite of the fiscal and the monetary authorities and the components of the private sector. Finally, finance eases the flow of production and consumption and investment. However, banks are beset with problems of asymmetric information and runs. Additionally, market finance is prone to bubbles and crashes. Elements of culture are required to hold fast during the interactions between the financial and the real world. Full article

When culture and institutions coevolve, which means that these are changing simultaneously and in the same direction, financial development is facilitated. In contrast, when institutions and the cultural background deviate from this development, their asynchronous and different direction changes may lead to a series of failed attempts to implement a modernized financial development framework. Thus, the purpose of the paper is to highlight whether the institutional and cultural backgrounds operate in a complementary or substitute way in terms of their role in financial development. An unbalanced panel dataset comprising 98 countries over the last four decades (1981–2019) is used. The empirical results indicate that both the institutional background and the cultural background positively affect financial development. Furthermore, there is a complementary relationship between the institutional background and the cultural background in terms of their role in financial development; when both sizes are at a strong level, this leads to the highest level of financial development, while when at least one or both are at a weak level, the financial development is lower. Moreover, the interaction term of the two sizes has a positive and statistically significant effect on financial development in all tests performed. Lastly, the institutional background seems to have a greater impact on the formation of the level of financial development in relation to the cultural background. To upgrade the financial development of their economies, policymakers have to realize economic policies that change the institutional background and simultaneously change the cultural background in the same direction. Full article

The aim of this paper is to evidence that non-economic factors, such as culture, emotions and ethics, can be seen as an important force in influencing human economic behavior and human action. This is conducted by putting the homo economicus notion into the perspective of the history of economic thought and, more specifically, of John Stuart Mill. More specifically, Mill’s institutional individualism, as is presented in his System of Logic (1843), and his relativity of economic doctrines construction, as is included in his Principles of Political Economy (1848), are synoptically delineated. Through Mill’s analysis, it is supported that cultural differences between different states of societies are determinant in understanding different behaviors. The paper concludes that Mill’s historical specificity and his more pluralistic version of cultural–institutional methodological individualism are more compatible in understanding human decision making. Full article

This article analyses the relationship between the documented momentum effect on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange and the cultural characteristics of Bulgarian society on the basis of the 6-Dimensions Culture Model by Hofstede. Derived are possible behavioural biases, that could cause investors to underreact to firm-specific information, resulting in short-term return predictability. Outlined are implications for the relation between the rising of momentum effect and low individualism index, as identified on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE). Full article

The present paper delineates an explanatory framework for the defining factors of incentives, both financial and nonfinancial, through the theory of human economic action and that of personality traits, which shape human goals and, ultimately, social identity. It is ascertained that three types of variables affect incentives: basic conditions (cultural change, etc.), basic values and needs (tradition, external values, etc.) and the dynamism of social identity, which includes the goals that are set. More specifically, the two basic variables that shape the incentives for human action and imbue dynamism in behavior relate to megalothymia—i.e., the need for acknowledgement of a person’s integrity along with the predisposition to be thought superior to others as well as the aspiration to a certain level of quality in life. Full article

The literature regarding cultural background change points out that changes in cultural background can only be slow moving. However, under high uncertainty levels, cultural background may change in the short or medium term as well. In this paper, the effects of uncertainty on cultural behaviors are investigated. Cultural background is captured through the Schwartz’s cultural values, based on the waves provided by the European Social Survey from 2002 up to 2018, performing relative Principal Component Analyses. An Uncertainty Index is constructed based on the volatility of the stock market for all Eurozone countries, from the euro’s adoption in January 2001 up to December 2018. Using an unbalanced panel dataset comprised of 18 Eurozone countries for the time period from 2002 up to 2018, a fixed-effects assessment method, different fixed terms between the examined economies, dummies per wave of the nine total data waves of the European Social Survey and country-specific clustered robust estimates of the standard errors, the main conclusions of the empirical analysis are the following: (a) Uncertainty significantly affects the cultural background of societies and leads to its change; (b) The effects of uncertainty on culture start two years after an uncertainty shock has occurred; (c) The effects of uncertainty on specific cultural values reveals significant effects on all Schwartz’s cultural values. However, the effect is the highest for the dipole “conservatism and autonomy” and the smallest for the dipole “mastery vs. harmony”. (d) When uncertainty is high, this leads to higher levels of hierarchy (authority, humbleness), self-direction (independent thought and action), stimulation (excitement, novelty and challenge in life), affective autonomy (pursuit of actively positive activities: pleasure, exciting life) and mastery (ambition and hard work, daring, independence, drive for success) which means their life’s harmony is disrupted, at least two years later. Thus, countries exhibiting systematically high levels of uncertainty are about to develop a cultural background that is going to hinder economic development, and vice versa. Full article

We focus on the analysis of current research in Business Models in the context of e-business, resulting in relevant research gaps and a set of propositions. A bibliographic review has been conducted from which a theoretical framework has been developed. Once the gaps in the literature have been pointed out, a series of research proposals are presented. These should be tested based on data collected from real cases through analysis and interpretation. The applied lens of the theory is Amit and Zotts Business Model framework (2001) and Business Model Themes (BMT) “NICE” (novelty, lock-in, complementarity and efficiency) (2001). Analysis evolves around the explanation and feasibility of Business Model Themes for value creation and value capture in digital business models (current general research gap in the e-business domain). The results show that future directions should investigate different combinations of BMTs which represent research gaps (propositions 1 to 3). Other contexts which were not considered so far in this regard (non-digital business), also represent a research gap (proposition 4). Moreover, further synthesis of the literature resulted in a potential consideration of “product market strategies” (^{Amit and Zott, 2008}) as a new theory to apply and test value creation and capturing in digital business (proposition 5 and 6), also from an evolutionary perspective. We ask how this combination affects the performance of firms who want to move on digital transformation with an omnichannel environment. It is essential in this study how these firms can create new value and how they can keep it. We try to explain how these value drivers could be work across time, even under varying environmental regimes. It would mean an advance in the existing academic framework around the reference literature on the business model. To be able to determine which combinations of BMT and Product Market Strategy (PMS) have not yet been tested would be advantageous for the firms. It could offer the appropriate information to the retail company with traditional BM towards digital BM. Moreover, it will be able to work successfully and to maintain constant along the time. Full article

This paper attempts to analyze the relationship between social network activity (message sentiment) and stock market (trading volume and risk premium). We used Artificial Neural Networks to analyze 87,511 stock-related microblogging messages related to S&P500 Index posted between October 2009 and October 2014. The results obtained suggest that there is a direct relationship between trading volume and negative sentiment, and between risk premium and negative sentiment. The paper concludes with several directions for future research. Full article

Listed companies have become increasingly aware not only of the importance of being socially responsible but also about reporting their initiatives in this field. Existing research has investigated many of the impacts of the sustainable profile of companies on a wide range of financial dimensions. The link between the cost of equity and sustainability is extremely timely as it can have great potential in reinforcing good practices regarding sustainable engagement amongst listed companies, which can also be regarded as trendsetters by other types of companies and institutions. This paper presents a thorough literature review of 22 articles focused on the link between sustainability and the cost of capital. The main contribution of this study is the broad scope of the literature review not only regarding the number of papers revised but also the provided details and their systematisation, such that future researchers in the field can easily identify the references regarding, for instance, different theoretical approaches. The methodologies that have been used to test the hypotheses as well as how the cost of equity is proxied by the different authors is presented together with the independent variables for measuring the sustainable profile of companies as well as the control variables. Our literature review also pays special attention to the different regional settings where research has examined the link between the cost of equity and sustainability and presents new ideas for studies in the field in order to open up future avenues for research. Full article

This study proposes a competitive model using the Box–Jenkins approach to implement a Box–Jenkins ARIMA-GARCH model in order to improve financial forecasting. Differing from previous studies, we consider optimizing the lagged terms, which assist in capturing the relationships more properly. The competitive model is then used to forecast the stock market index in Taiwan. This study conducts out-of-sample forecasting and compares the root mean square errors (RMSEs) against previous studies. The results show that the competitive model outperformed in terms of both RMSEs and consistency. Full article

For decades, European Union (EU) wide corporate tax harmonization has been sought to eradicate business relocation for tax reasons. It is hoped that this harmonization will ensure that companies pay taxes in the countries where they operate. One mechanism that countries use to achieve this harmonization is tax incentives. Yet each country establishes its own incentive structure, according to its statutory tax rate. This study analyzes the effective tax burden in the initial 15 EU member states between 2006 and 2014 to identify significant differences that prevent tax harmonization across these countries. The statutory and effective tax rates are used to evaluate the tax burden. The net tax incentives and disincentives are also considered. The analysis shows that between 2006 and 2014, these 15 member states used tax incentives to close the gaps among these countries’ tax burdens. Countries with above-average effective tax rates offered greater tax incentives than countries with below-average effective tax rates. However, though these tax policies reduced the gap in the tax burden, harmonization of the effective tax rate was not achieved during the study period. Full article

Cheap money can become very expensive in the long run. Unconventional monetary policies have been the main tools of central banks to tackle the economic crisis. In this paper we aim to understand whether these policies have created distortions in the fi nancial markets and if we can be concerned about the creation of “bubbles”, considering whether quantitative easing has impacted fi nancial asset classes’ valuations beyond reasonable fundamentals. I conclude that there is empirical evidence of inordinate expansion of multiples and that central bank policy makers should include “fi nancial market infl ation” as well as consumer price indices (CPI) in their assessment of infl ation expectations. I believe that this should be an essential analysis to avoid unintended consequences in the future, and a possible next fi nancial crisis that central banks will be unable to face with the same tools of the past. Full article

The banking sector has begun a process of digital transformation that is changing the way financial products and services are sold. This transformation is a consequence of the growing demand for digital channels by some sectors of the population, the progress of new technologies and the banks’ need to improve efficiency after the economic crisis. The emergence of innovative financial technology (fintech) startups in the banking sector has been the lever initiating this digital transformation. Technology companies are challenging established banking business models and promoting the democratisation of finance in a more efficient and transparent financial ecosystem. Increasing investment in these technology companies has also attracted the interest of various regulators, and the future suggests a scenario of collaboration between these new players and traditional companies, with a consequently difficult task for the regulators of guaranteeing the same conditions of competition for new entrants and incumbents. However, technology companies with vast experience in the gathering and use of data from millions of users (such as Amazon, Google or Facebook) are considered a threat. Moreover, some types of evolving fintechs, such as neobanks with bank licences, may also become competitors. Distributed ledger technology (DLT) or blockchain, a fintech technology that is evolving constantly, has already awoken the interest of all financial sector participants because it could trigger real disruption and produce a new era of value. Full article

This paper examines the role of economic uncertainty in the Eurozone countries by analyzing the credit supply and the evolution of non-performing loans following the 2008 global financial crisis. The discussion centers on how greater economic uncertainty restricts credit supply and increases the number of non-performing loans. Quarterly data for the Eurozone countries are studied for the period 2005 to 2016. To test the aforementioned hypothesis, an index of economic uncertainty for the Eurozone countries is calculated. Panel data analysis is performed using fixed effects estimation. This approach allows for individual heterogeneity, with different intercepts across countries and quarterly time dummies to control for time-specific effects that are common to all countries in the sample. The primary conclusions of the analysis are as follows: (1) When economic uncertainty increases, total gross loans decrease, and the number of non-performing loans increases. (2) When uncertainty increases, loans to deposit-takers, other domestic sectors, and general government decrease, while loans to financial corporations increase as a means of supporting the financial sector. (3) The most vulnerable Eurozone economies play a prominent role in these overall effects. In these economies, the effects of the recent global financial crisis are most pronounced, with uncertainty increasing significantly over the study period. Full article

This conceptual article concentrates on the insolvency and recovery reforms and business survival. The aim of the research is an evaluation of the impact of insolvency law reforms on the increase of businesses’ survival. The study focuses on a comparative analysis of insolvency reforms on EU level, including the advantages and disadvantages, with a special emphasis on the Polish case, which includes some similarities and differences to other EU countries’ insolvency procedures. The article presents the concept of the most effective insolvency framework and its efficiency (as well as legal and financial framework) that gives the best results for companies to survive, to start recovery procedures and restructuring, not to go bankrupt, and not to become liquidated and eliminated from a competitive market. Taking a critical thinking approach, the article indicates the weaknesses of the existing insolvency procedures that should be improved and offers some recommendations for the future. The study covers, from a scientific point of view, the important issues that, in the face of complexity, a global, turbulent environment, and the global financial crisis, deserve an investigation. The findings and the implications are crucial not only for scientists, but also for insolvency practitioners, business and financial institutions’ representatives, and policymakers. Full article

Investment diversification is a prerequisite for dynamic growth performance. It is intuitively accepted that cultural background affects investment behavior and investment decision making, but does cultural change affect investment diversification? This paper assesses whether cultural background shapes growth performance through investment diversification. Empirical analysis was conducted using decade-level data for a sample of 33 OECD countries over the 30-year period from 1981 to 2010. Using fixed effects estimation, different intercepts across countries, and decade time dummies, the analysis shows that societies that are closer to the optimal cultural background achieve better investment diversification behavior. The article thus contributes to the long-standing debate on the cultural roots of growth. Full article

Young firms and established firms have a tendency to emphasize one type of organizational learning to their detriment. This reduces organizational ambidexterity and makes them susceptible to failure. This study explores how two high-tech manufacturing firms use cost information from an accounting system to balance exploitation and exploration learning for ambidexterity. A successful growth firm and a revival firm are examined since both of these business life-cycle stages focus on a strategy of aggressive building. The evidence shows that the use of cost information to balance learning and achieve ambidexterity is different between a growth firm and revival firm. The use of cost information for exploitation and exploration is undertaken by taking each firm’s learning pre-disposition, pivoting organizational culture, and utilizing a functional structure to realize contextual and structural ambidexterity. This study provides preliminary models for future research on accounting and the organizational elements for achieving organizational ambidexterity. Full article

Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) has grown exponentially in recent years. The rising importance of social, environmental, and governance (ESG) aspects in decision making as well as in asset allocation is undeniable. However, important challenges must be addressed. The dramatic increase in ESG investments has coincided with a period of extremely low rates and massive liquidity injections. Also, the definition of socially responsible investment is too broad and can generate misunderstandings (an approximation to the correct definitions can be found in ^{Sandberg et al., 2009}). Additionally, I find that a significant part of funds that follow ESG principles can fall into the trap of investing in heavily subsidized and high-debt sectors. Investors should monitor the risk of concentration, the soundness of profit estimates, and strength of balance sheets to avoid rent-seeking and depending heavily on subsidies and grants. Furthermore, I find that performance of ESG and SRI funds has been monitored only in a period of low rates, high liquidity, rising asset valuations, and bullish markets. More tools have to be used to monitor risk as markets enter a consolidation phase. I find that it is essential to focus on real economic returns in a mid-cycle environment as well as monitoring excess leverage to avoid the risk of a very important reduction in ESG investments in a market correction phase for markets with rising interest rates. I conclude that strong fundamental analysis, diversification, and avoiding herd mentality are essential to prevent large outflows and a negative impact on ESG growth once the cycle changes. Full article

While the average annual small-cap premia for the US and Canada are substantial over long horizons, there is considerable time variation of this premium within and across these countries. For the US, during expansions, the average annualized premium is a sizable 5.44%, while during recessions, there is a small-cap discount of 6.23%. The differentials are less pronounced in Canada. This paper investigates the hypothesis that the variation of the small-cap premium is related to macroeconomic and financial variables that can be captured by a nonlinear time series econometric model, i.e., the smooth transition autoregressive model (STAR model), with different factor sets across regimes between and countries. The regimes reflect expansionary vs. contractionary phases of the business cycle. For the Canadian small-cap premium, an augmented factor model that includes US factors dominates a purely domestic factor model, which is consistent with integrated markets. Full article

This paper considers whether adding two established anomalies, momentum and low volatility, will improve our understanding of asset pricing beyond the FF5 model. We do this by considering whether these factors provide economic, as opposed to statistical, significance within the asset pricing model. We measure economic significance in two ways: First, we consider whether the factor coefficient signs and values on the factors are economically meaningful, for example, do the coefficients distinguish between high- and low-risk portfolios? Second, we consider an out-of-sample trading rule based on expected returns derived from each asset pricing model. Our results suggest that the momentum and volatility factors provide no additional information over the FF5 model. Moreover, it is not clear that the FF5 model itself provides a noticeable improvement over the FF3 model. Of note, the momentum and low-volatility factors exhibit limited statistical significance and have similar coefficients across high and low values of different anomalies and big- and small-firm portfolios. The trading performance of a seven-factor model, while reasonable itself, is worse than both the FF3 and FF5 models. Furthermore, based on the trading results, the FF5 model provides no noticeable contribution over the FF3 model, the latter of which could be regarded as preferred. Full article

Specialized literature has centered on analyzing the relationship between the entrepreneur and innovation, since the former is considered to be a driver for innovation. However, there are other factors that can influence innovation that should be considered: business cash flow, because it uses its own resources to innovate; bank credit, the possibility of accessing external financing; and taxes, which account for a reduction in businesses’ cash flow when they increase. The objective of this article is to analyze the existing relationship between these factors and innovation and the latter with growth. To achieve this, an empirical study has been carried out using a Partial Least Square (PLS) estimation with eleven European countries. Full article

Motivated by the disconnect between survey evidence documenting that executives prioritize implicit contracting (i.e., labor market-based career concerns) when making earnings management decisions (^{Graham et al., 2005}) and the extant literature’s focus on explicit contracting to explain earnings manipulation, we analytically examine the role of managerial career concerns in earnings management. Building on ^Holmstrom (¹⁹⁸², ¹⁹⁹⁹), we present a career concerns-based earnings management model that incorporates the unique reversing nature of earnings management. A key insight derived from the model is that whether the predictions of a traditional career concerns model prevail, which is to say that managers engage in more income-increasing behavior in their early years, critically depends upon the reversal characteristics of the earnings management vehicle chosen. Full article

Digital liabilities are the unknown future costs that occur after an event related to digital assets threatens organizational value. These events emerge from: (1) an IT data breach or cybersecurity failure; (2) IT infrastructure limitations that limit future opportunities; and (3) changes in business models that are limited due to IT infrastructure. Potential digital liabilities are not fully understood and can be difficult to quantify. Derived from prior research, this research note proposes four methods, modified from existing research literature, for estimating the cost of digital liabilities prior to a digital asset compromise. We conclude the research note by discussing opportunities for future research in this area. Full article

This study seeks to understand “how” economic shocks drive industry merger activity. We test whether economic shocks from deregulation and technological change drive industry merger activity by increasing industry competition, controlling for the effect of valuations. We find that these shocks drive merger activity through three channels related to industry competition; deregulation drives merger activity by increasing entry and cash flow volatility; technological change drives merger activity by increasing entry and inter-firm dispersion in the quality of production technology. These findings underscore the role of the competitive mechanism in how managers reallocate assets via mergers and support the view that the industry-level clustering of merger activity is an efficiency-driven restructuring response to increased competition. Full article

Recently, financial innovations have given rise to complex derivatives within the asset management industry. Although traditional assets pay dividends or coupons, vIX futures contracts have been partly misunderstood by unsophisticated investors, as they only provide portfolio insurance against stock market crashes. Therefore, over the calmer period 2009-2014, the most traded vIX futures exchange-traded product lost practically all of its value, ruining unexperienced investors. hence, this paper investigates appropriateness of these complex derivatives with investor's risk aversion. We address portfolio-choice optimality under uncertainty, for overlay allocations composed of equities, bonds, and vIX futures. This paper proposes a non-trivial solution based on the expected utility theory to simulate investor's behavior with risk aversion. Furthermore, it derives an investor's surprise metric defined as a welfare criterion measure, and a modelimplied risk premium defined as the insurance premium investor pays ex post to hedge. Empirical results show investing in vIX futures significantly beats traditionally diversified portfolios, but they turn to be particularly inappropriate for risk-loving investors. From the asset management perspective, this paper has practical implications since it recommends pedagogical efforts to raise investors' awareness of overlay strategies. Full article

his study examines (i) the dynamic shocks and volatility interactions between each of the eleven U.S. economic sectors and the oil market; (ii) riskminimizing optimal capital allocations between each sector and oil; and (iii) the hedging effectiveness resulting from the inclusion of oil in each sector portfolio. Using weekly data spanning the period June 1994 through February 2016, we document the following regularities: (i) the conditional correlation between each sector and the oil market is time-varying and slowly decaying; (ii) there is either volatility or shock transmission from oil to each sector but not the reverse; and (iii) investors can minimize and hedge risk by allocating a portion of their wealth to oil commodities and forming a portfolio consisting of sector stocks and oil commodities. however, they will need to overweight their investment in sector stocks. Our findings indicate that oil commodities offer diversification potential to U.S. investors holding sector portfolios such as sector ETFs and mutual funds. Further, the risk parity portfolio weights significantly differ from the capital allocation weights. Full article

Over the last two decades academic literature has addressed much attention to the relationship between corporate ethical practices and financial performance. Results however remain contradictory, especially in terms of direction and effectiveness of their connection. Broadly speaking, most theorizing on the link between social and economic indicators assumes that the evidence is insufficient or too contrasting to draw any generalizable conclusions. In this perspective, this study aims to better explain the connection between corporate ethical practices and corporate financial performance, verifying that it is impacted by a large number of key variables. The empirical research is based on a longitudinal study on Italian listed companies operating in the banking sector. The adoption of the code of ethics is considered to measure their ethical practices, while regarding financial performance several accounting indicators are taken into consideration, including some control variables. To process the dataset a panel regression with fixed effect is applied. The paper aims at strengthening recent studies that consider bidirectional causality in the theory that “corporate social responsibility is both a predictor and consequence of firm financial performance”. Thus, the interest of the study lies in the identification of a reverse causality between positive financial performance and ethical orientation of Italian banking services companies. Full article