TY  - JOUR
T1  - Executive Compensation and Agency Issues in Italy
JF  - International Journal of Corporate Governance
Y1  - 2014
A1  - Elston,Julie
A1  - Rondi,Laura
A1  - Bhattacharyya,Nalanaksha
KW  - Finance
KW  - OSU-Cascades
AB  - From a theoretical perspective, we posit that that dividend policies may be relevant in resolving agency issues even in a governance environment dominated by family controlled firms. Earlier research has found that in more market based systems such as the US and Canada, dividends are in fact instrumental in solving agency issues. Prior empirical research has also found that dividends have a role in mitigating agency conflicts in a bank-dominated corporate environments like that in Germany (Elston and Goldberg, 2003). This paper extends the findings of earlier research by empirically investigating whether dividends retain their importance as the mechanism for resolving residual agency issues in a family controlled governance environment like Italy
VL  - 5
CP  - 3/4
U2  - a
U4  - 19827521537
ID  - 19827521537
ER  - 

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Corporate Governance and Capital Accumulation: Firm Level Evidence from Italy
JF  - Scottish Journal of Political Economy
Y1  - 2009
A1  - Elston,Julie
A1  - Rondi,Laura
KW  - Finance
KW  - OSU-Cascades
AB  - This study investigates the impact of investor protection on firm ownership and investment decisions in a model where investor protection is allowed to vary across firms. Using firm panel data for Italy, we construct firm level variables to capture the degree of investor protection which is specific to the firm and observable by outside shareholders. Empirical evidence indicates that the stronger the investor protections the lower the fraction of equity that is owned by insiders. Results also suggest that higher insider equity ownership is linked to a larger risk premium and higher costs of capital for the firm. Finally, our findings indicate that the magnitude of capital stock distortions is important when shareholder protection is weak and ownership concentration is high.
VL  - 56
CP  - 6
U2  - a
U4  - 8489428993
ID  - 8489428993
ER  - 

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Shareholder Protection and the Cost of Capital: Evidence from German and Italian Firms
JF  - Statistica Applicata (Italian Journal of Applied Statistics)
Y1  - 2007
A1  - Elston,Julie
A1  - Rondi,Laura
KW  - Finance
KW  - OSU-Cascades
AB  - We investigate the interaction of investor protection, ownership concentration and firms’ financing and investment decisions in a model where investor protection is allowed to vary across firms. Using firm panel data for Italy, we construct firm level variables to capture the degree of investor protection which is specific to the firm and observable by outside shareholders. We find that the stronger the investor protections the lower the fraction of equity that is owned by insiders. We also find that the higher the insider equity ownership the higher the idiosyncratic risk premium in the cost of capital. Finally, our results indicate that the magnitude of capital stock distortions is quite important when shareholder protection is weak and ownership concentration is high.
VL  - 18
CP  - 2
U2  - a
U4  - 2477916161
ID  - 2477916161
ER  -