1,721,006 research outputs found
Moonlighting Politicians: Motivation Matters!
Full text linkWe study self-selection into politics and effort once in office of citizens with different abilities and motivations in a framework where moonlighting is allowed. We find that high-ability motivated (public-fit) politicians exert higher effort in politics than high-ability non-motivated (market-fit) politicians, and that high-ability citizens, both public-fit and market-fit, may decide to enter politics. We test our predictions using a database of Italian parliamentarians for the period 1996-2006. We find evidence of advantageous selection of both market-fit and public-fit parliamentarians. We also show that public-fit parliamentarians have higher voting attendance and that only voting attendance of market-fit parliamentarians is negatively affected by income opportunities
"Stakeholder Orientation" and Capital Structure: Social Entrerprises versus For-Profit Firms in the Italian Social Residencial Service Sector
No full textIn this paper, we investigate whether capital structure differs between for-profit and nonprofit sectors by focusing on two key aspects of the latter: the non-distribution constraint and the stakeholder oriented governance system. We develop a theoretical model and show that the former negatively affects leverage, defined as the amount borrowed over the total investment, whilst the latter has a positive effect. We then
analyze a longitudinal data set of balance sheets of 800 firms operating in the social residential sector in Italy and show that, once controlled for observable characteristics, for-profit companies have a leverage 18% higher than nonprofit enterprises, even if the latter face lower credit costs. We explain this finding by arguing that the effect of the non-distribution constraint prevails over the effect of stakeholder orientation
Moral hazard and compensation packages: does reshuffling matter?
No full textWe study a moral hazard model in which the agent receives a compensation package made up of multiple commodities. We allow for the possibility that commodities are traded on the market and consider two scenarios. When trade in commodities is verifiable, the agent cannot reshuffle the compensation package prescribed by the principal and simply selects the hidden action which is optimal given that package. When trade in commodities is, instead, not verifiable, the agent can reshuffle the prescribed package by trading it for another one and can select a different action. We prove that an optimal contract (i.e., a contract which maximizes the principal’s expected payoff) when trade is verifiable remains optimal when trade is not verifiable if agent’s preferences for commodities are independent of the action performed. When, instead, preference independence fails, we show it is always possible to find prices of commodities such that an optimal contract under trade verifiability cannot be optimal under nonverifiability
Strong client orientation, little leverage in nonprofit firms?
Full text linkNonprofit firms can be multi-stakeholder organizations, in which employees, clients, volunteers, public institutions, and funders can have formal
or informal power to affect corporate strategy. This paper focuses on nonprofit firms’ orientation toward clients and investigates its role in shaping capital structure. We first develop a theoretical framework and derive conditions under which the relationship between leverage and client orientation—measured by how much nonprofit firms weigh clients’ utility relative to earnings—is either positive or first negative and then positive. We then provide an empirical analysis of social cooperatives in the Italian social care sector and find a negative relationship between leverage and client orientation—proxied by the ratio of voluntary workers to total workforce
Wage expectations and access to healthcare occupations: Evidence from an information experiment
Full text linkWe investigate how correcting students’ wage expectations affects their performance on admission tests for medical and healthcare schools, a critical step for aspiring healthcare professionals. Using a randomized information experiment with Italian applicants, we first elicited their expectations about the starting wage of the healthcare profession they intended to pursue. The treatment group was then informed of the actual starting wages, while the control group received no such information. Finally, we collected and analyzed their test scores. Our findings reveal that applicants with lower wage expectations tend to perform worse on the test. However, correcting these expectations eliminates the performance gap: providing accurate wage information enhances test scores for applicants who initially underestimated wages, while it negatively impacts those who overestimated them
Phishing attacks: An analysis of the victims’ characteristics based on administrative data
No full textUsing administrative data on phishing attacks targeting almost 150,000 Italian- and German-speaking customers of an Italian bank in 2022–23, we investigate how individual characteristics are associated to the likelihood of victimization. We find that younger customers and Italian speakers are more likely to be victims of phishing, while we find no differences in terms of gender or size of the place of residence
Product market competition and access to credit
No full textIn this paper, we unveil a disregarded benefit of product market competition for firms. We introduce the probability of bankruptcy in a simple model where firms compete à la Cournot and apply for collateralized bank loans to undertake productive investments. We show that the number of competitors and the existence of outsiders willing to acquire the productive assets of distressed incumbents affect the equilibrium share of investment financed by bank credit. Using a sample of Italian manufacturing firms, mostly small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), we found evidence showing that the degree of product market competition is positively correlated with the share of investment financed by bank credit only when outsiders are absent
Do Social Enterprises Finance Their Investments Differently from For-Profit Firms? The Case of Social Residential Services in Italy
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