Journal of Financial Management, Markets and Institutions

In recent years, attention toward Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues has become increasingly important in the investment decision-making process, prompting interest of investors, companies, regulators and researchers on the possible relationships between financial performances and sustainable variables. With the aim to increase our understanding of these relationships, we use a graphical modeling approach on the MSCI and Bloomberg sustainable dataset for years from 2017 to 2021. Our analysis shows that companies with a higher level of compliance with ESG standards have lower assets’ volatility than others and are not penalized in terms of returns. Furthermore, the increasing level of mandatory disclosure within the European area, induced by the current regulation, has reduced the strength of the positive relationship between Disclosure Score and ESG Score. Moreover, the negative relationship between ESG Score and volatility remains consistent across temporal and geographic areas.

This study investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the European banking system, focusing on lending activities and risk-taking behavior. We use a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to compare the performance of banks highly impacted by the pandemic with those operating in less affected countries. Our results indicate a negative impact on lending activities, as banks reduced their exposure to both individuals and businesses. Nonetheless, the impact on bank risk-taking was heterogeneous, as certain banks increased their risk-taking by relaxing their lending standards to support their borrowers while others tightened lending criteria. The reduction in total lending for the banking system was primarily driven by less capitalized banks — with a sharp decline in corporate loans combined with stability in mortgages and consumer loans — and those with limited access to public guarantee schemes. Different characteristics, such as size, profitability, and listing status, led to varied lending behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic, with smaller and more profitable banks exhibiting greater resilience.

This paper presents an in-depth examination of the impact of public support to small and medium Italian enterprises during the COVID-19 pandemic. The country’s banking system was entrusted a key role in implementing extraordinary measures of financial support, such as moratoria and public guarantees. This support prevented the sudden drop in revenues and cash flows — caused by the pandemic and the related severe restrictive measures adopted by the Italian Government — from compromising the liquidity and solvency of a huge number of firms, thus preventing the occurrence of a chain of insolvencies, which would have seriously deteriorated Italian economy. To perform these tasks, Italian banks had to cope with commitments which severely tested their organizational structure, due to a large number of operations and the complexity and urgency these tasks entailed, especially in the first months of the emergency period. The study, in a five-year perspective, analyses — in terms of intensity and pervasiveness — the set of such initiatives, both at the entire Italian banking system level and at the specific cooperative banks level, the latter characterized by greater proximity to potentially more fragile customers. The aim of this work is to verify whether the effectiveness of the Italian banking system in this key role of accomplishing the transmission of economic policy decisions, aimed at promoting and sustaining real economy during a particularly difficult period, can be confirmed.

This paper investigates the method for calculating funding banks must provide to Deposit Guarantee Schemes (DGSs) according to the “ex-ante” and “risk-based” criteria introduced by Directive 2014/49/EU (DGSD). We aim to further support the existing documents providing an approach to identify risk indicators and assign weights thereof to determine fundings to be paid to DGSs. It is worth noting that such an approach could enhance current practices as it takes into account the risk and performance of banks as opposed to the overall banking market. By doing so, a more targeted funding can be encouraged. Our results consider the Texas ratio as one of the indicators to look out for. Likewise, such methods could serve as self-assessment frameworks for Institutional Protection Schemes (IPSs) and banks, fostering sound and prudent management, in turn warding off “moral hazard” issues.

This study was concerned with the correlates of attitudes to, and habits surrounding money, particularly budgeting. It involved a secondary analysis of a representative (UK) sample of adults who completed a questionnaire that enquired into such things as their saving and spending habits, and investments. We drew on data from 1767 participants and looked specifically at demographic correlates (age, gender, income), as well as money attitudes, spending habits and their self-rated financial literacy. Our central interest was how specific beliefs about money, impulsive spending, and financial literacy are related to regular saving, spending and investment. Through correlation and regression analyses, we were able to show that household income was a major correlate of these behaviors, as were participant gender and age. We paid particular attention to the money attitude variable which suggested that those who saw money primarily as a source of security tended to be savers rather than investors and had more disposable cash. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed, including implications for detecting and advising those with money-related issues.