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This study explores the impact of gender on entrepreneurial finance, analyzing both the supply and demand sides of early-stage equity financing through Business Angel (BA) investments. The research investigates the probability of men and women-owned businesses securing BA investments and assesses whether the gender of BA investors influences financial transaction magnitudes, potentially disadvantaging women-owned businesses. Additionally, the study explores the intersection between the gender of BA investors and investees to test for the presence of any potential heterogenous behaviors in terms of average invested amounts by men (women) Business Angels towards women-(men-) owned target companies. Results reveal that women entrepreneurs receive less equity financing than men, with a lower probability of securing larger investments from men BAs. Notably, this bias is absent when women BAs invest in men-owned businesses. These patterns persist regardless of information availability and consideration of unobservable factors, suggesting a connection between this disadvantage and taste-based prejudice among men BAs.

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.

Achieving the goals of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development requires substantial investment and depends on the ability to attract private capital to complement public resources. Venture Capital (VC) investments have traditionally focused on sectors such as technology, healthcare, and clean energy, which align closely with the enhancement of sustainable development, and VC investors can accelerate progress toward sustainability by providing expertise and mentorship to startups working on sustainable solutions. This study aims to contribute to the literature on the intersection between finance and sustainability by investigating whether higher VC investments are associated with a higher level of achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using a panel data fixed effect model on a sample covering more than 100 countries, we find that a higher level of VC activity is associated with stronger SDGs' performances, with this effect being primarily driven by economic factors. We document heterogeneous effects related to the round of investments as well as the organizational form of VC investors and the industry and country of the VC-backed companies.

This study investigates the global relationship between venture capital (VC) investments and environmental pressure in order to contribute to the literature on the influence of venture capital on sustainable development. Using a unique dataset covering VC activity and CO2 intensity in 131 countries from 2011 to 2021, the study employs a revised STIRPAT model—a stochastic model for assessing the environmental impact of human activities. The aim is to examine the potential negative correlation between VC investments and CO2 intensity. This motivation stems from previous findings, indicating that increased VC investments spur the diffusion of eco-efficient technologies. The main results affirm a significant negative correlation between VC investments and CO2 intensity, even after controlling for relevant variables and potential confounding factors (e.g., foreign direct investments), country, and year fixed effects, and addressing potential endogeneity through lagging independent variables. Exploring heterogeneity in the baseline results reveals that these findings are consistent only for VC investments in the Asia-Pacific region, in emerging and developing economies, and in areas where they can contribute more to the development of green technologies and innovations. This suggests that VC activity may impact environmental intensity primarily in countries where emission regulations are less stringent or where existing technologies exhibit lower efficiency in terms of energy consumption.

We exploit the natural experimental setting provided by the Covid-19 lockdown to analyse how performance is affected by a friendly audience. Specifically, we use data on all football matches in the top-level competitions across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom over the 2019/2020 season. We compare the difference between the number of points gained by teams playing at home and teams competing away before the Covid-19 outbreak, when supporters could attend any match, with the same difference after the lockdown, when all matches took place behind closed doors. We find that the performance of the home team is halved when stadiums are empty. Further analyses indicate that offensive (defensive) actions taken by the home team are drastically reduced (increased) once games are played behind closed doors. Referees are affected too, as they change their behaviour in games without spectators. Finally, the home advantage is entirely driven by teams that do not have international experience. Taken together, our findings corroborate the hypothesis that social pressure influences individual behaviour.

We examine possible reallocation effects generated by the COVID-19 outbreak by analyzing the patterns of venture capital (VC) investments around the globe. Using transaction-level data and exploiting the staggered nature of the spread of the virus, we document a shift in VC portfolios towards firms developing technologies relevant to an environment of social distancing and health pandemic concerns. A difference-in-differences analysis estimates significant increases in invested amount and number of deals in such areas. We show heterogenous effects related to the experience of VC investors, as well as their size and organizational form.

The paper proposes a set of metrics and a methodology to measure the progress that European Union Member States are making towards the development and integration of capital markets. It identifies a set of indicators and analyzes the performance of these countries over the 2007–2018 period using a composite indicator approach (in both a static and dynamic environment), based on the six priorities related to achieving a well-functioning and integrated European capital market included in the European Commission Capital Markets Union Action Plan. The author uses robust clustering to identify groups of countries and tracks their development over time. He finds that the process of capital market development and integration process has started but is not completed and that it is mainly associated with countries’ adherence to European increasing trends driven by the benchmarks rather than the policy actions of countries aimed at catching up with the best performers.

Sebbene il concetto di FinTech – o Tecnofinanza – sia ampiamente utilizzato dagli operatori finanziari e nella letteratura scientifica, l’assenza di una definizione univoca genera possibili difficoltà nella qualificazione del fenomeno. In questo lavoro, proponiamo una nuova definizione di FinTech basata su un’analisi testuale orientata a categorizzare le imprese finanziate degli investimenti in equity da parte di investitori Venture Capital (VC) e Private Equity (PE). Attraverso un’analisi testuale, classifichiamo gli investimenti in VC e PE tra operazioni FinTech e altri tipi di operazioni, sfruttando informazioni qualitative e quantitative dei progetti finanziati in equity in tutto il mondo. Questo nuovo approccio alla definizione di FinTech viene quindi utilizzato per analizzare la distribuzione settoriale, geografica e temporale degli investimenti in equity. Studiamo infine i trend più recenti del fenomeno FinTech, attraverso un’analisi empirica a livello globale. I risultati econometrici indicano come l’incertezza e il potenziale aumento della rischiosità degli investimenti generati dalla pandemia siano accompagnati da un calo contenuto del volume degli investimenti in FinTech, mentre riscontriamo effetti meno significativi in termini di di numerosità delle transazioni in particolare nelle prime fasi della pandemia. Tali risultati suggeriscono come gli operatori VC e PE abbiano continuato a finanziare le imprese del comparto FinTech durante la pandemia, pur limitando i volumi investiti al fine di ridurre il rischio in fasi di forte incertezza., Although the concept of FinTech - or Technofinance - is widely adopted by financial players and in the scientific literature, the absence of an unambiguous definition generates possible challenges in qualifying the phenomenon. In this paper, we propose a new definition of FinTech based on a textual analysis aimed at categorising firms financed by equity investments from Venture Capital (VC) and Private Equity (PE) investors. Through textual analysis, we categorise VC and PE investments between FinTech and other types of transactions, exploiting qualitative and quantitative information of equity-funded projects worldwide. This new approach to the definition of FinTech is then used to analyse the sectoral, geographical and temporal distribution of equity investments. Lastly, we study the most recent trends of the FinTech phenomenon through an empirical analysis at the worldwide level. The econometric results indicate that the uncertainty and potential increase in investment riskiness generated by the pandemic are associated with a limited decline in the volume of investment in FinTech, while we find less significant effects in terms of deal size particularly in the early stages of the pandemic. These results suggest that VC and PE players have continued to finance FinTechs during the pandemic, while limiting the volumes invested to reduce risk in periods of high uncertainty

We rely on a periodic public opinion poll indicator of the performance of mayors collected for 103 large cities in Italy and in three waves (2015, 2017, and 2020) to examine whether and to what extent the exogenous shift in policy-making decisions induced by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected citizens' perceptions regarding attributions of responsibility. We leverage the variation in political alignment between central and local governments and implement a difference-in-differences research design, finding that when decisions are fully centralised (during the lockdown), voter approval for the mayor of an aligned city decreases by around 7%. Further analyses suggest that our results are more marked (i) during pre-electoral years and (ii) in cities with a lower level of social capital. Lastly, we document that the decrease in the approval ratings of aligned mayors is entirely guided by cities not severely hit by the pandemic, thereby reflecting a sense of ‘discontent’ in these areas for the policy decisions adopted by the central government to tackle the pandemic.

This analysis compares the characteristics of firms supported by public and private sources in early-stage financing to investigate funding patterns for innovative companies. It examines whether the two sources of funding target similar firms in the period 2008-2017 using a portfolio approach on EU-based firms raising either Venture Capital financing, public grants under the Horizon 2020 ‘SME Instrument’ scheme, or both. The findings show that venture capitalists finance more innovative and younger firms, whereas public investors focus on smaller companies. This pattern is supported by robustness checks and expansions that address multiple dimensions of heterogeneity behaviours in the interaction of private and public funding.

Questo lavoro analizza la definizione di Piccola e Media Impresa (PMI) della Commissione Europea e la confronta con definizioni affini adottate dalle organizzazioni internazionali. L’analisi approfondisce come la definizione dei termini di partecipazione al capitale o al diritto di voto da parte dei Venture Capitalist (VC) possa influenzare lo status stesso di PMI e conseguentemente introdurre un potenziale vincolo nell’accesso alle fonti di finanziamento pubbliche. L’analisi descrittiva evidenzia come solo una quota limitata di imprese che hanno ricevuto investimenti VC non avrebbeavuto accesso a finanziamenti pubblici applicando le soglie standard attualmente in essere nella definizione di PMI della Commissione Europea., This work analyzes the current definition of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) provided by the European Commission comparing it with similar definitions adopted by other international organizations and synthetizing potential strengths and weaknesses. This analysis investigates how Venture Capitalists’ (VC) participation in the equity or the voting rights of a company can influence its status of SME and implicitly introduce a constraint in theaccess to public funding.Our descriptive analysis shows that only a limited share of VC-backed companies would not have had access to public funding applying the standard thresholds that are currently required by the European Commission SME definition.

We use hand-collected data on penalty kicks in the top-level football competitions across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom over the 2019/2020 season to analyse how social environment affects the performance of individuals. We exploit the Covid-19 outbreak to induce a plausible source of variation in the supporters’ attendance. We find that for home teams the probability of missing a penalty increases when matches are forced to be played behind closed doors, while visiting teams are less likely to choke on a penalty kick, with these effects being more pronounced when the level of attendance (measured before the pandemic) was high. Taken together, these findings indicate that not only a supportive audience, but also the size of the support plays a key role for success of skill tasks.

Questo articolo analizza le differenti caratteristiche delle imprese, e in particolare delle PMI, che accedonoa forme di sovvenzionamento pubblico ofinanziamento privato. In quest’ottica, si prende in esame uno dei sussidi pubblici più diffusi orientato allePMI giovani e innovative dell’Unione Europea (Orizzonte 2020) e lo si confronta con ilfinanziamento diVenture Capital, uno strumento tipicamente orientato a finanziare l’equity di aziende analoghe. Confrontando le caratteristiche delle imprese che ricevono l’unool’altro tipodi strumento, riscontriamo al contrario differenze significative nelle caratteristiche aziendali delle imprese finanziatedai due strumenti, siain termini dimensionali (ricavi, asset) che di fase di sviluppo., We analyze the different characteristics of companies, and in particular of Small and Medium Enterprises(SMEs), having access to forms of public subsidy or private financing. We then examine one of the most widespread public subsidies aimed at young and innovative SMEs of the European Union (i.e., Horizon 2020)and compare itwith Venture Capital, afinancial instrument typically oriented to fund equity of similar companies. Conversely, by comparing the characteristics of the companies that receive one or the other types of instruments, we find significant differences in the corporate characteristics of the funded companies both in terms of size (revenues, assets) and development phase.

This technical report proposes a set of metrics and a methodology to measure the progress that European countries are making towards the development and integration of capital markets. Based on six priorities linked to the achievement of a well-functioning and integrated European capital market, we identify a set of indicators and analyze country performance for the period 2007-2018 by using a composite measure, both in a static and a dynamic environment. In order to account for country specificities and differences in dynamic trajectories, we use robust clustering to identify groups of countries and follow their development through time.

We show that the introduction of the procurement centralization within the regional healthcare systems in Italy reduced per capita health expenditure approximatelyt by 2–8%, without affecting the level of health-related public services. Our results also indicate that the effect is persistent after six years, and is not influenced by the coexistence of other organizational models, such as amalgamation and hybrid systems. Finally, we document that the reduction in public expenditure is effective only in areas characterized by poor quality of institutions, indicating that procurement centralization might be an effective tool to reduce corruption-related inefficiencies in the health sector.

This report holds the results of a selection of European Commission’s JRC activities which aim to support EU policies to tackle the technological and innovation challenges of the European industry in the next decade. It addresses some of these challenges by implementing novel scientific analyses within the following themes: Technology diffusion and industrial dynamics; innovation and company value chains; Financing innovation; Industrial innovation for transitions and transformation; Employment and skills for industrial transformations; Integration of global to local industrial innovation perspectives; and new data, standards and methods. The outcomes obtained provide insights relevant to EU policy initiatives dealing with innovation and industry and aiming to achieve the priorities of the European Commission's "Green Deal" and "A stronger Europe in the world", and in general the EU industrial competitiveness & sustainability.

This paper investigates the environmental Kuznets’ curve hypothesis for total primary energy supply and CO2 from fuel combustion over the period 1971–2015. Our analysis has two distinguishing features. Firstly, it adopts a robustness approach by (a) using both parametric and semi-parametric methods, and (b) analysing different geographical scales. Secondly, it strictly adheres to the EKC narrative by (a) not using control variables and (b) taking Energy and CO2 in absolute rather than in per capita terms, which is consistent with the fact that “Nature cares” about absolute pressures. We show how evidence for EKC changes depending on the model specification, the sample, and the used variables. Hence, this paper contributes to explaining why the literature on the EKC gives mixed results. The multiscale perspective and some theoretical considerations, however, tell how to perform the analysis appropriately. Thus, we can affirm that, both for CO2 and Energy, the fragile evidence of EKC that was emerging at the end of the last century has vanished with the new wave of globalization. There is only evidence of decreasing elasticities for very-high income countries. Interestingly, the great recession might have produced structural reductions in TPES and CO2 in the affected countries. Finally, the case of Germany, which shows EKC patterns, indicates that active energy policies can reduce energy and CO2 without harming the economy.

Composite indicators are very popular, despite being affected by several problems that often result in lack of robustness of the rankings involved. The aim of this paper is to show that composite indicators can be safely used, provided that rankings are built via uncertainty analysis rather than using a single composite. For this purpose, the approach we follow first combines different normalisation, aggregation rules, and weighting systems to calculate many different composites, and then derives the rankings from the frequency distribution of the rankings of each "competitor" according to each composite. Such an approach appears to be a good compromise between the need for a more concise overview when looking at many variables and the loss of relevant information occurring when indicators are aggregated into a single composite indicator. To illustrate the approach, we rank EU Countries in terms of their sustainability.