Category: RESEARCH
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OVERBOARDED
We investigate overboarded (or busy) directors, documenting differences by gender in their effects on environmental and social scores, with female directors having negative impacts. The findings suggest that this negative effect is associated with tokenism practices of firms, as well as specialization in business-related expertise and financial oversight, rather than a broader range of qualifications…
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NATURAL, SOCIAL AND FINANCIAL CAPITALS
This paper analyses how financial development affects the loss of biodiversity. In our analysis, we built upon Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales (AER-2004), who find that social capital (instrumented by electoral participation and blood donation) improves the financial development, through enhancement of trust among the economic actors. We document a negative relationship between social capital and…
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FLORA, FAUNA, AND FINANCE: ASSESSING BIODIVERSITY RISK IN INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS
Biodiversity loss poses significant risks to investment portfolios, yet these risks remain largely underexplored in financial decision-making. This paper highlights the need for the development and use of robust metrics to measure the impacts and dependencies of firms on biodiversity. We find that current approaches to measuring a firm’s impact on nature suffer from several…
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CORPORATE GOVERNANCE NETWORKS AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE
This study reveals that the connectedness between US firms can be both “good” (ownership) and “bad” (boardroom). Network links through ownership increase return on assets by 0.12%, while board networks decrease it by 0.07%. BIG3 institutional investors’ connections yield higher return on assets, particularly among same-industry firms, indicating beneficial product-market peer effects. Conversely, boardroom connectedness…
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TOXIC CHEMICALS GOVERNANCE
American companies are among the largest producers of chemical products. In this paper, I find that US firms in the chemical industry experience: i) significant costs in adding common directors to their boardrooms, ii) obtain a benefit relying on their joint partners, iii) prefer to form ties with similar firms, and iv) do not prefer…
Annalisa Tonetto 