RISULTATI RICERCA

Purpose: This paper examines how the adoption of IFRS 9 – Financial Instruments and calendar provisioning intensity have shaped banks’ lending behaviour, risk exposure, and interest income across European listed banks. Furthermore, the analysis investigates whether judicial efficiency, proxied by the clearance rate, moderates these relationships. Design/methodology/approach: Using a sample of 1,304 bank-years, a panel data analysis was conducted, spanning the period from 2014 to 2023. Findings: The results show that the adoption of IFRS 9 is associated with lower loan growth, reduced risk-weighted asset (RWA) intensity, and lower loan interest income. By contrast, calendar provisioning intensity does not affect loan growth, but it significantly decreases RWA intensity and loan interest income. Moreover, judicial efficiency strengthens all baseline relationships when IFRS 9 is used as the main explanatory variable. When calendar provisioning is used as the independent variable, however, its moderating effect is limited to risk exposure and interest income. Originality/value: This study provides novel insights on IFRS 9 and calendar provisioning, unveiling that the two regulatory tools operate through distinct ex ante and ex post channels to shape banks’ lending behaviour, risk allocation, and income generation. Moreover, these effects are conditioned by institutional quality, captured by judicial efficiency. Practical implications: For banks, the findings underscore the relevance of aligning credit-risk strategies not only with accounting standards but also with institutional conditions, particularly in terms of risk allocation and income generation. For policymakers, the results hint that enhancing judicial efficiency can reinforce the regulatory role of accounting and prudential measures, thus strengthening their impact on banks’ strategic decisions and interest income, rather than on lending volumes.

Purpose: This study examines whether and how participation in the COVID-19 debt moratoria program impacted the transparency of Eurozone-listed banks. By suspending loan repayments and routine borrower monitoring - while prompting discretionary disclosures on moratoria exposures - the program introduced opposing forces on transparency. Design/methodology/approach: We analyse a sample of Eurozone-listed banks from 2018 to 2022. We identified banks holding portfolios with loans that adhere to (or do not adhere to) debt moratoria. First, we employ a difference-in-difference approach to estimate the effects of adopting the debt moratoria program on transparency. Then, we run a set of OLS panel regressions to examine how the composition of the loan portfolio affects transparency. Findings: We show that banks exposed to a larger volume of loans subject to debt moratoria experienced a reduction in transparency. Furthermore, we find that the impact on transparency is not uniform across banks but varies with loan portfolio composition. Banks with a higher share of corporate loans tend to exhibit a less pronounced decline in transparency, suggesting that lending practices influence how banks adjust their disclosure behaviour in response to regulatory interventions. Originality/value: This study sheds light on the unintended consequences of regulatory interventions during crises. While debt moratoria helped banks manage the risks associated with non-performing loans, they also came at the cost of reduced transparency. These findings suggest that regulators should carefully consider the potential trade-offs between transparency and other objectives when crafting crisis-response measures. Data availability: Financial accounting data is retrieved from BankFocus Orbis BVD; loan amounts under moratoria measures have been collected from the Eurozone-listed bank’s annual reports for 2020-2022.

Purpose: This study investigates how Chief Financial Officers’ (CFOs) personal characteristics affect qualitative materiality decisions during the preparation of financial reporting. While materiality is a key principle in financial reporting, the subjective nature of qualitative judgments remains underexplored, particularly from the perspective of preparers rather than auditors. Methodology: Drawing on Upper Echelons Theory (UET), the study adopts a survey-based approach targeting 160 CFOs from IFRS-compliant, European-listed companies in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The survey captures CFOs’ weighting of qualitative materiality factors using a Likert scale. Findings: Results reveal that CFO characteristics significantly affect the integration of qualitative materiality factors. Specifically, older, longer-tenured CFOs and those with prior audit experience are more inclined to integrate qualitative factors into financial materiality decisions, reflecting a more conservative and risk-sensitive approach. Originality/value: The study shifts focus from auditors to financial statement preparers, offering novel insights into how materiality judgments are shaped at the preparatory stage. By integrating Upper Echelons Theory (UET) into the context of materiality assessments, the research introduces a behavioral perspective that enhances the understanding of how executive characteristics shape accounting judgments. This approach expands the boundaries of behavioral accounting literature and provides new insights into the subjective dimensions of financial statement preparation. Practical implications: Findings have implications for standard setters, regulators, and corporate governance by emphasizing the role of CFO characteristics in ensuring consistent and transparent financial reporting. Understanding these behavioral dynamics can inform better training, policy design, and oversight mechanisms.

Purpose: This study compares stakeholder engagement in the sustainability standard-setting processes conducted by the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). Drawing on stakeholder theory, lobbying theory, and institutional logics, the study examines how different governance models - multi-stakeholder versus investor-oriented-shape the language, tone, and thematic focus of comment letters submitted during public consultations. Methodology: We analyse all comment letters submitted in the EFRAG consultation on the ESRS and in the ISSB consultations on IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques – including sentiment analysis and topic modelling – to identify linguistic and thematic patterns in stakeholder feedback. Findings: The analysis reveals distinct engagement dynamics across the two consultations. EFRAG submissions display a more balanced sentiment and broader thematic orientation, while ISSB feedback emphasises financial materiality and comparability. These differences are consistent with the contrasting institutional orientations of the two standard setters. Originality: This is the first large-scale comparative study of stakeholder engagement in EFRAG and ISSB consultations, integrating NLP techniques with established theoretical perspectives to show how institutional context shapes stakeholder discourse. Practical implications: The findings suggest that differences in institutional orientation influence the type of stakeholder input received during standard-setting processes. These insights are relevant to ongoing debates on interoperability between EFRAG and the ISSB, as understanding how institutional contexts shape stakeholder discourse may inform future coordination efforts.

Purpose: This study investigates whether and to what extent the social disclosure tone used in sustainability reports (herein ‘social tone’) is associated with enhanced corporate social performance (CSP) before and after the entry into force of the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive 2014/95/UE (NFRD). Design/methodology/approach: Using a sample of sustainability reports available for the constituent firms of the Italian FTSE Italia All-Share, we employ a textual analysis approach (i.e., Natural Language Processing [NLP]) to quantify the use of social tone in corporate sustainability reports and assess its relationship with CSP. Findings: Encompassing 329 firm-year observations from 2012 to 2021, we find that social tone is positively associated with CSP, thus demonstrating that the sustainability reporting narrative plays a strategic role in firms’ social performance. However, social tone is negatively associated with CSP in the period post-NFRD, suggesting a regulatory ceiling effect. Originality/value: This study underscores the dual importance of regulatory frameworks and narrative disclosure in shaping CSP. It offers significant implications for policymakers and firms aiming to effectively leverage corporate sustainability practices. Practical implications: These results imply that while regulatory mandates elevate baseline CSP, the distinct contribution of social tone becomes less impactful under mandatory regulatory conditions when there is a lack of specific disclosure requirements.

Purpose: This paper presents a narrative review of the research on the drivers and effects of firm herding behavior on corporate decision-making. It aims to synthesize the knowledge and develop a research agenda for financial reporting scholars. Design/methodology/approach: We identified 65 journal articles in the Web of Science and Scopus databases and coded the findings to classify the drivers and implications of firm herding behavior. We adapted the PRISMA protocol to our interdisciplinary approach. Findings: Herding is primarily driven by peer influence, uncertainty reduction, and career concerns, and often has negative outcomes such as market inefficiencies and suboptimal decisions. However, herding also has some benefits in the areas of innovation and research and development. Implementing these insights within the financial reporting domain, we identify areas for further study, such as the role of regulatory pressures and the effect of new technologies. Originality/value: This review examines the potential influence of firm herding behaviors on financial reporting, offering a new perspective on conformity in corporate communications.

Academic research has played an important role in examining the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) process and thinking about its organizational implications and value. Collectively, this literature reframes ERM as an organizational capability whose effectiveness depends on engagement from board and C-suite leadership, integration of governance activities overseeing both strategic direction and management’s risk-taking, and alignment of risks with strategic incentives. The need for ERM has grown to become a defining element of modern corporate governance, reflecting organizations’ need to manage increasingly complex strategic, operational, financial, and compliance risks that are increasingly present and rapidly evolving in today’s global business environment. Whereas traditional risk management focuses primarily on insurable and financial risks within siloed, functional areas, ERM represents an enterprise-wide approach linking risk identification, assessment, and response to strategic objectives and performance outcomes (COSO 2017). We believe that advances in financial regulations, especially in Europe, provide an opportunity to create a forward-looking research agenda centered on better understanding the dynamics and practices of establishing an appropriate risk culture, risk appetite and risk management disclosure credibility - three mechanisms that increasingly define ERM effectiveness yet remain underexplored in accounting research.

J.S. Mill’s tax theory and policy is commonly apprehended as aiming to preserve a maximum of incentives for accumulation, and longterm distributive justice. We believe that this assessment overemphasizes the liberal aspects of his economic analysis as against his broader Utilitarian perspective in policy matters. Mill’s fiscal policy was closely related to his strategy of political and social reform aiming at the elevation of mankind. This article aims to reconsider Mill’s system of taxation within the Classical School, under his three inseparable philosophical traits, i.e. Liberalism, Utilitarianism and Social Reformism. After reviewing the Classical principles of taxation of Smith and Ricardo, we present Mill’s own viewpoints on various categories of taxation, namely income, property and consumption, hoping that his ideas may eventually enrich this perennial debate.

This article revisits the longstanding debate on the role of value judgments in economics by tracing its evolution from the late nineteenth century to the present. Beginning with J. N. Keynes’s tripartite distinction, it examines how leading figures such as Friedman, Robbins, Schumpeter, Myrdal, Röpke, Heilbroner, Sen, Wight, and Dasgupta conceptualized the relationship between positive analysis and normative commitments. By classifying these thinkers into three epistemological categories, the study shows that methodological positions on value judgments have shaped both economic reasoning and the interpretation of historical processes. Synthesizing in a single framework the perspectives of these principal economists, it highlights continuities and divergences that illuminate the intellectual history of economics. The article argues that recognizing the normative underpinnings of economic reasoning is essential for understanding the historiography of economics, the practice of economic history, and the pedagogical transmission of ideas. Beyond description, the proposed classification provides a framework to reassess how ethical and methodological commitments inform historical inquiry in economics.

The impact of technological progress on labor has always interested economists and policymakers, especially today with AI’s development. This paper examines the issue from a seemingly distant perspective, namely through the contributions of two giant economists of the past, Marx and Keynes. Regarding Marx, we reconstruct the link between liberation from alienated labor and machine neutrality. Regarding Keynes, we reconsider Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren (1930), where the impact of technology on individuals is analyzed. Despite their wellknown theoretical differences, our main finding is that for both authors, time (whether saved, spent, devoted to work, or freed from work) and power (in terms of capital and knowledge access and distribution) remain fundamental to a full assessment of the impact of technology on human beings. Drawing on these insights, the final section addresses current challenges posed by generative AI - such as the reallocation of time, the preservation of creativity, and the cognitive risks of automation - and outlines a set of public policy suggestions inspired by Marx’s and Keynes’s reflections on the impact of technological progress.

The paper aims to introduce into international economic developments the less discussed dimension of the unofficial expert for the understanding and significance of an international “fait accompli” within a member state of an international economic conference. This expertise is most relevant to the conference of the twentieth century: the Bretton Woods conference, a landmark in world economic history. The study is intended to inform the banking elite of Greece. It was written a few months after the decisions of the Conference, during the crucial period for Greece of the armistice of the civil war and before the country decided to implement the obligations it assumed as a member state. The combination of epistemological and practical factors makes informal expertise important at the time the study was written. Its content lies in the Conference’s institutionalization of the liberal multilateralist perspective of an open economy, which reinforces new ideas in the macroeconomic management of a state facing the crisis of civil war.

This paper examines the Italian academic debate on inflation control after the 1975 single point wage indexation reform of the working collective general agreements through the 1985 popular referendum, which confirmed the revision of this act by Bettino Craxi’s government. This study aims to highlight how competing schools of economic thought – neoliberal, heterodox leftwing, liberal, and reformist – influence policy proposals, reflecting different political philosophies and social class allegiances. Consequently, this work focuses on key events, including the Modigliani controversy and Ezio Tarantelli’s predetermination proposal. The inflation interpretations are contextualised in the political, cultural, social, and historical scenarios in which they were elaborated. Finally, this study attempts to explain why the Italian economic culture rejected the idea of inflation as a consequence of monetary supply and emphasised inflation as a costpush phenomenon.

This paper revisits Daniel W. Bromley’s claims about Rousseau’s Revenge through the longue durée of India’s land regimes to rethink the place of property in the history of economic thought. Bromley’s provocation, developed largely within an Anglo-Ameri-can property rights trajectory, frames the contemporary weakening of the freehold estate as a rediscovery of land’s social function. Considering this provocation, the Indian case reveals a historically distinct, but not exceptional, configuration in which land was rarely organised as absolute exclusionary private property, but instead governed through lay-ered institutions and social arrangements of caste, community, religious authority, colo-nial law, and postcolonial state building. Drawing on South Asian historiography and historical institutionalism, the paper treats the social function of land as an analytical category in which obligation, use, and public purpose coexist alongside title. In doing so, it challenges apparent universalist narratives of property that assume a unilinear progres-sion of land regimes from common tenure to private ownership. The paper offers a con-ceptual provocation for a more pluralist understanding of property, governance, and le-gitimacy beyond Euro-American frameworks.

Il Servizio Idrico Integrato lombardo è al centro di una trasformazione profonda in cui l’ammodernamento delle infrastrutture si intreccia con sfide crescenti legate al cambiamento climatico, all’evoluzione degli obiettivi europei e al rafforzamento dei requisiti regolatori e ambientali. Il contributo, basato su interviste a tutti i gestori del servizio idrico integrato (SII) operanti in Lombardia, restituisce in “viva voce” priorità, criticità e traiettorie di sviluppo del settore. Gli indicatori di qualità tecnica ARERA guidano le scelte di investimento, oggi concentrate soprattutto su riduzione delle perdite e adeguamento fognario, mentre emergono ulteriori fabbisogni connessi alla tutela della qualità della risorsa, all’adeguamento della depurazione (anche in relazione alla Direttiva Acque Reflue e alla neutralità energetica) e alla gestione integrata delle acque meteoriche. Parallelamente, il consolidamento di sinergie industriali e l’adozione di approcci sovra-ambito appaiono leve strategiche. Sul piano finanziario, la crescita degli investimenti richiede un mix di fondi pubblici, strumenti di garanzia e accettabilità sociale degli adeguamenti tariffari. In chiusura, si evidenzia l’esigenza di rafforzare governance e coordinamento regionale, semplificando procedure e riducendo tempi autorizzativi per assicurare efficacia attuativa.