Programa del congreso

This research paper explores the impact of board diversity on firm performance, with a particular focus on different types of board members. The study examines gender, age, tenure, education, discipline, and nationality diversity among board members and their effects on firm performance. Using a multi-country dataset and various performance proxies, the paper employs panel regression analysis to assess the relationships.

The findings reveal nuanced effects of diversity, with gender diversity among independent and non-executive directors, age diversity among executive directors, and education diversity among executives showing positive impacts. The dominant pathway identified is the resource dependence theory, emphasizing the strategic role of directors. However, the paper also highlights that a one-size-fits-all approach to board diversity is inappropriate, as diversity can have both positive and negative effects depending on the context. Overall, the research contributes to the understanding of board diversity and its implications for corporate governance and firm performance.

We analyze the effect of model-based capital regulation on systemic risk using a sample of European banks over the 2015-2022 period. We use the Covid-19 pandemic as exogenous shock and find in a DID analysis that banks using an Internal Rating-Based (IRB) approach reduced their systemic risk in almost 45 percentage points compared to banks using the Standardized Approach (SA). The effect of model-based regulation on reducing systemic risk is greater as bank ownership concentration increases. Our evidence suggests that model-based regulation contributes to tie more the capital charge to individual bank risk and complements previous papers showing that greater discretion is used by IRB banks to underestimate risk and reduce capital requirements. Our results are robust to alternative definitions of systemic risk, samples of banks, and model specifications.

Purpose: This paper investigates the impact of Non-Financial Information (NFI) assurance quality on Financial Information (FI) quality via income smoothing, contrasting commercial and cooperative banks, by considering the assurance provider.

Theoretical framework: Income smoothing by bank managers may potentially build a false appearance of financial stability and makes financial entities lose legitimacy in front of their stakeholders. The assurance of NFI is expected to serve as an appropriate and beneficial control mechanisms to enhance the credibility of FI and lower bank managers discretion to opportunistically alter accounting numbers.

Methodology: From a sample of 106 EU financial entities spanning 2012 to 2020, we measure the quality of NFI assurance reports using a content analysis. To measure the accounting quality through income smoothing practices, we employed panel-data statistical modelling. We find out to what extent the quality of the assurance reports influences income smoothing practices. Finally, we investigate whether assurance reports issued by auditors improve accounting quality (that is, reduce income smoothing practices).

Results: The findings reveal that assurance reports of higher quality enhance accounting quality by reducing income smoothing. In addition, assurance reports issued by auditors reduce income smoothing, whose impact is lower in cooperative banks than in commercial banks.

Purpose: Studying the assurance quality on sustainability reporting in the financial sector under the commitment (stakeholders’ pressures) and enforcement (compliance with legality) approaches.

Theoretical framework: The adoption of assurance answers to mimetic, coercive and normative pressures (institutional theory). Assurance on sustainability reporting is crucial in establishing an organisation’s legitimacy, satisfying social demands and ensuring the organisation survival (socio-political legitimacy theory). Stakeholder theory stands that stakeholder pressure influences the assurance adoption decision since firms respond to sector-specific stakeholder pressure.

Methodology: Hand-collected data from Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) database, spanning 2012 to 2020, from 21 European countries. We perform a content analysis, difference in means (t-Student), test of independence (Cramer’s V test), ANOVA analysis and Bonferroni multiple comparison test.

Results/implications: Mediterranean banks achieve the highest commitment level when the assuror is an accountant. After the NFRD transposition of the Member States, the assurance quality gap between assurors shrunk and also the gap between them. The voluntary (mandatory) character of the assurance leads to higher quality of assurance reports for cooperatives (banks) and non-accountants (accountants). Our evidence supports more stringent requirements related to assurance of the 2023 Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), thus empowering the more transparency and readability for citizens and investors.