This study analyses the impact of women leaders on environmental performance in a sample of 96 listed banks in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region from 2011 to 2016. Gender diversity in leadership positions is explored through women in the board of directors, chief executive officer gender, and the interaction between these two aspects. This study sheds light on inconsistent results in prior literature by testing three theoretical perspectives: gender difference, critical mass, and homophily. The main results suggest that there is nonlinear relationship between women directors and the environmental performance of banks and that female chief executive officers play a strategic role in shaping this relationship, by confirming the homophily perspective for the banking sector. Therefore, leader gender diversity is an important driver of environmental sustainability in banks, which are increasingly involved in environmental issues either directly, as companies, or indirectly, through their lending activity.

A growing body of research suggests that the composition of a firm’s board of directors can influence its environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance. In the banking industry, ESG performance has not yet been explored to discover how a critical mass of women on the board of directors affects performance. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature by testing the impact of a critical mass of female directors on ESG performance. Other board characteristics are accounted for: independence, size, frequency of meetings and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) sustainability committee. We use fixed effects panel regression models on a sample of 108 listed banks in Europe and the United States for the period 2011–2016. Our main empirical evidence shows that the relationship between women on the board of directors and a bank’s ESG performance is an inverted U-shape. Therefore, the critical mass theory for banks is not supported, confirming that only gender-balanced boards positively impact a bank’s performance for sustainability. There is a positive link between ESG performance and board size or the presence of a CSR sustainability committee, while it is negative with the share of independent directors. With this work, we stress the key role of corporate governance principles in banks’ ESG performance, with relevant implications for both banks and supervisory authorities.

According to a 2017 survey, approximately two in five European residents believe that the number of tourists poses a threat to the continent's cultural heritage. In order to investigate the determinants of this perception, the data from this survey of 26,000 residents was used to estimate ordered probit models. The results from these reveal that the probability of overtourism being viewed as a threat to cultural heritage is significantly lower for residents living near historical monuments, sites or festivals. The perception of overtourism as a threat is generally higher in cities in comparison with rural areas.

Purpose This study aims to examine the relationship between female directors and bank risk. In particular, whether such a relationship varies across sound or unsound banks and with or without a critical mass of female directors is tested. Design/methodology/approach Using a sample of 215 listed banks from 40 countries over the period 2008–2016, this study carries out panel data analyses and tests all the model specifications on four different measures of risk (common equity ratio, leverage, NPLs ratio and price volatility). Findings The findings show that increasing the number of female directors does not reduce bank risk when banks are unsound. When banks are sound, female directors have a significant and positive role in reducing risk, only until reaching a critical mass of women. Practical implications This study provides useful corporate governance indications for policymakers and practitioners. Advantages of gender diversity on boards are recognized especially in sound banks, but increasing the number of women directors beyond the critical mass may not lead to lower risk. In fact, ethical or legal pressures aimed at increasing gender diversity on boards (i.e. soft or hard gender quotas) may cause undesired effects on bank risk, especially if female directors are not chosen on merit and skills. Moreover, gender-balanced boards, namely, with a “dual critical mass,” seem to assure more effective decision-making processes. Originality/value This study provides empirical evidence on female board members and risk minimization, differentiating between sound or unsound banks. Furthermore, this study contributes to the literature on the critical mass of women on the board of directors by testing this theory for these two categories of banks.

The topic of work safety is a very relevant and multifaceted problem for workers, firms and policy makers. Differing from other narrow scope studies, this article aims to enrich the understanding of workplace safety as a whole by applying econometric techniques on data from the Italian Labour Force Survey. Findings show poor working conditions are the most significant determinants of accidents and illnesses occurring at work while having a fixed-term (temporary) contract is not significant. Other significant determinants of work safety are: not being new to the workforce, dissatisfaction with the current job, gender and a latent proneness observed with occurrence of accident on the way to work. This article also highlights that work related accidents and illnesses are two deeply correlated phenomena and that there is a structural break after three years on the job

In many industries, firms give consumers the opportunity to add (at a price) optional goods and services to a baseline product. The aim of our paper is to provide a theoretical model of add-on pricing in competitive environments with two new distinctive features. First, we discuss the choice of offering the add-on, assuming that this entails a fixed cost. Second, we allow firms to have a varying degree of market power over the add-on, associated with the ability to capture the value that consumers obtain from such an additional good/service. Our model shows that the conventional wisdom, according to which offering the add-on should unambiguously lower the price of the baseline product, is not always supported. In asymmetric equilibria, in which only one firm offers the add-on, baseline prices are higher if the firm's market power over the add-on is limited. The predictions of the model are confirmed by a hedonic price model on a dataset of cruises offered worldwide.

Economic processes, consisting of interactions between human beings, exploit the social capital of persons endowed with specific culture and identities. The role of institutions and policy makers is to build positive social capital and exploit it to reach their objectives. However, social capital is elusive and has several dimensions by which to interpret its multifaceted functions in economics and society. We cannot forget, furthermore, that social capital sometimes is undesirable for society, for instance when used for unethical uses. Even so, it is widely accepted that social capital has stable and positive effects.JEL classification: Z13, B52, D78

We analyse the current Italian economic crisis as a phase of a major systemic decline. We argue that 'Italy's system' has forced the country to abandon a dynamic view of comparative advantage, crucial for sustained economic growth, in favour of a static view of specialisation. Creative destruction has been hampered and sectoral restructuring has not occurred, resulting in stagnation. The roots of this decline lie in collective action issues and an implicit contract between elites and civil society. We suggest that these issues must be resolved if the Italian economy and society are to revive. JEL codes: O52; O00; N14; D70.