“…In a relevant part of this literature (e.g., Altman, 1968;Andrew, 1986;Beaver, 1967;Edmister, 1972;Fulmer, Moon, Gavin, & Erwin, 1984;Lugovskaja, 2009;Nam & Jinn, 2000;Pindado & Rodrigues, 2004;Pompe & Bilderbeek, 2005;Zenzerović, 2009) a "matched-pairs" design has been used, implying a sample with 50% of the observations being from bankrupt firms. 13 The main aim of this research is to highlight the effect of a group of independent variables (financial ratios and corporate governance characteristics) on the likelihood that a small firm may go bankrupt, and not to represent (and investigate) the behavior of the entire population of Italian small firms.…”