Finance

2025-03-03 Andrea Beltratti, Alessia Bezzecchi

Finance for Europe

In his latest report on Europe’s present and future competitiveness, Mario Draghi argues that Europe is in a paradoxical situation: it appears stable but has unknowingly fallen ill. It has set ambitious environmental targets, possibly beyond its reach, while neglecting applied business research and struggling with the ambiguity between national sovereignty and the role of supranational institutions. Rather than treating terminal illnesses, can we still prevent the worst through proactive interventions? And can finance play a role? Europe in the Third MillenniumIt is easy to overlook Europe’s ...

Read

2024-12-20 Andrea Beltratti e Alessia Bezzecchi

Real Estate Securitizations 7.2: Benefits for Corporate Finance

Europe is undergoing a gradual transition that is reshaping the relationship between financial resources provided by intermediaries and those raised from the markets. As noted by President Draghi a decade ago, the financing landscape in Europe was significantly different from that in the United States, with intermediaries dominating the European continent and markets prevailing in the US. The bank-centric model proved to be less resilient during the crisis of peripheral countries, where the need to recapitalize banks led to credit tightening, which disproportionately affected small and medium-sized ...

Read

2024-10-16 Andrea Beltratti, Alessia Bezzecchi

Transition Finance, Sustainability and AI

In recent years, major European banks have developed a list of sectors populated by companies with high CO2 emissions. The concept of "transition finance" is primarily about working with these companies to identify and achieve shared decarbonization goals, typically by 2030. However, as we know, in economics "everything is interconnected," so the list may not be exhaustive or entirely stable, requiring updates based on new information. Which sectors are most scrutinized, and which should be closely monitored? What should companies do to align more closely with stakeholders' expectations ...

Read

2024-09-03 Andrea Beltratti, Alessia Bezzecchi

AI and the Future of Work in Finance

In the 1991 movie Judgment Day, Terminator says, “My CPU is a neural-net processor; a learning computer. The more contact I have with humans, the more I learn.” The effects of the nuclear war started by machines to exterminate humanity in the film have left a profound impact on how many people think about the use of artificial intelligence. For decades, concerns about the growing power of machines were limited to a few, but the exponential increase in the learning capabilities of new systems, particularly those that are part of generative AI, has begun to stir anxiety among academics and managers. ...

Read

2024-06-24 Andrea Beltratti, Alessia Bezzecchi

Green Houses: the Economic and Environmental Impact of Sustainable Living

Attention to the environment and sustainability has become a central theme in our daily lives, influencing various sectors, including construction. Green houses exemplify a classic "Tragedy of the Commons" problem, requiring public intervention to reduce negative externalities, primarily attributed to CO2 emissions. The issue stems from the poor quality of housing stock, built and maintained for decades without renovation, leading to associated energy inefficiency. Green house legislation directly intervenes by prescribing physical objectives, presenting itself as an alternative to taxation or ...

Read

2024-04-16 Andrea Beltratti, Alessia Bezzecchi

CFO and AI: an Evolution Starting from Afar

The Financial Times recently argued that the role of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is changing as a result of the increasing introduction of Artificial Intelligence in the enterprise, which enables the availability of analytical and predictive tools. It is hard to disagree: academic research supports with econometric models that the use of predictive analytics enables a productivity improvement amounting to about 3 percent of revenues for companies in the United States. But can we really say that the role of the CFO is suddenly changing because of algorithmic innovations? We believe not. ...

Read