The board of directors plays an important role in corporate governance. It is an internal mechanism that controls and monitors the actions of managers and aligns the utility functions between corporate owners and managers. The board of directors performs multiple functions that concern, for...

Purpose: The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between the debt and ownership structure of a sample of Italian listed companies in order to measure the role assumed in the control and monitoring of agency costs.Design/methodology/approach: This study examines a balanced...

This study investigates the relationship between agency costs and ownership structure for a sample of listed Italian companies to determine the impact of shareholder coalitions on agency costs. Using a balanced panel dataset of 1,956 firm-year observations for the period 2002−2013, the results...

Using a panel dataset of non-financial public companies in Italy covering the period 2005–2013, this paper provides an empirical analysis of the relationship between female representation on corporate boards and corporate debt. The presence of women in the boardroom might seem to push...