ECTS: 12

Year: 1

Semester: II

Instructors: Sara De Masi, Maria Cristina Arcuri

 

Corporate Governance - Sara De Masi

Corporate governance deals with the set of policies, process and customs by which an organization is directed. This course aims to provide a deep understanding of the fundamentals of corporate governance from a variety of angles – the board of directors, senior management, investors, media, regulators and society – and from an international perspective.

After a highlight on the main corporate governance systems (US, Italy, Germany and develloping countries), relevant theories and issues of corporate governance practices will be analyzed (i.e., ownership and control, conflict of interests, board of directors, institutional environments, managerial incentives). Students will gain skills required for understanding corporate behaviors. They will be introduced to issues in corporate governance through lectures, class discussions and cases study.

Course overview:

Definitions of corporate governance; main theories; corporate governance systems around the world (outsider systems versus insider systems); Boards of directors: roles and functions, composition and gender diversity; CEO compensation and stock options; Corporate governance codes, Corporate governance in banks. 

 

 

Firms’ Financing and Financial Markets - Federica Ielasi

The course aims to provide a complete overview of corporate funding strategies. The financial decisions of entrepreneurial firms at various phases of their life cycle will be examined, and the advantages and disadvantages of various sources of financing will be compared.

The course is structured in three parts:

a) The first part focuses on the financial system in general, analyzing the role of the European Central Bank and the monetary policy in affecting the financial markets, and then tackle the issues related to the theory of financial intermediations and market efficiency.

b) The second part of the course focuses on the firm funding strategies, distinguishing between market funding and bank debt. After analyzing the company life cycle, the course studies in deep the stock and the bond market: how they work and what they are for; the role of investment banks in the IPO operation and in the issue of bonds, with a specific focus on the issue of Mini-Bond. Secondly, it investigates the role of some important market players involved in certain phases of business life cycle, such as business angel and venture capital.

c) The last part of the course analyses the bank-company relationship and bank debt. In particular, the documentation that companies must provide to banks and the credit rating as a fundamental element in determining the cost of bank debt will be analyzed in greater depth.

Students will be involved in group works, with a specific differentiation between the curriculum in Development Economics and the curriculum in Economics.