Selected Publications

M&A and private equity

• Bianchi, D., & Chiarella, C. (2019). An Anatomy of Industry Merger Waves. Journal of Financial Econometrics, 17(2), 153-179. 

Key finding: There is significant heterogeneity in the timing, persistence, and determinants of merger waves across industries, suggesting industry-specific rather than aggregate market-level drivers.

• Chiarella, C., & Ostinelli, D. (2020). Financial or strategic buyers: who is at the gate? International Review of Economics and Finance, 67, 393-407. 

Key finding: Financial sponsors and strategic buyers show non-synchronous M&A activity patterns. Financial sponsors' contributions to total M&A activity rise significantly with increasing risk-free rates and decrease with wider credit spreads and higher stock valuations, showing distinct reactions compared to strategic buyers across different financial market conditions.

• Battigalli, P., Chiarella, C., Gatti, S., & Orlando, T. (2024). The joint determination of the payment method and the bid premium in M&As: What is the role of firm opacity? European Financial Management, 30(4), 2195-2241.

Key finding: Firm opacity significantly affects the choice of payment method and bid premium in M&A, driven primarily by adverse selection and valuation risks. Highlighting the strategic decisions related to firm opacity and signaling effects, the likelihood of stock offers and the bid premium increase with the target’s opacity, while more opaque bidders are associated with fewer stock offers and smaller bid premiums.

Governance and regulation

• Chiarella, C., Cubillas, E. & Suárez, N. (2019). Bank recapitalization in Europe: informational content in the issuing method. Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money, 63, 101-134. 

Key finding: During crisis periods, rights issues by European banks are associated with significantly more negative abnormal stock returns compared to public offerings, particularly for smaller issues, larger banks, and less capitalized banks, highlighting investors' adverse perceptions about the issuing banks' financial health and expected costs of recapitalization..

• Caselli, S., Gatti, S., Chiarella, C., Gigante, G., & Negri, G. (2023). Do shareholders really matter for firm performance? Evidence from the ownership characteristics of Italian listed companies. International Review of Financial Analysis, 86, 102544. 

Key finding: Ownership concentration and specific shareholder characteristics significantly impact firm performance among Italian listed companies. Family and founder shareholders positively influence market valuation and profitability, whereas government ownership is associated with lower short-term profitability and market valuations.

Working Papers

• Supranational supervision and bank governance (with Pedro J. Cuadros-Solas and Ludovico Rossi).

Best Paper Award: Compliance and Strategy in International Banking Conference (2025, Rome).

Key finding: Supranational banking supervision under the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) in the Eurozone led banks to significantly enhance their governance structures, notably increasing board independence, reducing CEO duality, and appointing more senior independent directors, consequently improving asset quality and credit risk management.

• The dual impact of employment protection on corporate debt (with Pablo García-Estévez and Francisco González).

Key finding: Employment protection influences corporate leverage through two conflicting mechanisms, whose relative importance depends on the institutional setting. Increased employment protection negatively affects corporate leverage in environments with strong creditor rights by raising financial distress costs, but positively affects leverage in countries with powerful trade unions by increasing debt's utility as a bargaining mechanism.

Research in Progress

• The big innovation bang (with Diego Ostinelli).

Key finding: Stock market liberalization promotes corporate innovation of listed firms that are more equity finance dependent, more export oriented or operating in more competitive markets.

• Infrastructure asset pricing with factors: a new approach (with Carlo Favero and Stefano Gatti).

Key finding: Given a co-integrating relationship between infrastructure asset prices and the value of buy-and-hold portfolios in risk factors, deviations from long run equilibrium prices are predictors of future returns.

• Cyberattacks on banks (with Pedro J. Cuadros–Solas, Jose M. Martin-Flores and Ludovico Rossi).

• Sustainable investment principles and fiduciary duty: evidence from private equity (with Brunella Bruno and Stefano Gatti).

• Corporate governance transmission via stock exchanges (with Armen Arakelyan).

My Books and Case Studies