Prof. Francesco Celentano

Francesco Celentano is Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Lausanne. In 2019 he was awarded a Summer Dissertation Fellowship by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Professor Celentano studies how firm intangibility—a dependence on intangible assets such as patents and intellectual property—impacts the amount of private information CEOs have and reduces the odds of their firms becoming publicly listed. Data on US firms shows that CEOs of public, relatively intangible firms are paid more than CEOs of public, highly tangible firms. At the same time, highly intangible firms tend to be privately owned more often. These results help explain the heterogeneous increase in CEO remuneration when comparing publicly to privately held firms and tangible to intangible firms and contribute to our further understanding of the decrease in the number of publicly listed firms that has been observable over recent decades. Policies aimed at reducing hidden information frictions and increasing the transparency of intangible assets would contribute to reducing market distortions.

• Financial Institutions
  • Venture Capital and Private Equity
• Corporate Finance and Governance
  • Capital Budgeting and Investment Policy
  • Corporate Governance and Managerial Compensation
  • Financing Policy and Capital Structure