Skip to content

Research#

Working Papers#

  • "Signaling with words or debt? The effect of voluntary disclosure on external public financing choices," Job Market Paper.
    Draft available upon request
    Summary
    Main Figure of Oldrini (2025)

    This paper examines how voluntary disclosure shapes capital structure choices between debt and equity in public markets under information asymmetry. I develop a model in which voluntary disclosure and debt issues are alternative signaling devices: disclosure complements equity and substitutes for debt. Good-type firms—those with higher future profitability—choose optimally between issuing debt or pairing disclosure with equity issues based on their relative costs, i.e., proprietary and bankruptcy costs. In a sample of U.S. public firms from 2003 to 2024, I find that, for good-type firms, disclosure is positively related to equity issues and negatively related to bond issues. Cross-sectional tests exploiting variation in proprietary disclosure costs and bankruptcy costs support the prediction that firms with higher disclosure costs are less likely to use the disclosure-equity bundle and issue debt instead, and that firms with higher bankruptcy costs are less likely to issue debt and use the disclosure-equity bundle instead. Two quasi-natural experiments—the 2005 Securities Offering Reform and the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—support a causal interpretation of this substitution effect. This paper reconciles empirical inconsistencies in corporate finance theories by providing a mechanism that rationalizes equity issuance by many good-type firms.

    Presented at: Wharton Accounting Workshop, Philadelphia (2025); Doctoral Seminar in Accounting Research, Zurich (2024).

  • "I need a network: determinants and real effects of bond roadshows," with Mingxuan Ma and Sike Chen.
    SSRN link
    Summary
    Main Figure of Chen, Ma, Oldrini (2025)

    We examine why firms hold roadshows when issuing bonds and their ex-post real effects on the cost of debt. We begin by conducting surveys with both bond issuers and underwriters, which reveal divergent priors regarding the reasons for bond roadshows. Underwriters claim that bond roadshows serve an informational role, while bond issuers claim that they serve a marketing role. We test these competing hypotheses in the German public corporate bond market (2014–2023). Consistent with the marketing view, we find that bond roadshows increase investor attention and primary market demand, and help issuers build networks of institutional investors. On the real effects of bond roadshows, we find that they are associated with a lower cost of debt and substitute for costly underpricing, since they compensate primary-market investors through early awareness provision. To our knowledge, this is the first study to jointly analyze the determinants and consequences of bond roadshows. We contribute to the literature by establishing that bond roadshows are structurally distinct from equity roadshows, which serve an informational role and are associated with underpricing.

    Presented at: Hawaii Accounting Research Conference (HARC) 2026 (scheduled)*; Poster session of the Rising Scholar Conference in Finance, Zurich (2025); Doctoral Seminar in Accounting Research, Zurich (2025)*.

  • "Mandatory Sustainability Reporting and Project Selection," with Hui Chen.
    SSRN link
    Summary
    Main Figure of Chen and Oldrini (2024)

    We examine the implications of a regulatory shift in sustainability reporting from voluntary to mandated regime in a market with responsible investors. A myopic manager must choose between a brown project and a green project, both of which generate an uncertain financial return and an environmental externality. Since the information quality on externality is not perfect, the manager always under-invests in the green project in both reporting regimes, but more severely so in the voluntary regime due to the optional value voluntary disclosure provides in concealing bad information. Adopting mandatory disclosure thus improves firms' sustainability performance and investor welfare. However, considering the costs associated with mandatory disclosure, it is more efficient only when the quality of a firm's sustainability information is sufficiently high. To ensure an efficient shift to sustainability disclosure mandates, firms should first improve the quality of their sustainability information systems.

    Presented at: Raising Scholars Conference on Sustainable Finance, Zurich (2024); 15th Workshop on Accounting and Economics WU, Vienna (2024); Doctoral Seminar in Analytical Accounting Research, Zurich (2023); 1st Interdisciplinary Workshop on Sustainability and ESG Dynamics LIUC Università Cattaneo, Milano (2023).

* stands for co-author presentation

Work in Progress#

  • "Environmental feedback effect," with Daniela Zipperer.
  • "When horizons converge: investor selection, firm output and aggregate welfare," with Igli Bajo.