Contemporary Issues in Sustainable Finance

Mario La Torre is currently full professor in Banking and Finance at the Department of Management, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. Mario does research in Banking, Financial Intermediaries and Financial Markets, Impact Finance and Ethical Finance, and Finance for Culture and Media Industry. He is the author and co-author of many international books and papers and is the editor of the series Palgrave Studies in Impact Finance. Mario is Responsible for the Center for Positive Finance and has promoted the University Alliance for Positive Finance; he is the author of the Blog "Good in Finance".Sabrina Leo is a Tenure Track Assistant Professor at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. She is a Lecturer in Bank accounts strategies and performance and Digital Banking and Economics of Financial Intermediaries. Her primary areas of research are related to traditional topics and innovative ones. The first is related to the banking and financial market, credit management policies and financial intermediaries, the regulation of non-bank financial intermediaries. The second looks at DLT, Digital Payments, IT Governance in banks, Microfinance, Impact and Sustainable Banking, Social Impact Finance, Audio-visual, and Art Finance. More recently, she has been focusing on innovation in the payment system and the impact of technologies in the financial system. She is the author and co-author of many international papers, and co-author of national books. She is a Research Fellow of D€A – Digital Euro Association. She was a Scientific Observer of the Italian Advisory Board at the G8 Task Force on Social Impact Investments.

• 1. Introduction.- Section 1.- 2. How to scale impact investments? Evaluating the application of the Synthetic Control Method in impact measurement.- 3. Impact investments measurement: bridging research and practice.- 4. ESG Ratings, scores, and opinions. The state of the art in literature.- Section 2.- 5. Corporate financial performance and ESG performance: which one leads European banks?.- 6. Is performance the key issue in SRI funds? Conclusion and lessons learned from three decades of studies.- 7. The financial side of the Social Impact Bond: the determinants of the returns.- 8. Catastrophe Bonds: A Mitigation Opportunity In Turmoil Period.- Section 3.- 9. Collaboration or Community? The Impact of the Institutional Forces in Promoting Social Crowdfunding.- 10. Financial Inclusion and the Gender Gap across Islamic and non-Islamic Countries.