Prof. Gioia Pescetto (UK)

I joined the University of Portsmouth as Dean of the Business School in September 2011. I hold a PhD from Durham University (UK), a Master in Economics from the University of Maryland (USA), and a Laurea in Political Sciences (Economics) from the University of Turin (Italy). I started my academic career in 1985 at the University of Surrey, after working in corporate banking in the City of London, and subsequently held academic posts at Brunel University, Durham University, where I was Associate Dean Postgraduate Studies in the Business School, and Canterbury Christ Church University, where I was Dean of the Faculty of Business and Management. I have lectured extensively in microeconomics, corporate finance, investment analysis, and research methods. I am an experienced doctoral supervisor and several of my former doctoral students are academics in universities both abroad and in the UK. When I moved to an academic career, my experience in corporate banking inspired the early focus of my research in banking and financial markets. More recently my research interests have widened to corporate and behavioural finance. Earlier work in this area includes investigations into the cost of capital of the then newly privatised regulated utilities, particularly in the telecommunications and water industries. Subsequent and current research areas include the determinants of capital and debt maturity structure in listed companies; the performance of cross-border mergers and acquisitions of listed and private companies; how investors in value and glamour stocks use financial information; and how managers may ‘manipulate’ earnings to give signals to investors about the future prospects for their companies and to avoid sharp share price adjustments.