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This paper aims to study the default risk of small and medium-sized enterprises in the construction sector.

An unbalanced sample of 2,754 Portuguese companies from the construction sector, from 2008 to 2020, is analysed. Companies are classified in default or compliant following an ex-ante criterion. Then, using the stepwise analysis, the most relevant variables are selected, which are later used in the logit model. To verify the robustness of the results, a sample of legally insolvent companies is added (mixed criterion) and the initial sample is split into two subperiods.

Financial variables are the most relevant to predict the pattern for this sample. The main conclusions show that smaller and older companies, more indebted, with more liquidity and with higher EBIT have a higher probability of default. These conclusions are confirmed using a mixed criterion to classify companies as default or compliant and including a macroeconomic dummy.

This work not only contributes to enlarging the literature review but also makes relevant contributions to practice. Companies from the construction sector can understand which indicators must control to avoid financial problems. The government also has relevant information that can help in adapting or creating regulations for recovering or revitalizing companies.

This study proposed an ex-ante criterion that can be used for all types of companies. Most works use a legal or a mixed criterion that does not allow for detecting signs of financial problems in advance. Moreover, the sample used is almost unexplored – SMEs from a sector with great mortality rate.

This study aims to advance knowledge on the direct impact of the investor’s protection level on the stock market volatility, that is, whether investor’s protection is an important stock market volatility determinant.

A panel data was estimated using a sample of 48 countries, from 2006 to 2018, totalizing 31,808 observations. To measure stock market volatility and the investor protection level, a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model and the World Bank Doing Business investor protection index were used, respectively.

The results evidence that the protection of investors’ rights reduces the stock market volatility. This result indicates that a high level of investor protection, which is the result of a better quality of laws and policies in place that protect investor’s rights, promotes the country as a “safe haven.”

The relationship that the authors intend to analyze becomes important, given that investor protection will give outsiders guarantees on the materialization of their investments. This study contributes important knowledge for investors and for the establishment of government policies as a way of attracting investment.

Although there have been a few studies addressing this relationship, to the knowledge, none of them directly analyses the influence of investor protection on the stock market volatility.

Shortly before the Second World War, a woman who had never accepted her orphan status, Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, nicknamed ‘Little Coco’ by her father and known as ‘Coco’ to her relatives, became the first women in history to build a world-class industrial empire. By 1935, Coco, a fashion designer and industry captain, was employing more than 4,000 workers and had sold more than 28,000 dresses, tailored jackets and women's suits. Born into a poor family and raised in an orphanage, she enjoyed an intense social life in Paris in the 1920s, rubbing shoulders with artists, creators and the rising stars of her time.

Thanks to her entrepreneurial skills, she was able to innovate in her methods and in her trendsetting approach to fashion design and promotion. Coco Chanel was committed and creative, had the soul of an entrepreneur and went on to become a world leader in a brand new sector combining fashion, accessories and perfumes that she would help shape. By the end of her life, she had redefined French elegance and revolutionized the way people dressed.