Mohamed A. Ayadi, Nesrine Ayadi and Samir Trabelsi
This paper aims to analyze the effects of internal and external governance mechanisms on the performance and risk taking of banks from the Euro zone before and after the 2008…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the effects of internal and external governance mechanisms on the performance and risk taking of banks from the Euro zone before and after the 2008 financial crisis.
Design/methodology/approach
To avoid macroeconomic problems and shocks and because of data availability, the authors select some countries of the Euro zone, namely, France, Belgium, Germany and Finland, during the 2004-2009 period. These countries share similar macroeconomic environments (unemployment, inflation and economic growth rates). All the data relating to the banks are manually drawn from the supervising reports submitted to banks and are available on the banks’ websites and/or on that of the AMF website. The banks included in our sample are drawn from the list of European central banks on www.ecb.int
Findings
The empirical results show that banks undertake tradeoffs between different governance mechanisms to alleviate the intensity of the agency conflicts between the shareholders and managers. The findings also confirm that internal mechanisms and capital regulations are complementary and significantly impact bank performance.
Research limitations/implications
This analysis can be extended through studying the interaction between bondholders’ governance and shareholders’ governance and their impact on the 2008 financial crisis.
Practical implications
The changes in banking governance help banks find a useful and necessary way to avoid ill-considered risks that can cause a systemic risk. Therefore, some conditions should be met so that banking governance can contribute to the economic development.
Social implications
Culture and mentality of good banking governance must grow as much as possible through awareness-raising, training, promotion, recognition of performance, enhancing procedure transparency and stability of good banking governance and regulations, strengthening the national capacity to fight against corruption, and preventive mechanisms.
Originality/value
This paper complements previous studies, mainly those of Andres and Vallelado (2008) who examine the impact of the components of the board on banking performance and of Laeven and Levine (2009) who estimate the combined effect of regulatory and ownership structure on the risk-taking of each bank.
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Mohamed A. Ayadi, Anis Chaibi and Lawrence Kryzanowski
Prior research has documented inconclusive and/or mixed empirical evidence on the timing performance of hybrid funds. Their performance inferences generally do not efficiently…
Abstract
Purpose
Prior research has documented inconclusive and/or mixed empirical evidence on the timing performance of hybrid funds. Their performance inferences generally do not efficiently control for fixed-income exposure, conditioning information, and cross-correlations in fund returns. This study examines the stock and bond timing performances of hybrid funds while controlling and accounting for these important issues. It also discusses the inferential implications of using alternative bootstrap resampling approaches.
Design/methodology/approach
We examine the stock and bond timing performances of hybrid funds using (un)conditional multi-factor benchmark models with robust estimation inferences. We also rely on the block bootstrap method to account for cross-correlations in fund returns and to separate the effects of luck or sampling variation from manager skill.
Findings
We find that the timing performance of portfolios of funds is neutral and sensitive to controlling for fixed-income exposures and choice of the timing measurement model. The block-bootstrap analyses of funds in the tails of the distributions of stock timing performances suggest that sampling variation explains the underperformance of extreme left tail funds and confirms the good and bad luck in the bond timing management of tail funds. We report inference changes based on whether the Kosowski et al. or the Fama and French bootstrap approach is used.
Originality/value
This study provides extensive and robust evidence on the stock and bond timing performances of hybrid funds and their sensitivity based on (un)conditional linear multi-factor benchmark models. It examines the timing performances in the extreme tails funds using the block bootstrap method to efficiently identify (un)skilled fund managers. It also highlights the sensitivity of inferences to the choice of testing methodology.
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Mohamed A. Ayadi, Walid Ben Omrane, Jiayu Wang and Robert Welch
This study aims to better understand the effects of speeches as a valuable communication tool for central banks. It extends the analysis of the effects of public speeches on jumps…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to better understand the effects of speeches as a valuable communication tool for central banks. It extends the analysis of the effects of public speeches on jumps to determine whether individual speakers matter partly because of their name, position or institution.
Design/methodology/approach
This study detects intraday jumps using a robust-to-jump volatility estimator that accounts for deterministic seasonality. As a result, this study removes spurious jumps that occur when volatility is high and consider the relatively small jumps that occur when volatility is low. After identifying jumps, this study examines their reactions to senior official speeches and macroeconomic news surrounding the US and European Union (EU) financial crises.
Findings
Despite having the most influential individual speakers, this study finds that the impact of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and European Central Bank (ECB) is mitigated because the two institutions have a relatively small impact on currency jumps. This finding shows that the speaker’s name is more important than his or her institution affiliation. While the Federal Reserve Bank President and Chief Executive, as well as ECB board members, significantly reduce jump sizes, particularly during the EU crisis period, both the Fed Chairman and the ECB President increase the magnitude of the jump in both the US crisis and noncrisis periods, contributing to market instability.
Practical implications
The implications of the results include international portfolio management, currency derivatives pricing and hedging, risk management and market efficiency.
Originality/value
The findings contribute to a better understanding of the effects of senior official speech attributes on currency jumps in various economic states. The results raise questions about the speaker’s name, institution and position’s effectiveness in calming markets and reducing uncertainty.
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Mohamed A. Ayadi, Skander Lazrak and Dan Xing
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of bankruptcy protection duration of Canadian public firms, and also investigate the duration for various bankruptcy…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of bankruptcy protection duration of Canadian public firms, and also investigate the duration for various bankruptcy outcomes including the liquidation and re-emergence of bankrupt firms.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses data on all Canadian public firms that applied for bankruptcy protection over the period 1992–2014. The authors mainly apply duration and survival analyses to draw the main conclusions.
Findings
The authors find that larger and older firms with more complicated structures and issues to settle tend to remain under protection from creditors longer, and also ascertain that the fate of relatively successful companies is determined faster. Moreover, the authors report that it takes less time to achieve a final solution for firms under bankruptcy protection when interest rates are increasing and the term spread is high. Finally, firms that file for protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) spend longer restructuring than firms that file under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.
Research limitations/implications
The paper investigates only publicly listed firms. The data on private firms that are required to conduct the research are not available.
Practical implications
Various stakeholders including regulators can predict the bankruptcy protection period using the paper’s findings. Depending on the desired outcomes (reduce uncertainly, safeguard jobs or protect creditors’ rights), specific rules can be followed.
Originality/value
To the authors; knowledge, this is the first paper that investigates the Canadian bankruptcy protection duration. It uses the unique Canadian framework to infer the determinants of bankruptcy protection duration and bankrupt firms’ outcomes.
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Ahmed Ayadi, Haythem Nasraoui, Zied Driss, Abdallah Bouabidi and Mohamed Salah Abid
The purpose of this paper is to study a solar thermal system. Solar chimney power plants (SCPPs) produce electrical energy and thermal heat from solar radiation. The thermal study…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study a solar thermal system. Solar chimney power plants (SCPPs) produce electrical energy and thermal heat from solar radiation. The thermal study of SCPPs is required, as these solar systems are characterized by high costs.
Design/methodology/approach
This study presents a numerical study of unsteady airflow characteristics inside an SCPP. In fact, the generated power of the SCPP depends on environmental conditions. To validate this study, a solar prototype is built in the National School of Engineers of Sfax, University of Sfax, Tunisia, North Africa. The system is mainly composed by a collector, an absorber, a chimney and a turbine. The collector diameter is 2750 mm, the collector roof height is 50 mm, the chimney height is 3,000 mm and the turbine diameter is 150 mm.
Findings
The local characteristics of the air flow are presented and analyzed, such as the distribution of the temperature, the magnitude velocity and the total pressure. Analysis confirms that ambient air temperature and solar radiation are important environmental variables for the improvement of solar chimney efficiency.
Originality/value
Although much work has been done to date, it has been noted that the most published works have presented the profiles of air velocity and air temperature in a specific position within the solar setup. However, these profiles could sometimes be misinterpreted. In fact, some researchers did not focus on the distribution of air temperature, air velocity and pressure. These parameters are important to optimize the solar system. Indeed, the most published works deal with a larger prototype, such as the Manzanares prototype. However, it has not found connections between larger and small prototypes of SCPP.
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Mohamed Turki, Hamden Zahrani, Meriem Ayadi, Monem Kallel and Jalel Bouzid
The purpose of this study is to focus on Tunisian tannery sector that causes a considerable damage to the environment and consequently leads to serious health problems due to the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to focus on Tunisian tannery sector that causes a considerable damage to the environment and consequently leads to serious health problems due to the untreated effluents generated from the various leather processing stages.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper discusses a voluntary initiative taken by the top managers of tannery enterprise to prevent pollution and disseminate the concept of eco-industrial activities between employees and stakeholders. In addition, this research assesses the performance of such treatment that characterizes the chemical parameters of generated pollutants. It also aims at optimizing the industrial process for cleaner production. Coagulation–flocculation process is investigated in this study. Moreover, oxidation phase by ozone is taking into account before and after coagulation–flocculation process to measure the effectiveness of the combined method for reducing the main pollutant concentrations.
Findings
The unhairing and chrome (Cr) tanning steps are considered the most polluting steps. Therefore, the application of various treatment techniques, including chemical and physicochemical processes, is realized to reduce the toxicity of the effluents. The correlation between experimental and modeling results, using artificial neural network (ANN) method, was investigated in this research. The results of the constructed ANN model are measured by the correlation of experimental and model results during coagulation–flocculation and oxidation stages. The validation of the elaborated model through the error calculation (MSE) and the correlation coefficient (R) confirm the reliability of ANN method.
Originality/value
Eventually, the establishment of ANN model for performance prediction of wastewater parameters is investigated due to different measurements of physical effluent outputs, such as: pH, turbidity, TSS, DS, COD, fat, TSS, S2- and Cr. This study uses predictive modeling, a machine learning technique to tackle the problem of accurately predicting the behavior of unseen configuration.
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Moez Ayadi, Mohamed Amine Fakhfakh, Moez Ghariani and Rafik Neji
Power modules including the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) are widely used in the applications of motor drivers. The thermal behavior of these modules makes it important…
Abstract
Purpose
Power modules including the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) are widely used in the applications of motor drivers. The thermal behavior of these modules makes it important to choose the optimum design of cooling system. The purpose of this paper is to propose an RC thermal model of the dynamic electro‐thermal behavior of IGBT pulse width modulation inverter modules.
Design/methodology/approach
The electrothermal model has been implemented and simulated with a MATLAB simulator and takes into account the thermal influence between the different module chips based on the technique of superposition.
Findings
This study has led to a correction of the junction temperature values estimated from the transient thermal impedance of each component operating alone.
Originality/value
In this paper, an experimental technique of a thermal influence evaluation is presented.
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This chapter covers the effect of country's economic and political situation on sustainability reporting disclosure (in particular the corporate social responsibility aspect). The…
Abstract
This chapter covers the effect of country's economic and political situation on sustainability reporting disclosure (in particular the corporate social responsibility aspect). The first section discusses the previous empirical studies in this topic. Based on this, the second section develops the theoretical framework in order to examines the moderating role of a country's economic activities (GDP) and political or institutional quality (IQ) on the relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and a banks' operational, financial and market performance. For this purpose, we used ordinary least square (OLS), panel fixed-effect regression and IV-GMM to estimate the parameters of the models. We find that the CSRD scores negatively influences bank's performance. The moderator of CRSD and the level of economic activities have a positive influence on that bank's performance. However, the moderator (CRSD and country's institutional quality), while showing positive relationship with bank's performance, has a significant effect only on bank's operational and financial performance.
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Tafadzwa Thelmah Chitenderu and Ronney Ncwadi
African countries inevitably take loans due to lack of fiscal space more so, due to the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic in Africa, several loans and bailouts are…
Abstract
African countries inevitably take loans due to lack of fiscal space more so, due to the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic in Africa, several loans and bailouts are expected from the West. These loans come with conditions which have policy implications. This study aims at examining the impact of loans received by selected African countries from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank during the period 1994 to 2020. The study makes use of a cross sectional panel data analysis and quantile regression models. Results indicate that IMF loans had a positively but insignificant impact on GDP whilst World Bank loans and debt service to export ratio negatively affect GDP. These finding suggest that loans are not a necessary evil in Africa but what matters is targeting debt towards growth priorities. This study recommends that policies should be put to direct the use of loans towards economic growth and sustainability in Africa.
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Anis Omri, Maha Ayadi Frikha and Mohamed Amine Bouraoui
The purpose of this paper is to develop a mediational model of small businesses success. In this paper, the authors investigate how the human, social, and financial capital of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a mediational model of small businesses success. In this paper, the authors investigate how the human, social, and financial capital of entrepreneurs influences the capacity of small business to succeed. The objective through this model is to demonstrate that it is through the process of innovation these capitals are converted into success.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper suggests an original, conceptual framework for how small businesses can succeed.
Findings
To validate this mediational model, the authors used the conditions/steps proposed by Baron and Kenny (1986).
Research limitations/implications
The results of this study have implications for both research and practice. This study provides a new contribution to the existing literature by introducing the innovation in the explanation of the links between these capitals and small business success, i.e. business with greater access to human and financial resources are more likely to undertake an innovation, which, in turn, ensures small business success and access to more financial capital facilitates the pursuit of resource-intensive success strategies because, it is argued, that slack resources can be used for experimentation with new strategies and practices, allowing the business to pursue new opportunities of success.
Practical implications
The proposition is consistent that managers with considerable human capital, social, and finacial capital know where to look for opportunities, can more accurately assess the value of potential opportunities, and have the ability to exploit these opportunities, which encourages innovation. It is this innovation that then facilitates small business success. These resources are important to achieve small business success, but primarily because they encourage innovation, and it is the innovation that drives the small business success.
Originality/value
In this paper, the authors extend the entrepreneurial literature by developing a mediation model of small business success. To the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study that examined the indirect effect of human, social, and financial capital of entrepreneurs on small business success through the mediation of innovation. This model has the indirect effect of human, social, and financial capital on success through their impact on innovation, i.e., through the innovation process such capital is converted into success.