What determines IPO underpricing ? Evidence from a frontier market

This paper empirically analyzes the short run performance of Tunisian initial public offerings (IPO). It sheds light on the determinants of IPO’s in a context of a frontier market characterized by high information asymmetry, low information efficiency, thin trading and the presence of “noise” traders. Using a sample of 34 Tunisian IPO’s from the period 1992-2008, we find that the average market adjusted initial return for the first three trading days is about 17.8 percent. The level of underpricing is related to retained capital, underwriter’s price support, oversubscription, listing delay and the offer price. Age of the firm, its size and the size of the offer do not seem to reduce the amount of money left on the table by issuers. It appears also that underpricing is driven by irrational investors (ipoers) seeking for short-run capital gains. These results remain unchanged after controlling for the presence of institutional investors and the existence of liquidity contract.Initial public offerings; Short-run underpricing; Underwriter’s price support.

Microfinance Institutions’ Efficiency in the MENA Region: a Bootstrap-DEA approach

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of microfinance institutions in The MENA region over the period 2006-2009. Following Simar and Wilson (1998, 2000) we use a DEA-Bootstrapping methodology to drift appropriate measures of DEA efficiency scores. The estimated results show that average efficiency of the most countries in the region has decreased over the period under study. Results also reveal that efficiency significantly differs by legal status of the microfinance institutions. Keywords: Microfinance, DEA, Bootstrap, MENA

The Impact of Retailer Brand Name Substitution on Consumer Trust

Purpose: The aim of this article is to understand the impact of retailer brand name substitution on consumer trust.   Theoretical Framework: Drawing on existing research on product brand substitution, the paper introduces variables that could influence consumer trust in situations where a brand name is substituted.   Design/Methodology/Approach:  To achieve this goal, a quantitative study was conducted among 351 Tunisian consumers to test the hypotheses and quantify the impact of each variable.   Findings: The results of this research highlight three variables that can contribute to building consumer trust during a retailer brand name substitution, namely: (1) communication about the change; (2) perceived similarity and (3) perceived benefits derived from the change. The results also indicated that consumer attachment has a moderating effect on the relationship between trust and its determinants. More precisely, the stronger the attachment to the initial retailer brand, the more the consumer's trust in the brand decreases after the brand substitution.   Research, Practical & Social implications: This paper assists practitioners in identifying the key success determinants that can facilitate the transfer of consumer trust from the old retailer brand to the new one. It provides guidance for a successful retailer brand name substitution.   Originality/Value: This research fulfils an identified need to study how consumers’ trust in a brand can be transferred successfully in the case of a retailer brand name substitution

Dynamic Modelling by Bond Graph Approach of Convective Drying Phenomena

Drying operations play an important role in food industries. They are often the last operation of the process of manufacturing a product, with a strong influence on the final quality. The processes are numerous and depend on the type and amount of product to be dried and water to be evaporated, the desired final quality, or the desired functionality for the dried product. In this chapter, we present a modeling study of heat transfer during drying a moist agricultural product placed in a hot air flow in a tunnel dryer with partial solar heating. The bond graph approach has been used for system modeling, and it is an object-oriented graphical approach based on an energetic description between subsystems. Some drying tests have been carried out on tomatoes and the experimental results are compared with the theoretical results for the validation of the developed model

Diamond module for the Lie algebra so(2n+1,C)\mathfrak{so}(2n+1,\mathbb C)

The diamond cone is a combinatorial description for a basis of an indecomposable module for the nilpotent factor $\mathfrak n$ of a semi simple Lie algebra. After N. J. Wildberger who introduced this notion, this description was achevied for $\mathfrak{sl}(n)$, the rank 2 semi-simple Lie algebras and $\mathfrak{sp}(2n)$. In the present work, we generalize these constructions to the Lie algebras $\mathfrak{so}(2n+1)$. The orthogonal semistandard Young tableaux were defined by M. Kashiwara and T. Nakashima, they form a basis for the shape algebra of $\mathfrak{so}(2n+1)$. Defining the notion of orthogonal quasistandard Young tableaux, we prove these tableaux give a basis for the diamond module for $\mathfrak{so}(2n+1)$

Linear temporal and spatio-temporal stability analysis of a binary liquid film flowing down an inclined uniformly heated plate

Temporal and spatio-temporal instabilities of binary liquid films flowing down an inclined uniformly heated plate with Soret effect are investigated by using the Chebyshev collocation method to solve the full system of linear stability equations. Seven dimensionless parameters, i.e. the Kapitza, Galileo, Prandtl, Lewis, Soret, Marangoni, and Biot numbers (Ka, G, Pr, L, X, M, B), as well as the inclination angle (beta) are used to control the flow system. In the case of pure spanwise perturbations, thermocapillary S- and P-modes are obtained. It is found that the most dangerous modes are stationary for positive Soret numbers (chi >= 0), and oscillatory for chi 0 and even merges with the long-wave S-mode. In the case of streamwise perturbations, a long-wave surface mode (H-mode) is also obtained. From the neutral curves, it is found that larger Soret numbers make the film flow more unstable as do larger Marangoni numbers. The increase of these parameters leads to the merging of the long-wave H- and S-modes, making the situation long-wave unstable for any Galileo number. It also strongly influences the short-wave P-mode which becomes the most critical for large enough Galileo numbers. Furthermore, from the boundary curves between absolute and convective instabilities (AI/CI) calculated for both the long-wave instability (S- and H-modes) and the short-wave instability (P-mode), it is shown that for small Galileo numbers the AI/CI boundary curves are determined by the long-wave instability, while for large Galileo numbers they are determined by the short-wave instability