RATING AND OTHER FACTORS EXPLAINING THE CORPORATE CREDIT SPREAD: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM TUNISIAN BOND MARKET

This is an examination of the determinants of corporate bond credit spreads using both primary and secondary market spreads for Tunisian corporate bonds. The factors which I use as explanatory variables in our estimations can be divided into three categories: market variables, issue and issuer characteristics. To some extent, these three categories correspond to the different types of risk, namely interest rate risk, liquidity risk and credit risk. Using OLS regressions, our empirical results indicate that primary market spreads are sensible to issue characteristics such as rating. Also, spreads observed in secondary market are sensible to market variables namely Exchange Index and Slope, characteristics issuers and issues (Rating and Time to maturity). This is the first study to indicate that the explanatory power of factors depends of spreads modelled. Hence, corporate credit spreads are driven by both default and interest rate risk for the secondary market and only by default risk for the primary market.credit spread, interest rate risk, liquidity risk, rating

L'impact du changement des limites de rating internes sur la performance du fonds ECOFI Convertibles Euro

L'objectif de ce travail est de réaliser une étude d'événements sur un fonds commun de placement afin de mesurer l'impact d'un changement de limites de rating internes sur la performance du fonds en question. Les données utilisées sont quotidiennes et portent à la fois sur le fonds ECOFI Convertibles Euro de la société de gestion : ECOFI Investissements et sur son benchmark Exane Convertibles Index Euro sur la période allant de juillet 2010 à novembre 2011. Un test non paramétrique, le t-test est appliqué afin de s'assurer de la significativité des résultats, c'est-à-dire, le changement des limites de rating internes a-t-il un effet sur la performance du fonds. Les résultats que nous obtenons montrent que le changement des limites de rating internes a eu un impact sur la performance, l'actif net et la volatilité du fonds. Ces conclusions mettent en évidence l'impact de ce changement qui est intervenu durant la vie de ce fonds. Par ailleurs, nous avons traité une question théorique qui porte sur l'intérêt des obligations convertibles comme moyen de financement des entreprises non cotées

Technology professional development for principals: Impact on the integration of technology in elementary schools

The use of technology in schools is no longer the topic of educational debates, but how to ensure that technology is used effectively continues to be the focal point of discussions. The role of the principal in facilitating the successful integration of technology in the school is well established. To that end, the Florida Department of Education implemented the FloridaLeaders.net: a three-year professional development project in technology for school administrators. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of this professional development project on integrating technology in elementary schools. The study compared a group of schools whose principals have participated in the FloridaLeaders.net (FLN) program with schools whose principals have not participated in the program. The National Technology Standards for School Administrators and the National Technology Standards for Teachers were used as the framework to assess technology integration. The sample consisted of three groups of educators: principals (n = 47), media specialists (n = 110), and teachers (n = 167). Three areas of technology utilization were investigated: (a) the use of technology in management and operations, (b) the use of technology in teaching and learning, and (c) the use of technology for assessment and evaluation. Analyses of variances were used to examine the differences in the perceptions and use of technology in each of the three areas, among the three groups of educators. The findings indicated that the difference between FLN and non-FLN schools was not statistically significant in most of the technology indicators. The difference was however significant in two cases: (a) The use of technology for assessment and evaluation, and (b) The level of technology infrastructure in FLN schools. Additionally, all FLN and non-FLN groups reported the need for technology training for teachers to provide them with the necessary know-how to effectively integrate technology into the classrooms. These findings would indicate that FloridaLeaders.net was not effective in integrating technology in schools over and above other current efforts. It is therefore concluded that the FLN project had some favorable impact but had not met all of its stated objectives

Liquidity and corporate yield spreads: lessons from Tunisian bond market

This paper explores the role of liquidity risk in the pricing of corporate bonds. We show that this risk is a priced factor for the credit spread associated with corporate bonds. Therefore, the liquidity spread helps to clarify the credit-spread puzzle. This finding suggests that credit spreads may include a liquidity premium that is ignored by traditional pricing models. Further, corporate bond spreads have insignificant exposures to fluctuations in equity market liquidity.credit spreads; liquidity risk; corporate bonds; Tunisian bond market; Tunisian equity market; liquidity premium; credit spread puzzle; Tunisia; bond pricing.

Impact of farmland fragmentation on rainfed crop allocation in Mediterranean landscapes: A case study of the Lebna watershed in Cap Bon, Tunisia

International audienceMediterranean agricultural landscapes provide ecosystem services and disservices that are driven by land use pattern dynamics, the latter of which results from the crop spatiotemporal distribution. Farmland fragmentation is known to be a driver of crop management and farm performance. However, existing studies on farmland fragmentation have not addressed the impact of farmland fragmentation and the subsequent neighbouring interactions on decision-making about annual crop allocation. Therefore, the current study aims to explore how much farmland fragmentation can drive the decisions made by farmer about annual crop allocation by characterizing and quantifying the influences of both crop sequences and neighbouring crops at the field scale. We addressed this issue within the Lebna watershed (210 km² size, located on the Cap Bon Peninsula in Tunisia), which is typified by a hilly topography, rainfed mixed farming (cereals, fodder, legumes, spices) and livestock (cattle, sheep and goat), and strong farmland fragmentation. The experimental phases consisted of conducting 30 farmer interviews and collecting data regarding the field spatial distribution for a total number of 360 fields in 2015 and 355 fields in 2016, hereafter called farmer fields. We also recorded (1) crop types for the farmer fields in 2015 and 2016 and (2) land uses (including crop types) in the neighbouring pieces of land in 2016. Data analysis relied on differentiating the farmer fields between isolated and non-isolated fields. Isolation/non-isolation depended upon farmland fragmentation and field dispersion relative to the other farm fields and to the farmstead. Using univariate and linear discriminant analysis on both crop sequences and neighbouring crops, data analysis revealed a significant effect of farmland fragmentation on farmer decision-making regarding crop allocation. When fields are isolated (fragmented farmlands), farmers implement with some of their neighbours, collective rules of crop allocation that permit the management of common constraints, such as the lack of roads to access fields. The landscape subsequently depicts aggregates of fields with the same type of crop. When fields are non-isolated (aggregated farmlands close to the farmsteads), the allocation constraints are mainly related to the cropping systems, with a strong impact from the crop sequences. Overall, these results indicate that to improve our understanding of crop allocation drivers at the landscape level, it is not only sufficient to address rules and drivers at the field and farm scales but it is also necessary to account for the collective contexts in which farmers operate

Spatial patterns of farm land use in fragmented semi-arid landscapes: The case of Lebna catchment (Cap Bon, Tunisia)

International audienceMediterranean agricultural landscapes provide ecosystem services driven by land use patterns such as crop spatial distribution (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Assessing the determinants of crop location is therefore a prerequisite for exploring spatially explicit land use scenarios and evaluating the subsequent ecosystem services (Benoît et al., 2012). Although remote sensing techniques are now able to provide time series of land use patterns, they do not permit to identify the driving factors of crop location that are related to farm characteristics. Intra-farm land fragmentation is a typical characteristic of rural landscapes (Demetriou, 2014), and we hypothesized in the current study that it may strongly influence crop spatial patterns. Therefore, the current paper aimed to study the impact of farmland fragmentation in crop location within a semi-arid rural zone of Tunisia, with a focus on spatiotemporal dependencies

Coagulase negative Staphylococcus bacteremia in hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients: Clinical features and molecular characterization

The purpose of our study was to investigate the epidemiology of coagulase negative staphylococci (CoNS) responsible for bacteremia in hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients and to determine the prevalence and the genetic background of methicillin resistance. The prevalence of CoNS bacteremia was 7.4% (54/728), higher in allograft (10.7%) than in autograft (4.7%) recipients. A sepsis or a septic shock were observed in 9% of cases. No deaths were attributable to CoNS bacteremia. The methicillin resistance rate was 81%. All MR-CoNS, harbored mecA gene and 90% were typeable with SCCmec typing using PCR amplification. The SCCmec type IV was the most frequent (44%). Clonal dissemination of MR-Staphylococcus epidermidis strains was limited. Our study showed a low prevalence and favorable outcome of CoNS bacteremia in HSCT recipients with limited clonal diffusion. However, they were associated with a significant rate of severe infections and a high rate of methicillin resistance, mediated by SCCmec IV element in most cases