Anis Jarboui

Financial literacy and portfolio diversification: an observation from the Tunisian stock market

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on the lack of financial literacy as one probable factor explaining the low levels of portfolio diversification. The authors consider distinct aspects of financial literacy and control for socioeconomic and behavioral differences among individual groups of investors. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed models in this paper use multivariate analysis to examine the relationship between financial literacy and portfolio diversification. Investors’ biases have been measured by means of a questionnaire comprising several items, including indicators of investors’ portfolio fragmentation, financial literacy and socio economic variables. The sample consists of 256 small investors actively trading on the Tunisian stock market. Findings – The results suggest that investors’ experience, financial literacy level, age, their use of the availability heuristic, familiarity bias and portfolio size, have a significant impact on the diversity of assets included their po...

Institutional investors, corporate governance, and earnings management around merger: evidence from French absorbing firms

This paper examines the association between institutional ownership and the earnings management behavior of some French absorbing firms. Using a sample of 76 French mergers and absorptions concluded over the period ranging from 2000 to 2010, we undertake to present some empirical evidence highlighting that absorbing-firms manipulate earnings relevant to the year preceding the merger-offer in the presence of institutional cross-holding. However, the presence of active institutions turns out to limit the managerial accruals discretion. The monitoring role exerted by the active-institutional investors does restrict the opportunities of earnings management around mergers and acquisitions. Further analyses suggest that the average value of discretionary accruals with regards to the absorbing firms proves to be influenced by the nature of merger deal (takeover vs. restructuring).

Voluntary and timely disclosure and the cost of debt: South African evidence

Purpose - – The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of voluntary and timely disclosure on the cost of debt for the South African setting. Design/methodology/approach - – The sample of this paper consists of 20 South African listed non-financial companies for the period 2008-2011. A content analysis is used to measure the extent of voluntary disclosure. Timely disclosure is proxied by earnings reporting lag. Findings - – Results show that the extent of voluntary disclosure is negatively and significantly associated with the cost of debt. In contrast, timely disclosure exerts a trivial effect on the cost of debt. When testing for the moderating effect of timely disclosure on the association between the extent of voluntary disclosure and the cost of debt, this paper documents that this association is only negative and significant for the shorter earnings announcement lag group. Originality/value - – The findings of this paper have policy implications for managers in the South African setting and other developing economies similar to South Africa, given the crucial role played by debt as an important source of external financing for publicly traded companies.

Explaining deliberate IPO price discount evidence from the Tunisian stock market

This paper investigates how IPO firms and underwriters determine the offer price discount and allocate new issues. Using a sample of 33 IPOs listed on Tunisian Stock Exchange from 1994 to 2012, we find that small investors are preferred for Tunisian IPO firms. Insiders use high-reputed underwriters who exploit their superior market knowledge to more deliberately discount the fair value estimate. The desire of underwriters to promote institutional investors is one of the most important reasons for the deliberate price discount. The discount is not a compensation for uninformed investors who are confronted with the winners curse problem. It is a cost to the issuer in order to induce institutional investors to reveal their private information. Insiders are concerned only with the price discount insofar as they stand to lose from it. However, outsiders suffer most from this loss.

CEO emotional intelligence and board of directors' efficiency

Purpose – This paper deals with the relationship existing between the emotional aspect and decision‐making processes. More specifically, it examines the links between emotional intelligence, decision biases and effectiveness of the governance mechanisms. The primary purposes of this paper are to: consider emotional intelligence as new research ideas that make important contributions to society; offer suggestions for improving manuscripts submitted to Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations; and discuss methods for enhancing the validity of inferences made from research.Design/methodology/approach – The paper explains that the main cause of organizations problems is CEO emotional intelligence level. The authors use three models (linear regression and logistic binary regression) to examine this relation: every model treats the relationship between emotional intelligence and one of efficiency criteria of the board. Emotional intelligence has been measured according to Schutte et a...

Tunisian revolution and stock market volatility: evidence from FIEGARCH model

Purpose - – Previously elaborated research works, dealing with the political uncertainty effect on stock market, have been primarily concerned with such political events as terrorist attacks, elections, wars, natural catastrophes and financial crashes. Such little research has been concerned with civil uprisings and revolutionary movements, as crucial sources of political uncertainty. The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of political uncertainty (resulting from the Tunisian Revolution) on the volatility of major sectorial stock indices in the Tunisian Stock Exchange (TSE). Design/methodology/approach - – The authors apply the fractionally integrated exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model (FIEGARCH), which helps maintain a direct shock-persistence as well as a shock asymmetric volatility measurement. This model is applied to the daily returns relevant to nine sectorial stock indices and to the Tunisian benchmark index (TUNINDEX) with respect to three sub-periods (before, during and follows the Tunisian Revolution). Findings - – The reached findings suggest that the shock impact throughout the Revolution period on construction, industries, consumer services, financial services, financial companies indices’ sectorial and the TUNINDEX return volatilities have proven to be permanent, while its persistence on the other indices has been discovered to be transitory. In addition, the achieved results appear to reveal a low leverage effect on all indices. This result seems to be very important since the Tunisian Revolution turns out to have a very important effect on the TSE. Originality/value - – The paper’s empirical contribution lies in using the FIEGARCH approach to model the Tunisian sectorial indices’ volatility dynamics, persistence degree and leverage effect. This contribution goes a long way in helping regulators and international investors to further recognize the extent to which political instability does participate in affecting the TSE.

CSR, agency costs and investment-cash flow sensitivity: a mediated moderation analysis

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to document the relation between investment-cash flow sensitivity and a firm’s engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in European context. Specifically, this paper aims to empirically examine how CSR moderates the sensitivity between investment spending and firm internal funds. Design/methodology/approach The Euler equation technique approach is applied to test the sensitivity of investment to internally generated funds for a panel data set of 398 European companies listed in the STOXX Europe 600 during 2009-2014. Furthermore, a mediated moderation model is developed in order to examine the moderating role of CSR in the investment-cash flow sensitivity, as well as the mediating role of agency costs on the moderation effect of CSR. Findings The results show that CSR performance weakens the sensitivity of investment to internal funds; agency costs of free cash flow mediate the negative moderating effect of CSR on investment-cash flow sensitivity. Thus, this study demonstrates empirically that firms with socially responsible practices are better positioned to obtain financing in the capital markets through reducing market frictions as well as agency costs. Practical implications Firms are invited to engage more in CSR activities that reduce agency conflicts between management and shareholders. Originality/value The originality of this paper consists in proposing the establishment of both direct and indirect link between CSR and investment-cash flow sensitivity.

Does CEO emotional intelligence affect the performance of the diversifiable companies

Abstract This article scrutinizes the leader’s emotional intelligence effect on the enterprises’ performance (diversification is the main strategy). After the theoretical discussion which approaches our subject matter, we propose our research assumptions. Thus, this research attempts to answer our central question: How can emotional intelligence affect the performance of Tunisian enterprises (diversifiable companies)? Our methodology consists of two parts. The first is used to identify the data sample selection and the second is devoted to the results interpretation. The main contribution of this work is to explain how the behavioral finance (we speak about emotional intelligence) allows to present answers regarding performance of companies (which the strategy the adopted is the diversification). The results obtained from the linear regressions made on a sample of the show well the significant and positive CEO emotional intelligent on the financial, social and environmental performance.

Financial Literacy and Economics Education Among Young Adults: An Observation From Tunisia

Financial literacy is a key element in financial decision making and well-being, which may affect all areas of our lives. Inadequate levels of financial literacy, particularly among young adults, is a global problem. This study addresses the following questions: are young adults financially literate, and how can this be measured? This study examines financial literacy and economics education among university students in Tunisia. The findings suggest that university students have inadequate knowledge of personal investment. Most importantly, the authors find that financial illiteracy is prevalent. Although this study was limited to Tunisian students, applications to broader young adult populations, particularly in the assessment method, are easily made.

Does corporate governance affect financial communication transparency? Empirical evidence in the Tunisian context

Abstract The present study is focused on investigating the relationship between intentional governance mechanisms (Directors’ boards, Ownership structure and audit quality) and financial communication transparency. For this purpose, a model is used and applied to Tunisian firms’ sample observed over the period 2006–2013. The achieved results reveal that intentional governance mechanisms are positively related to a higher transparency level noticeable in financial communication (voluntary disclosure and quality information). In addition, empirical tests indicate that financial communication transparency is highly dependent on the board size, ownership concentration, as well as on audit quality.