This paper reviews the behavior of stock prices in relation to consumption. The paper lists some important stylized facts that characterize US data, and relates them to recent developments in equilibrium asset pricing theory. Data from other countries are examined to see which features of the US...

Recent banking theory holds that durable firm-bank relationships are valuable to both parties. Using contract-specific loan records of a nineteenth-century U.S. bank, this paper shows that firms that form extended relationships with banks receive three principal benefits. First, firms with...

In most Initial Public Offerings (IPO) in the world, the underwriter selects syndicate members and uses the information of their investors' clientele to set the offering price. The objective of this paper is to develop a model of the "book building" process in which the formation of the...

The paper first investigates the causes of the recent financial and liquidity crisis in the US and all over the world as a preliminary phase of the imminent recession. It then questions Paulson-Bernanke’s plan as a solution to the crisis and ponders over the differences between EU plan and the...

Clearly, a new agenda is emerging for private international banks. Political issues such as human rights seem to be a current concern. But what about democracy? What about political regimes? Are they taken into account by private banks when they decide whether to invest in a country? Put another...

In this study we aim to determine the impact of investor behavior on investment funds strategies. Initially, we define the ideal profile of a potential investor in funds by highlighting risk aversion. We present a usual successive generation model in an open economy to characterize asset...

Starting from the observation that at the multilateral level shareholder activism is considered as an important aspect of good corporate governance, this paper examines several legal and economic obstacles to institutional investor activism in the EU and in the US. We also examine the voting...

The computer networks through their performances and advantages have represented and will still remain the main communication infrastructure for the informatics systems. Through their connectivity at a world level an informational medium with resources and services has been created, which...

This paper presents a model of activities fragmentation in investment funds industry. We consider two strategies: the national one is similar to protectionism and the other is relative to the international market. The financial center proposes adequate combinations of these two strategies in...

This paper provides an appraisal of some of the researches conducted in recent years for evaluating the efficiency of Islamic banks. It is restricted to studies using parametric (SFA) and non-parametric (DEA) models. It finds that they leave much to be desired and the conclusions they arrive at...