Editorial

The Paris Financial Management Conference (PFMC) is a two-day conference that aims to bring together academics, practitioners and policymakers sharing interests in financial management and financial markets. It also provides a forum for presenting new research results as well as discussing current major finance issues that the world economies face. The first edition of this yearly event took place on the 16^th and the 17^th of December 2013.

The 2013 PFMC Conference, hosted by the IPAG Business School (Paris Campus), attracted 312 submissions and only 120 papers were accepted for presentation in over 30 parallel sessions, based on a rigorous selection process by the conference co-chairs in collaboration with the members of the Scientific Committee. Among the papers presented, 21 papers were submitted to the special issue of Bankers, Markets and Investors (BMI). After an editorial screening-review, 10 papers were sent out for peer-review and underwent the normal journal reviewing process, and 5 out of them have been accepted for publication.

The five papers in this double issue, each making distinctive contribution to the literature, coarsely cover three important research areas, namely corporate social responsibility (CSR), market microstructure, and stock market integration. The paper by Guillaume Pijourlet (p. 5 to 19) uses a large cross-country dataset to examine the effect of CSR on capital structure and the size of equity issuances. Karim Ben Khediri and Souad Lajili Jarjir (p. 20 to 40) investigate in their paper the effect of country-level institutional factors on corporate social performance in Wes­tern European economies. Abdoul. K. Cissé and Patrice Fontaine (p. 42 to 62) study the market reactions in terms of price, liquidity and volatility around a voluntary market section switching from a non (or less) regulated compartment to a more regulated one of the French stock market. The paper by Anna Creti and Khaled Guesmi (p. 64 to 78) looks at the dynamics of the global integration process of the largest OPEC oil-exporting countries into the world market. Finally, Heni Boubaker and Nadia Sghaier (p. 80 to 93) examine in their study the dynamic dependence structure between the US and four developed stock markets (France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom).

In closing, I would like to express my gratitude to the Editor-in-Chief, Marie Brière, not only for providing me the opportunity to assemble this collection of high-quality papers in a special issue of BMI but also for advising and helping me during the editorial process. I am also thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their time and efforts in providing insightful comments and suggestions that were particularly valuable in improving the quality of the manuscripts. My thanks also go to Christine Hauvette for her helpful assistance during the entire editorial process. Last but not least, special thanks should go to all authors for submitting their articles for publication. I hope that readers will find these articles interesting and enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed editing them.