French Finance Association Review – Revue Finance #FrenchFinance

I’m happy to share below the editorial of the latest issue of Finance reviewthe Review of the French Finance Association.

This issue of Revue Finance brings together four innovative studies that advance our understanding of critical areas in modern finance: cross-border supervision, cultural influences on corporate decision-making, ESG integration, and high-frequency trading dynamics.

Leading our issue, Beck provides a timely analysis of cross-border supervisory cooperation in an increasingly interconnected global financial system. His work highlights the challenges national supervisors face in coordinating oversight of international banking groups, particularly regarding information sharing and incentive alignment. While progress has been made, Beck’s research suggests that current cooperation frameworks may still fall short of optimal arrangements, even as the Eurozone experiments with supranational supervision.

Ahmad and Bollaert offer fascinating insights into how religious observance affects corporate decision-making through their study of merger and acquisition timing during Ramadan. Their findings reveal significant variation across different Islamic markets, with Malaysian firms showing evidence of potentially detrimental market timing during Ramadan, while Turkish and Saudi Arabian deals exhibit patterns consistent with enhanced quality during the holy month. This work makes an important contribution to our understanding of how cultural and religious factors influence financial markets.

The growing importance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations in investment decisions is addressed in Boucher, Le Lann, Matton, and Tokpavi’s methodologically innovative study. Their research develops a robust backtesting procedure to evaluate ESG ratings’ predictive power for idiosyncratic risk. Their finding that ESG ratings have stronger predictive value in European markets, particularly for environmental factors, has significant implications for global investment strategies. Their work also highlights the importance of rating agency consensus in ESG integration.

Finally, Boco, Germain, and Rousseau provide valuable theoretical insights into the competitive dynamics between fast and slow traders in modern markets. Their model demonstrates that while speed advantages generally improve market liquidity and price efficiency, they can also increase price volatility under certain conditions. Their findings on the relationship between trading speed and market quality contribute to the ongoing debate about the role of high-frequency trading in financial markets.

I express my gratitude to all contributors, referees, associate editors, and managing editors for their invaluable efforts in bringing this issue to fruition.

Explore the full issue here.

About Finance

Finance – the French Finance Association Review – has a long, prestigious, and recognized tradition of publishing high-quality peer-reviewed articles in all fields of finance since 1980.

The journal publishes three issues per year, with an ambitious and voluntary policy to increase its international coverage and recognition.

The journal is ranked 2 (2nd best category) in the CNRS and FNEGE classification, and 1 in the ESSEC Classification. It is also indexed by ABDC, AJG (ABS), EBSCO, IBSS (ProQuest), JEL, Scopus.

The average review time from first submission is around 60 days.

The current acceptance rate is around 20% (excluding desk-rejection).

For more information, please visit Finance website.