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Using social network analysis, we examine China's equity underwriting network in the context of initial public offerings (IPOs), and we show that network centrality significantly enhances underwriter performance as measured by IPO outcomes. Among others, network centrality is positively associated with institutional participation and long-run performance. We further find that political connections contribute to the centrality of underwriters, as politically connected underwriters are not only highly connected, but also tied to well-connected peers. Our findings, which are robust to potential endogeneity bias, underscore the strategic importance of underwriter peer networks in the Chinese IPO process.

Using IPO and SEO data from the Indian capital market, we examine whether group-affiliated firms are able to time their equity issuance relative to stand-alone firms. Group-affiliated firms have access to internal capital markets, which, we argue should allow these firms to raise external capital at an opportune time. Using both direct and indirect measures of market timing, the main finding of our paper is that there are significant difference in how group-affiliated and stand-alone firms raise capital through IPOs and SEOs. We find that stand-alone firms raise more capital and time their IPO offerings whereas group-affiliated firms raise more capital and time their SEO offerings. Consistent with the notion of market timing, we find that the long run underperformance is pronounced for stand-alone IPO and group-affiliated SEO offerings.

Rechargeable Lithium ion batteries (LIBs) are commonly used power source in everyday electrical devices. Understanding the real-time atomistic evolution of the electrodes in a LIB is indispensable since the performance of a LIB is governed by electrochemical reactions and possible mechanical degradation of the electrodes during the operation of a battery. With advances in high resolution transmission electron microscopy and microfabrication techniques, it has been possible to investigate the evolution of solid electrolyte interphase, electrolyte decomposition, and the response of the electrode upon lithiation-delithiation at the atomic scale. This article provides a comprehensive review of the current understanding of lithiation-delithiation mechanisms in LIBs.

We study whether firms, whose operational performance is highly sensitive to rainfall conditions (rain-sensitive firms), follow differential investment strategies to generate value in response to diverse extreme rainfall conditions. Using Indian monsoon data, we find that rain-sensitive firms suffer a significant decline in their market value in the immediate aftermath of excess and deficit rainfall conditions. Results show that the investment response by rain-sensitive firms depends on the saliency of extreme rainfall conditions. While excess rain-sensitive firms boost their investments following excess rainfall, deficit rain-sensitive firms shrink investments following deficit rainfall. However, these alternative investment strategies appear to be effective as both groups of affected firms experience positive growth in their market values following the differential investment strategies. Our results indicate that saliency theory can bridge the theoretical tensions between the real-options and risk-shifting theories resulting in differential corporate investment behavior in the face of two extreme rainfall conditions.

Alumina is an essential ceramic insulator, while carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have intriguing mechanical, thermal, electrical, and magnetic properties. We report on the synthesis of CNTs/Al2O3 nanocomposites using the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process using iron as a catalyst. The as-prepared composite's structure and morphology are characterized by transmission electron microscope, scanning electron microscope, X-ray diffractometer, thermogravimetric analyzer, and Mossbauer spectroscopy. The experimental results show that these composites contain CNTs of an average diameter of 40 nm distributed homogenously within the alumina matrix. The percentage of CNTs within the composites is at 7%. The CNT/Al2O3 nanocomposites demonstrate a dramatic enhancement of ferromagnetic properties during vibrating sample magnetization measurements. As compared to the magnetization of 0.03 e.m.u./g at an applied field of 1.5 T for the Fe-catalyzed Al2O3, the saturation magnetization of CNT/Al2O3 is 1.78 e.m.u./g, which represents an increment of ∼5800%. The coercivity of CNTs/Al2O3 composites increased from 0.036 T at 300 K to 0.285 T at 5 K. This study provides a relatively simple approach to blending the magnetic properties with potential thermoelectric materials.

Applications such as energy storage and field emission devices demand direct growth of vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) arrays on conducting metal substrates, which has remained a challenge for a long time. Here, we report a controlled growth of VACNT arrays on a stainless steel (SS) substrate via dc plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition without the addition of a metal catalyst layer. TEM and AFM examinations revealed the occurrence of nano-hills formed on the SS surface during heating process in an NH3 environment. This is a key step for uniform growth of VACNTs. The VACNTs have uniform length and diameter, good alignment, and uniform coverage over the substrate surface, superior to reported results. The particle on the tip of most of the VACNTs was found to be single crystalline Fe metal, although a few other VACNTs were found to have an alloy of Fe, Ni, Mn, and Cr at the tips. This highlights the dominating catalytic behavior of Fe over Ni, Cr, and Mn, which are the elemental composition of the nano-hills. The high quality VACNTs may find unique applications such as electron field emitters and dense nanoscale anode materials for lithium ion batteries.

Using insights from prosecuted cases, we present compelling evidence of large-trade based manipulation in a sizeable number of Indian IPOs that, in all likelihood escaped enforcement actions. Consistent with the pump-and-dump scheme these IPOs exhibit abnormally high volume of large trades, a significant fraction of which originates from a syndicate of traders present in the prosecuted IPOs. More importantly, stock price in the manipulated IPOs rises initially on account of artificial trades, but then declines significantly as the manipulators exit the market. Interestingly, not all attempts at manipulation are entirely successful as stock price in some of the manipulated IPOs crash on the first day of listing.

We study whether firms in the rain-sensitive sectors time their investments to generate value in response to extreme deviations in rainfall conditions. Using Indian monsoon data, we show that the market-based valuations of rain-sensitive firms significantly declines in the immediate aftermath of extreme rainfall deviations. In terms of the cross-sectional variance of the extreme rainfall conditions and consistent with investment timing economic argument, our investigations show that when compared to normal rainfall conditions, affected rain-sensitive firms tend to significantly increase their investments following excess rainfall periods. Contrarily, we observe shrinkage of investments following deficit rainfall periods. However, in both cases, firms seem to regain the lost market-based values in the lead periods of extreme rainfall deviations.

This paper examines the role of multiple lead underwriters (MLUs) in pricing initial public offerings (IPOs) by considering certification and market power hypotheses. Consistent with the notion that MLUs provide certification to the issue, we find that IPOs backed by MLUs price the offer closer to the intrinsic value of the firm than firms backed by single lead underwriters. Our results also indicate that IPOs led by MLUs experience lower initial return, lower variability of initial returns and better long-run performance. The results are robust to self-selection and omitted variable biases. MLU led offerings also exhibit a lower risk of withdrawal and are more likely to conduct a larger secondary equity offering.

The regulatory provisions in India ensure that IPO investors are able to observe the participation levels of other subscribers prior to their own subscription decisions. This should reduce the information asymmetry between the foreign institutional (FIIs) and domestic institutional investors (DIIs). We argue that because of this setting we should observe less difference in their investment patterns and performance. Our results, however, show that (a) FIIs subscribe to IPOs more aggressively than DIIs; (b) DIIs have better IPO selection ability than FIIs; and (c) in the post-listing period, FIIs reduce their IPO holdings more extensively than DIIs. FIIs reduce their post-listing holdings especially in firms that are smaller, younger, have higher stock volatility while increasing on stocks with higher returns, indicating that FIIs chase hot markets. Overall, in spite of transparency-enhancing regulations, the investment patterns of FIIs and DIIs differ significantly.

Foreign exchange derivatives (FXD) are important tools for hedging foreign exchange (FX) risks and enhancing returns of international portfolios. However, the ability to use FXD can be constrained by higher trading costs and the liquidity risks of the FXD available in different markets/currencies across countries. In this study, we investigate whether the wide cross-sectional and temporal variations observed in the liquidity level of FXD markets are associated with the cross-country allocation decisions of foreign portfolio investors. Using an extensive dataset of 40 countries and a number of alternative specifications, our study finds that investors tend to allocate more wealth in countries that provide liquid and cost-effective opportunities for using FXD. Our results suggest that regulatory reforms aimed at developing FXD markets could be a potential policy measure for attracting higher levels of foreign equity portfolio investments.

We examine whether foreign equity holdings of portfolio investors depend on the level of information accessibility between the investors’ home and host countries. Using a comprehensive data set, alternative measures of information accessibility and robust analytical techniques, we show that differences in access to cross-country information significantly influence investors’ portfolio allocation decisions. Furthermore, the results suggest that for a given level of access to information, investors prefer to invest more in countries with a higher quality of legal/macro-institutions. Finally, the findings also confirm that the implications of information accessibility are more pronounced when markets are turbulent.

Using data from the unique setting of Indian IPOs, this study examines the underwriter–investor relationship based on underwriter reputation. We find that high reputation and low reputation underwriters have strong relationships with different sets of investors. While large institutional investors participate early in IPOs managed by high reputation underwriters, high net worth investors appear to do the same in IPOs managed by low reputation underwriters. The varying nature of relationships with investors also has important consequences for IPO pricing. Our analysis of the setting of the offer price shows that reputation matters greatly for high reputation underwriters. Low reputation underwriters, on the other hand, appear to price aggressively and set high offer prices even when institutional participation is negligible.

We modified vertically aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) grown on a Cu substrate by NH 3 direct current plasma treatment for varying durations and investigated their microstructure and field emission properties. A great improvement on the field emission properties of the MWCNTs was obtained after the plasma treatment. Specifically, the MWCNTs after 1.0 min plasma treatment demonstrated the best field emission performance with the field enhancement factor increasing from 319 to 546, the turn-on electric field decreasing from 11.93 to 8.84 V/μm, and the highest emission current reaching 0.85 mA, as compared to the untreated sample. The improvement was attributed to the morphology change: the tapered structure of the MWCNTs generated by the plasma etching and the increased inter-tip distance due to the cluster structure of the thin tips. The open-ended tips and the increased structural defects introduced by NH 3 plasma also played a role in the enhancement of field emission properties of the MWCNTs.

We use textual analysis techniques to examine how the size of IPO lead underwriting syndicate influences the information production decisions of underwriters. Our results show that IPO prospectuses produced by multiple lead underwriters (MLUs) contain more informative content and use more readable language. These findings imply that MLUs produce and discloses more pricing information during the pre-filing period. We also find that MLUs produce less information during bookbuilding and provide less support for partial adjustment phenomenon. Together, our results suggest that MLUs can substitute the costly bookbuilding with the pre-filing information services.

We examine whether stricter non-compliance sanctions on corporate governance regulations influence the investment decisions of foreign portfolio investors in emerging markets. To answer this question we use a natural experiment provided by a corporate governance regulatory reform introduced in 2000 for which stricter sanctions for non-compliance were imposed in 2004. Using firm-level panel data from 2001 to 2007, our results provide strong evidence that reforms that include stricter sanctions for non-compliance lead to higher foreign ownership. Depending on specifications, the difference-in-differences estimates show that, on average, the effect is 3% to 5% increased foreign ownership post regulatory reform of 2004.

We report the synthesis of periodic arrays of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with different densities on copper substrate by employing nanosphere lithography (NSL) and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. At a growth pressure of 8 torr and temperature of 520 °C, vertically aligned bamboo-like CNTs were formed with a catalyst particle on the tip. Electrical properties of CNTs with different densities were investigated for the possible applications in field emission (FE). The investigation of FE properties reveals a strong dependence on the density of CNTs. Experimental results show that NSL patterned low density CNTs exhibit better field emission properties as compared to the high density CNTs. Low-density CNTs exhibit lower turn-on and threshold electric fields, and a higher field enhancement factor. The high density of CNTs results in the deterioration of the FE properties due to the screening of the electric field by the neighboring CNTs.

We fabricated vertically aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) point emitters directly on Cu wires with flat or sharp tips. The nanostructures and field emission properties of the two kinds of emitters were investigated. Both emitters showed vertically aligned, multi-walled bamboo-liked CNT structures and demonstrated good field emission properties. The emitter on the Cu wire with a flat tip (F-tip) attained an emission current of 70 μA at 4200 V whereas the emitter on the Cu wire with a sharp tip (S-tip) reached an emission current of 65 μA at 3700 V. Both of them demonstrated excellent field emission stability for 40 h at emission currents of about 40 μA and 10 μA for the F-tip and S-tip emitters, respectively.

This paper investigates the investment decision of IPO investors when equipped with information on both the quality of the firm and the market sentiment. The unique regulatory provisions allow IPO investors in India to have access to the independent assessment of firm quality and information on the participation of other investors, including institutional investors. At the same time, an active grey market reveals market sentiment before the application for subscription is closed. The results, which are robust to alternative model specifications, suggest that the institutional investors’ decision is guided almost exclusively by firm quality while the retail investors’ decision to participate in IPOs is strongly influenced by the market sentiment even in a highly transparent market where both sets of information are freely available.