Séminaires de recherche

Mardi | 2021-12-07
Salle B.103 – 16h

What explains varying levels of compliance with public health measures? During the global COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world have implemented various forms of containment measures or “non-pharmaceutical interventions” (NPIs). These include lockdowns, mask mandates, curfews, the closure of businesses, schools, or places of worship, and more. One factor in public health authorities’ and governments’ decision making about which measures to implement has been anticipated rates of compliance. Compliance, in turn, affects the extent to which these measures have an impact on rates of infection and deaths. We collected data by systematically observing public webcams in Turkish municipalities to directly measure behavioral compliance with COVID-19 restrictions. These data allow us to examine the impact of the tightening or loosening of restrictions, as well as temporal and geographical variation in compliance rates. We hypothesize that variation in compliance may be driven by levels of trust in the government. One possibility is that citizens affinity towards the ruling political party affects trust in government and, thereby, compliance. We test this hypothesis using our data.

Mercredi | 2021-12-03
Salle des thèses – 12h

Jedah OGWENO

The literature on regional integration has acknowledged the use of macroeconomic convergence programs to align domestic policies regarding fiscal deficits, public debt, inflation, interest rates and exchange rates, and foster the monetary integration process. This paper analyses fiscal convergence and its contribution to fiscal sustainability in African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) over the period 2000 to 2019 using data on government debt, revenue and expenditure. Log t convergence tests indicate that absolute fiscal convergence is only present in the CFA Franc monetary zone and the East African Community (EAC), and divergent in the other African RECs. However, we find evidence of fiscal club convergence when clubs are endogenously determined. Club convergence provides an important guide for the African continent because member states’ fiscal policies are heterogeneous, and particularly in the wake of the historic signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement that aims to deepen integration in the continent. Using a policy response function where the primary surplus is a function of public debt, output gap and other controls, fiscal policy is found to be generally sustainable, and somewhat countercyclical when output gap is used in its contemporaneous form. These results are in line with the self-validation of macroeconomic convergence programs, often demonstrated in the European Union, despite low levels of their adherence in African RECs.

Mardi | 2021-11-30
16h – Salle des thèses

VOLKER NITSCH

When one country imposes financial sanctions against another country, its domestic banks must end business relations with targeted counterparties. Based on regulatory data, we show that banks domiciled in Germany reduce lending in countries targeted by German sanctions. However, German bank subsidiaries and branches domiciled abroad increase their positions in the sanctioned countries by 44% relative to their parent banks at home. This incremental effect increases to 95% for German bank affiliates domiciled in countries with weak policies against financial crime and is independent of whether these countries with weak anti-crime policies have formally enacted the sanctions themselves.

Mardi | 2021-11-23
16h – B103

What is the role market- and bank-based debt play in the climate transition process? We presentevidence that bond markets price the risk that assets held by fossil fuel firms strand, while banks inthe syndicated loan market seemingly do not price this risk much. Consequently, to fulfill theirfinancing needs fossil fuel firms increasingly rely less on bonds and more on loans. We caninterpret the within-firm bond-to-loan substitution along stranding risk as a contraction in the supplyof bond versus bank funding. Within the banking sector especially the big banks are willing toprovide cheaper and more financing to fossil fuel firms.

Mercredi | 2021-11-18
B103 – 12h00

Jentry JONES

Is it easier or harder to bargain in a multidimensional bargaining setting? Though multidimensional bargaining settings are common, different literatures have different answers. Individuals’ interests are not necessarily diametrically opposed in multiple dimensions, but multiple dimensions are conceptually more challenging and may unintentionally lead to an increased dependence on heuristics. This experiment uses an induced value, bidimensional Nash Demand Game to investigate how a multidimensional framing of the bargaining setting can affect agreements. The results demonstrate that factors such as whether individuals share a preference for one of the two dimensions and whether individuals’ respective disagreement points are identical in both dimensions can have important consequences for whether an agreement is reached, and if so, how efficiently this agreement divides the total surplus available. This experiment illuminates that bargaining in multiple dimensions can be easier or harder, depending on the specifics of the bargaining setting.

Mercredi | 2021-10-07
Salle des thèses – 12h

Hugo ORIOLA – Patrick VILLIEU – Maxime MENUET

This article challenges the claim that an independent conservative central bank strengthens the chances of a conservative government. In contrast, if the election is based on the comparative advantages of the different candidates, an inflation-fighter central banker can deter the chances of a conservative candidate, because, once inflation is removed, its comparative advantage in the fight against inflation disappears. Theoretically, in a policy-mix game with an electoral competition, we show that the chances of a conservative party is reduced in presence of a tighter monetary policy: a high interest rate will take the wind out of the sails of the conservative party. Empirically, we test the predictions of our theory using data from the British political context in the 1960-2015 period. Our estimations show that a 1 percentage point increase in the main interest rate in the 9 months prior to a national election will decrease the popularity of a Tory government by around 0.76 percentage point relatively to its trend.

Mercredi | 2021-06-17
11h00 – C202

Sahar AMIDI – Thais NUNEZ-ROCHA – Isabelle RABAUD – Rezgar FEIZI

Finding the best way to reduce pollution in a world with growing environmental concerns is important for decisions makers. Some scholars hold that a global carbon tax is the bestpolicy for reduced pollution. With the rising role of globalization, assessing the impacts of carbon taxation on carbon emissions embodied in the trade becomes a key question, however,this question has been overlooked. This is the first paper to bridge this gap. More specifically, our contribution consists in examining an emission tax system of trade, in the framework ofthe input-output table. We exploit variation in the economic sector of each country to first, identify the most and fewer contaminated categories and second, investigate the spillovereffects due to carbon taxes in an emission embodied in trade analysis. Based on the SDA (structural decomposition analysis), MRIO (multi-regional input-output model), and spatialeconometric models, we estimate the spillover effect of emissions embedded in trade before and after a carbon tax is in place, this for 5 categories, 56 sectors, 43 countries from 2000 to 2014. Our findings prove the Electricity and Heat Production » as the highest emitter category and reveal a spillover effect of polluting production in their intermediate sectors. When countries impose a carbon tax, which is different in size by country, the effect of emissions embedded in exports and in imports will decrease 0.25 percent (from 0.0823 to 0.0798) and 0.36 percent (from 0.0579 to 0.0543) respectively, to and from neighboring countries (with the geographicaldistance matrix). When studying the trade comparative advantage matrix, the results are smaller but still positive 0.011 percent (from 0.00307 to 0.00318) for exports and -0.059percent (from 0.00301 to 0.00242) for imports. Our results show that carbon tax could displace pollution to neighboring countries, when taking into account the trade matrix (comparative advantage). This should be taken into account by policy makers. Establishing regional or neighboring taxes might be a solution to avoid pollution leaks and to obtained better results reducing pollution.

Mardi | 2021-05-18
16H00 – Webinar

Gianfranco GIANFRATE

Executive ownership addresses agency problems by aligning the financial goals of management and shareholders. We explore whether executive ownership fosters non-financial sustainability footprint as well. We show that executive ownership and insider trading activities are negatively associated with firm environmental and social performance. A quasi-natural experiment shows that the inverse relationship between executive ownership and sustainability performance is causal. Our results suggest that ad hoc incentive mechanisms besides executive ownership should be introduced, in order to help businesses addressing effectively social and environmental issues.

Mardi | 2021-04-06
16H00 – Webinar

Marion DAVIN – Karine CONSTANT

This article examines how pollution and its health effects during childhood can affect the dynamics of inequalities among households. In a model in which children’s health is endogenously determined by pollution and the health investments of parents, we show that the economy may exhibit inequality in the long run and be stuck in an inequality trap with steadily increasing disparities, because of pollution. We investigate if an environmental policy, consisting in taxing the polluting production to fund pollution abatement, can address this issue. We find that it can decrease inequality in the long run and enable to escape from the trap if the emission intensity is not too high and if initial disparities are not too wide. Otherwise, we reveal that a policy mix with an additional subsidy to health expenditure may be a better option, at least if parental investment on children’s health is sufficiently efficient.

Mardi | 2021-03-30
16H00 – Webinar

Elena-Ivona DUMITRESCU

We discuss cointegration relationships when covariance stationary observables exhibit unbalanced integration orders. Least squares type estimates of the long run coefficient are expected to converge either to 0 or to infinity if one does not account for the true unknown unbalance parameter. We propose a class of narrow-band weighted non-linear least squares estimators of these two parameters and analyse its asymptotic properties. The limit distribution is shown to be Gaussian, albeit singular, and covers the entire stationary region in the case of the generalized non-linear least squares estimator, thereby allowing for straightforward statistical inference. A Monte Carlo study documents the good finite sample properties of our class of estimators. They are further used to provide new perspectives on the risk-return relationship on financial markets. In particular, we find that the variance risk premium estimated in an appropriately rebalanced cointegration system is a better return predictor than existing risk premia measures.