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The article aims to carefully examine the reactions to the Panama Papers scandal in the light of the sociological literature on elites’ resistance to stigmas. More specifically, this article is focused on the defensive narratives of the persons targeted by the wave of revelations in the media. It also sheds light on the responses from the French government and key commentators over the French media. In this respect, we argue that this range of positions expressed on such matters largely relates to a common guiding principle contributing to the protection of the existing financial order. Indeed, the relative diversity of reactions rather refers to a division of labour – for legitimating power and domination – between the owners of economic and financial capital, the holders of State power and journalists, editorialists as well as other experts and media personalities who express their ideas in the name of their cultural capital.

The article aims to carefully examine the reactions to the Panama Papers scandal in the light of the sociological literature on elites’ resistance to stigmas. More specifically, this article is focused on the defensive narratives of the persons targeted by the wave of revelations in the media. It also sheds light on the responses from the French government and key commentators over the French media. In this respect, we argue that this range of positions expressed on such matters largely relates to a common guiding principle contributing to the protection of the existing financial order. Indeed, the relative diversity of reactions rather refers to a division of labour – for legitimating power and domination – between the owners of economic and financial capital, the holders of State power and journalists, editorialists as well as other experts and media personalities who express their ideas in the name of their cultural capital.

The paper analyses the growth models of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico since 1996. We depart from the typology proposed by Bizberg (2019) and apply a growth decomposition based on the Sraffian supermultiplier (Freitas & Dweck, 2013). We argue that the growth models perspective, introduced by Baccaro and Pontusson (2016), contributes to understanding the diversities of capitalism in Latin America. We find that the commodities boom oriented the countries towards export-led growth models, especially in Bolivia, Chile, and Mexico. Brazil and Argentina presented a hybrid growth model, with higher household consumption and government expenditure, along with exports growth. After the commodities boom, the export-led model was no longer feasible for commodity exporters. Mexico sustained the existing model, based on low-value-added manufacturing exports. Brazil and Argentina reduced public expenditures, generating economic stagnation. Chile and Bolivia increased public expenditure, sustaining growth at a slower pace. This work extends the growth models perspective to emerging countries, integrating with former discussions on the Latin American political economy. It also highlights how the growth models evolved in tandem with changing international conditions. Finally, the paper opens a research agenda for the political economy of stagnation in Latin American economies.

The unprecedented population growth and low economic diversification in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) raise questions about possible paths for demo-economic transitions. Given the limitations of the dominant macroeconomic conception of structural change for analysing economic transformations in SSA, and acknowledging the importance of rural economies in SSA, this paper argues for an alternative approach to structural change that uses the rural household as the key unit of analysis of change. Structural change is therefore impacted by the evolution of the socioeconomic reproduction patterns of rural households. To understand these households’ reproduction patterns, the paper formulates an analytical framework centred on structures, institutions and their evolution. Drawing on Régulation theory, we first adjust institutional forms to rural African contexts. We then demonstrate how the income-labour nexus, integrating the social relations linked to the organisation of the production process and the modes of reproduction, is the dominant institutional form in capturing the socioeconomic reproduction of rural households. Last, to detect these emerging institutional configurations, we analyse youth transition as the critical period of households’ socioeconomic reproduction that can reveal structural change.

This paper proposes an analysis of the social bloc that could support the political strategy of a radical change of the socio-economic model in France. This social bloc, the bloc bourgeois, would gather the affluent and educated groups of the traditional left and right social blocs that had structured political competition during the Fifth Republic. The analysis is based on an empirical study of the policy demands of the electorate based on the French electoral survey 2012. A latent class model leads to a partition of the French electorate in eighteen clusters. This analysis sheds light on the composition of the respective social bases of the left and the right as well as on the possibility of existence of the bloc bourgeois. The paper also contributes to explaining the reasons for François Hollande’s failure as well as the difficulties of the current Emmanuel Macron presidency.

The shareholder state phenomenon sparks controversy. In traditional economic discourse, a shareholder state intervenes to solve a market failure such as a lack of equity financing for a specific group of companies (equity gap). But it is simultaneously accused of preventing perfect competition. How far does the state act like a private investor? What are the doctrines and the investment practices of the shareholder state? In this paper, we analyse the relationship between the French state’s investment doctrine and its implementation in the case of Bpifrance and its investments in mid-size companies. We show that the hypothesis of an equity gap is not sufficient to account for these public investments. We propose an alternative hypothesis: companies may struggle to find buyers ready to support a sustainable growth strategy. The paper thus sheds light on the obstacles to the growth of mid-sized companies: these could result less from a lack of private equity and financial resources than from investment logics unsuited to innovation-led growth. This diagnosis suggests new doctrines for public investment (e.g. market shaping instead of market fixing), but also new ways to support more sustainable and responsible forms of corporate growth.

This paper deals with the historical evolution of flood prevention institutions in the plain surrounding Grenoble, from 1219 to 1789. Based on an analysis of the existing scientific literature, we map the evolving relationship between the inhabitants and the public authorities to cope with flooding. For this purpose, we use the notion of hydro-social contract. We elaborate a grid based on historical institutionalism in order to examine the quality of the institutions coping with flood risk over time. Meanwhile we follow a critical approach in the sense that we look at flooding as an indicator of environmental inequalities. Our results enable the identification of three periods of time, each with its own way of providing the population with flood protection. We show a gradual transfer of responsibility for flood intervention, which moved from the feudal communities through to the city of Grenoble and finally to the central State. In terms of institutional arrangements, we highlight the changing structure of these institutions over time and also across the cognitive, normative and regulative stages. This paper presents finally the advent of a complex institutional regime that resulted in major freedom limitations to both the population and the rivers.

This paper has the objective of bringing to light and comparing two different types of institutional arrangements existing in two different prefecture-level cities in China: Nanjing and Suzhou. Although both are considered affluent cities, and located in the same broad economic area, the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), and the same sub-provincial region, Southern Jiangsu, the cities present markedly distinct local institutional arrangements and accumulation regimes. The paper argues that the historical legacies of Nanjing and Suzhou have moulded the distinct institutional arrangements found in both cities, and that institutional path-dependences shaped the policies and strategies the cities decided to implement, eventually leading to distinct accumulation regimes. This study privileges a political economy definition of institutions (Amable, 2003; Boyer, 1988), and employs the concept of institutional complementarities (Amable, 2016; Aoki, 1994) in order to tackle the institutional arrangements of Nanjing and Suzhou. Initially, the paper introduces the debate on the nature of China’s state, arguing that the country is better characterized by its internal institutional heterogeneities, and that these heterogeneities often reveal themselves at subnational levels. Then the paper proceeds by presenting the analytical framework employed in this research and, after introducing the definitions of institutions and institutional complementarities, a comparison between Nanjing and Suzhou is presented. The final sections summarize the institutional characteristics and accumulation regimes found in both cities and conclude with the analysis.

This paper aims at reviewing recent papers on the effects of economic policies advocated by the Troika on peripheral euro zone members. Troika advocates fiscal austerity and internal devaluation policies in the short term and structural policies of market liberalization in the long run. These policies can be considered as a new form of structural adjustment programs. We show that the implementation of these structural adjustment programs in the euro area peripheral countries comes from an erroneous interpretation of the origins of the crisis of sovereign debt. These structural adjustment programs have, however, led to a rebalancing in these countries. The internal devaluation has allowed a reduction in their unit costs of labor and thus improves their price competitiveness. However, we show that this decrease results mainly from cyclical factors; hence it is not sustainable. We suggest, therefore, that adjustment of intra-European imbalances can only be achieved if economic policies are modified in both the core and in the periphery of the euro zone.

This paper engages in a discussion between regulationists and urban scientists with the aim of bringing awareness of the growing role of property markets as drivers of contemporaneous capitalist regimes — a dimension that has not been given sufficient consideration by the French Regulation School. The case of China exemplifies the centrality of land in macroeconomic dynamics. This paper explores this centrality trough the prism of the Development State (DS), a framework that sets China’s experience in the broader context of Northeast Asia. Three main characteristics of Johnson’s DS framework (1982) are mobilized to highlight the role of property value enhancement in the regime of capital accumulation in China, i.e. the primary focus on GDP growth, state control over capital allocation to the economy, and manifestations of economic nationalism. It is argued that the Chinese state — at both central and local level — has used the mechanism of property value enhancement as a major tool to ensure a smoother economic transition, by encouraging residential investment as a quasi exclusive saving vehicle. Selective strategies in banking credit allocation and restrictions to the development of financial markets, both aiming to maintain state’s stranglehold over financial supply to the productive base, have generated the proliferation of a poorly monitored "grey finance" mainly collateralized by land. To keep control over the land rent and ensure its adequate appropriation by domestic players, the state has dramatically restricted foreign inflows of capital in China’s property markets, and at the same time, has encouraged outbond investment in real estate to alleviate pressure on saving demand by domestic players. These findings highlight the pivotal role of land/property markets in the construction of fundamental institutional forms defined by the Regulation framework.

This paper discusses the factors that contributed to the collapse of the hegemonic bloc that enabled the governability of the Workers’ Party in the period 2003-2016. It is based on the view that in order to understand the economic and political-institutional crisis, it is necessary to analyze the deepening financialization of Brazil, a periphery country, and the way in which rentier accumulation operates in the consolidation of US power in Latin America. The empirical evidence revealed the existence of endogenous factors for the crisis, factors that were already present in the Brazilian economy before the cyclical deterioration that started in 2014. With the end of the commodity price boom, profit and accumulation rates began declining. The recession that started in 2015, coupled with the social discontent stimulated by mainstream media, was conveniently used by national economic groups aligned with the geopolitical interests of the hegemonic nation, the US and its allies. This is representative of a hybrid war aimed at the Workers’ Party government. The econometric results, in addition to corroborating this interpretation, detected the existence of an export-led growth regime between 2001 and 2019 that articulates with financial interests. This is the result of the strong external demand for Brazilian commodities, which refutes the interpretations that considered it a typical finance-led growth or, in a surprisingly optimistic perspective for a country marked by a high concentration of income and stock of wealth, a wage-led growth regime.

This paper aims at formalising and assessing the validity of the critiques of the Job Guarantee (JG) policy proposed by Minsky (1965). In order to do so, we develop a multisectoral Post-Keynesian Stock-Flow Consistent (PK-SFC) model. Our paper is a step, following Missaglia (2011), towards the creation of a structuralist/ SFC model. We introduce several new features in an PK-SFC model: (i) a more disaggregated households sector than usual, (ii) three production sectors and the possibility of constrained output, and (iii) a more elaborated labor market with endogenous labor supply. We use the model to compare and contrast two Keynesian policies: theJG and a traditional Keynesian Demand Spur (KDS).

Based on survey data conducted in 2015 on Cameroonian citizens and households, this paper analyzes the effects of social interaction on Internet use for researching information in relation to studies. The estimate of the econometric model shows that there is a social multiplier of 1.79. From a public policy perspective, the presence of the influence of the social network implies that a policy aimed at improving the search for information in relation to studies is likely to have an overall effect greater than the sum of the individual effects predicted in the absence of social interaction.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the institutional theory of Elinor Ostrom, in its relations to the “new institutional economics”, and more particularly the analyzes which, following the Coase paper on social costs, gives a special place to the question of ownership. This will allow us to highlight key aspects of the theorization of Elinor Ostrom, and the issues they raise. We proceed in three steps. We first evoke the main theoretical references that are the basis of her analysis of Common Pool Resources, and mark some of her theoretical orientations. We then goes on to explore the key features of Elinor Ostrom’s institutionalism, confronted with the new institutionalism. To do this, we first consider her original and important analysis of rules and norms, and its conception of economic behavior, then we explore her theory of property rights and of the conditions of selection of forms of property and institutions, with the prospect of a confrontation with the idea of a “generalized Coase theorem”. This leads us, finally, to questioning Elinor Ostrom’s views on institutions and the commons, and possible ways to go beyond these conceptions.

The paper examines some key economic dimensions and the international relations implications of the problem posed by the fact that China and the United States are the two largest economies in the world and the two largest emitters of greenhouses gases. The first part of the paper is dedicated to structural dimensions (prisoners’ dilemma…) and empirical issues related to the decision making framework generated by American and Chinese levels of GHG emissions and by the fact that the United States and China are at two different levels of development. In light of the findings of the first part of the article, the second examines the difficult progress, to say the least, of international negotiations, from Copenhagen to Durban, concerning the preparation of a post-Kyoto climate regime.

The end of the Bretton Woods era and the emergence of neoliberal economics resulted in profound transformations in domestic economies and international economic relations. The keystone of these transformations was the liberalisation of domestic and international financial markets. Faulty theoretical foundations and the resulting catastrophic policy failures prompted a vast literature by critical economists on the international financial architecture and domestic financial structures best suited for economic development. In recent decades, debate has also centred on what has been labelled “financialisation”, i.e. the increasingly central role played by financial markets and transactions in economic activity. In this paper we try to ascertain whether Argentina experienced a process of financialisation between 1990 and 2009 and what impact, if any, it has had on Argentine banking. We conclude that there has been a strong process of financialisation in Argentina in the post 2001-2002 crisis period. We also explore in a preliminary fashion potential reasons behind Argentine post-crisis financialisation. The paper concludes by suggesting that it is time to consider alternative banking arrangements if development finance is to become a policy priority.

Heterodox economics may study rent from various angles. The first one is that of the source of income; the second is that of its macroeconomic impacts; the third is that of income distribution. This introduction highlights the contributions of the papers published in this issue from these three different angles. As far as it is concerned, Régulation Theory has developed a comprehensive reading of what it called the “rentier accumulation regime”, including it in the analysis of the variety of capitalism and allowing for a dialogue with development economics. In particular, it shows that institutional hierarchies co-evolve with the fluctuations of rent. The notion of rentier accumulation regime enables us to understand how some developing countries have resilient institutions despite structural weaknesses.

Theories of rent are wide-ranging. However, whether neoclassical, Marxist, or Proudhonist, they tend to neglect evolutionary institutionalist theorising. Increasingly dominated by the income approach, rent theories need to be expanded, partly to correct existing work, partly to break persistent intellectual monopoly and oligopoly, and particularly to develop institutional theories of rent. In this paper, I attempt to do so by presenting and evaluating the surplus approach to rent, particularly R.T. Ely’s, highlighting its power and potential and stressing its critiques and contradictions. Drawing, among others, on the original writings of Ely, it is argued that, while the emphasis on property rights, land as a ‘bundle of sticks’, and rent as surplus rather than income help to advance heterodox approaches to rent, the surplus approach is severely limited in its analysis of inequalities and how they can be addressed, especially in extractivist and rentier societies. To unravel long-term inequalities that characterise rent and rentier economies, it is crucial for surplus theorists to engage stratification economics which, in turn, can drive the surplus approach to rent.

Cet article propose une méthode d’analyse des systèmes latino-américains de protection sociale. Ceux-ci sont caractérisés par une extrême diversité en termes de dépense (niveau et destination) et d’organisation institutionnelle, et par la très grande complexité de chacun d’eux, ce qui est développé dans une première partie. La deuxième partie analyse les raisons de l’échec des efforts d’élaboration de typologies destinées à théoriser cette diversité, qu’elles soient dérivées des typologies élaborées à propos des systèmes européens, ou fondées sur un couplage entre système de protection sociale et type de régime politique. La troisième partie développe une proposition de méthode, qui fonde l’analyse des systèmes de protection sociale sur les configurations des droits sociaux. Cette proposition est faite en deux temps : d’un côté, une définition et un classement de droits sociaux très diversifiés. De l’autre côté la présentation de l’analyse en termes de « configurations de droits », dont on suggère la capacité heuristique.This paper suggests a method to analyse Latin American social protection systems. These are characterized by a large diversity regarding expenditures (i.e. their level and purpose) and regarding institutional organisation. Furthermore, they are all quite complex. These items are analysed in the first part of the paper. The second part is dedicated to elucidate the reasons for the failure to elaborate typologies liable to theorise this diversity, whether derived from typologies constructed for European social protection systems, or constructed on a connection between social protection and political regimes. The third part presents a proposal for a method, which roots the analysis of social protection systems in social rights configurations. This proposal proceeds in two stages: on one hand, a definition and a classification of very diversified social rights; on the other hand, the presentation of the analysis per se, in terms of “configurations of rights”, whose heuristic potential is suggested.Este articulo propone un método de análisis de los sistemas latinoamericanos de protección social. Estos son caracterizados por una extrema diversidad en términos del gasto (niveles y destinos) y de la organización institucional y por la gran complejidad de cada u no de ellos, lo cual esta desarrollado en la primera parte. La segunda parte analiza las razones del fracaso de los esfuerzos para elaborar tipologías destinadas a teorizar esta diversidad, ya sea porque se derivan de tipologías elaboradas a partir de la experiencia europea o basadas en la superposición entre sistemas de protección social y tipo de régimen político. La tercer parte desarrolla la propuesta de un método, basado en el análisis de los sistemas de protección social sobre la configuración de los derechos sociales. Esta propuesta se hace en dos tiempos : por una parte una definición y una clasificación de los derechos sociales muy diversificados. Por otro lado la presentación del análisis en términos de configuración de derechos, que sugiere una capacidad heurística.

Sans bon diagnostic, pas de chance de guérir le malade. Cela vaut pour la crise de l’euro. Le diagnostic retenu dans ce papier est que l’origine primordiale de cette crise n’est pas un cumul de déficits élevés de certains États (origine non financière), mais le mode actuel de financement des États européens (origine financière tenant à sa dénationalisation dans un contexte d’une UE en construction). Toutefois, en matière de « maladie sociale », un bon diagnostic ne détermine pas une seule thérapie. Ainsi, il y a autant de solutions d’ordre proprement financier à la crise de l’euro que d’options politiques concernant la construction de l’Europe. Le principal objet de mon propos est de présenter quatre options « pures » avec les solutions qu’elles induisent. Je fais état in fine de mon propre point de vue politique de citoyen : organiser de façon concertée le passage de l’euro comme monnaie unique à l’euro comme monnaie commune.Without a right diagnosis, no chance of cure. This can be stated for the Euro crisis. The diagnosis proposed in this paper is that the key origin of this crisis is not a series of high government deficits (non financial origin), but the present mode of European government financing (financial origin based on its de-nationalization in the under construction Europe context). However, about any « social disease », a right diagnosis doesn’t determine a unique therapy. So, we have as many financial solutions to the Euro crisis as there are political options on the Europe construction. The main point of this paper is to present four « pure » options with the inducted solutions. In fine, I give my own citizen point of view which is in favour of a shift for all Euro zone contries from the Euro as a unique currency to the Euro as a common currency.Si un buen diagnóstico hay pocas posibilidades de curar al enfermo. Este argumento es válido para analizar la crisis del Euro. El diagnóstico adoptado en este artículo es que el origen primordial de esta crisis no es un cúmulo de déficits elevados de ciertos Estados (origen no financiero), sino el modo actual de financiamiento de los Estados europeos (origen financiero que tiende a su desnacionalización en un contexto de una Unión Europea en construcción). Sin embargo, en materia de enfermedad social », un buen diagnóstico no determina que se tenga que hacer una sola terapia. Por eso, hay tantas soluciones de orden propiamente financiero a la crisis del Euro, como opciones políticas que se refieren a la construcción de Europa. El principal objetivo de mi presentación es el de presentar cuatro opciones « puras » con las soluciones que de ellas se derivan. Finalmente, el autor presenta su propio punto de vista político en tanto que ciudadano : organizar de manera concertada la transición del Euro como moneda única, al Euro como moneda común.

L’analyse de la littérature sur la responsabilité sociale des entreprises permet dans une première partie de l’article de distinguer trois temps : aux préoccupations éthiques des premiers temps ont d’abord fait suite des considérations utilitaristes puis une volonté d’apprécier l’activité des entreprises sur les trois plans de l’environnement, du social et de l’économique en termes de développement durable. Dans une seconde partie on a cherché à établir à partir de six enquêtes réalisées par l’entreprise KPMG entre 1993 et 2008 sur les rapports non financiers des plus grandes entreprises cotées de divers pays de l’OCDE les conditions dans lesquelles se développent un processus d’institutionnalisation autour de ce « reporting ». Là encore on distingue deux périodes, la première est poussée par la montée d’une préoccupation de l’opinion mondiale sur les problèmes d’environnement, elle concerne plus particulièrement certains secteurs d’activité. La seconde période suit à partir des années 2000 l’accélération de la financiarisation ; le « reporting » devient une « obligation » générale pour toutes ces sociétés cotées sur les places financières internationales. Le futur de cette pratique va dépendre dans un « troisième temps » à la fois des certifications et garanties qui continueront ou non à se développer et des conditions d’extension aux autres entreprises. Plusieurs scénarios pour cette troisième phase sont analysés en conclusion, qui à des degrés divers soulignent le caractère déterminant des types de capitalisme concerné.A survey of the literature on corporate social responsibility allows in the first half of the paper to distinguish three phases. The ethic goals of the first phase have first been replaced by utilitarian considerations in a second phase then followed by the will to assess in terms of sustainable development the activity of the firms in respectively the environmental, social and economic fields. In the second part of the paper one has tried, on the basis of six surveys done by the audit firm KPMG between 1993 and 2008, to analyze the process of institutionalization of the non financial reporting by large listed firms. Here again one distinguishes two periods. One is largely geered by the fear of a worldwide public opinion over the environmental hazards. It concerns more specifically certain sectors. The second period follows after year 2000 the rising importance of financial criteria in the governance of the firms. Non financial reporting becomes an obligation for all listed firms. What will become of this practice afterwards will depend on both the diffusion of certification procedures and the extension of this practice of reporting among medium and small firms. Several scenarios for this “third” phase are analyzed in conclusion which all stress the importance of the type of capitalism under view.El análisis de la literatura sobre la responsabilidad social de las empresas permite en una primera parte del artículo distinguir tres tiempos : a las preocupaciones éticas de los primeros tiempos siguieron luego las consideraciones utilitaristas, luego una voluntad de apreciar la actividad de las empresas sobre los tres planos del medio ambiente, de lo social y de lo económico en términos de desarrollo sustentable. En una segunda parte hemos buscado establecer a partir de seis encuestas realizadas por la empresa KPMG entre 1993 y 2008 sobre las relaciones no financieras de las más grandes empresas que cotizan en las Bolsas de los diversos países de la OCDE en las cuales se desarrolla un proceso de institucionalización alrededor de ese « reporting ». En esto también se distinguen dos periodos, el primero está empujado por el incremento de una preocupación de la opinión pública mundial sobre los problemas del medio ambiente y ello concierne más particularmente a ciertos sectores de actividad. El segundo periodo es la continuación de la aceleración de la financiarización a partir de los años 2000 ; el « reporting » se convierte en una obligación general para todas las empresas que cotizan en las plazas financieras internacionales. El futuro de esta práctica va a depender en un tercer tiempo a la vez de las certificaciones y garantías que continuarán, o no, a desarrollarse y en las condiciones de extensión de las otras empresas. Varios escenarios para esta tercera fase son analizados en las conclusiones, que con diverso grado destacan el carácter determinante del tipo de capitalismo involucrado.

L’objet de l’article est d’estimer l’impact de la montée en puissance des investisseurs institutionnels et la diffusion du discours « actionnarial » sur le modèle de reproduction des élites patronales allemandes. Pour ce faire, nous construisons un panel de vingt-cinq sociétés cotées. Notre analyse couvre la période 1990-2010. Notre plan s’organise en trois parties. Premièrement, nous préciserons deux éléments de tension supportés par le capitalisme allemand, à savoir la montée en puissance brutale des investisseurs institutionnels étrangers dans le capital des sociétés cotées et la réforme des principes de gouvernance (I). Puis dans un second temps, nous nous attachons à mesurer leurs effets sur la sociologie et les processus de nomination et de reproduction des dirigeants en analysant leur parcours scolaire, le modèle de la carrière maison et le passage de la présidence du directoire à celle du conseil de surveillance (II). Nous chercherons à localiser les éléments de continuité, les inerties et les ruptures. Nous accorderons enfin une importance particulière à la question des rémunérations (III). Nous nous retrouvons en présence d’une combinaison complexe d’inertie et de mouvement. L’adoption récente sur certains aspects de mécanismes concurrentiels et marchands ne traduit toutefois pas de rupture.The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of the foreign Institutional Investors arrival in the German quoted firms’ capital structure, and the broadcast of the “Shareholder Value” discourse, on the social reproduction process of the German managerial Elites. In this sense, we have assembled a panel of 25 quoted firms. Our study is from 1990 to 2010. Our paper is organized in three parts. First, we will clarify two elements of pressure that the German capitalism has to bear, namely (a) the sudden arrival of the foreign Institutional Investors in the ownership capital structure, and (b) the reform of corporate governance principles. Then, we will estimate their effects on the sociology and the nomination process of the presidents by analyzing their school trail, the “in-house career” pattern, and the gap between the presidency of the management board and the presidency of the supervisory board. We will try to localize the continuities, inertias and changes. In fine, we will focus our attention upon the remuneration problematic. We are in the presence of a complex combination of inertia and change. However, the recent adoption of some market mechanisms doesn’t reveal an abrupt change.El objetivo de este artículo es el de estimar el impacto del aumento del poder de los inversores institucionales y la difusión del discurso « accionarial » sobre el modelo de reproducción de las élites patronales alemanas. Para hacer esto, nosotros construimos un panel de 25 sociedades cotizadas en la Bolsa. Nuestro análisis cubre el período 1990-2010. Nuestro plan se organiza en tres partes. Primeramente vamos a precisar dos elementos de tensión que se apoyan en el capitalismo alemán, a saber el incremento brutal del poder de los inversores institucionales extranjeros en el capital de esas sociedades cotizadas y la reforma de los principios de la gobernancia (I). Luego en un segundo momento vamos a medir sus efectos sobre la sociología y los procesos de nominación y de reproducción de los dirigentes analizando su trayectoria educativa, el modelo de carrera dentro de las empresas y el paso de la presidencia del directorio a la del consejo de vigilancia (II). Buscaremos localizar los elementos de continuidad, las inercias y las rupturas. Vamos finalmente a asignar una importancia particular a la cuestión de las remuneraciones (III). Nos encontramos en presencia de una combinación compleja de inercia y de movimimento. La adopción reciente de ciertos aspectos de los mecanismos concurrenciales y mercantiles no traduce siempre una ruptura.

Cet article s’intéresse à un cas concret de système monétaire local, celui des « clubs de troc » développés en Argentine à partir de 1995. Contrairement à ce que leur nom laisse penser, les « clubs de troc » désignent des espaces marchands communautaires, à l’intérieur desquels les transactions économiques sont réglées en credito, monnaie-papier interne et non convertible avec la monnaie officielle. La question que pose ce type d’expérience monétaire parallèle est de savoir pourquoi et sous quelles conditions cette monnaie privée non convertible avec la monnaie officielle parvient à être acceptée. Est-ce que ce micro-système monétaire peut fonctionner de manière indépendante et cloisonnée, ou bien a-t-il besoin de nouer des rapports avec le macro-système monétaire officiel ? Telles sont les questions auxquelles cet article se propose de répondre.This paper examines a concrete case of local currency systems, the Argentine “barter clubs” developed from 1995. “Barter club” denotes a place of market exchange, within which economic transactions are paid for using an internal paper currency, the “credito”, issued by the founders of these clubs and not convertible with the official currency. Its starting point is to wonder why and under what conditions this private currency, non-convertible with the official currency, is accepted. Could this micro-monetary system operate in an insular and independent manner, or was it necessary to establish some kind of relation with the official macro-monetary system? These are the questions that this article sets out to answer.Este artículo se interesa sobre un caso concreto del sistema monetario local, el de los “clubes de trueque”, desarrollados en Argentina a partir de 1995. Contrariamente a lo que su nombre deja pensar, los “clubes de trueque” designan los espacios comerciales comunitarios, al interior de los cuales las transacciones económicas son reguladas mediane créditos, moneda papel interna y no convertible con la moneda official, que llegan a ser aceptados. En ese micro sistema monetario ¿puede funcionar de manera independiente y encapsulada, o tienen necesidad de establecer relaciones con el macro sistema monetario official? Tales son las cuestiones a las cuales este artículo se propone responder.

Caught in the torment of the 2008 and the 2011 financial crises, Dexia, the historical lender to local government, was saved from bankruptcy by the Belgian and French states late in 2011. The paper looks back on the genesis of this rescue by developing an historical and institutionalist perspective of changes in local government borrowing and its regulation by the state. It sheds light on the changeover from administered regulation – where central government as from the 1950s strictly shaped supply and demand for credit in its own interest – to market-based regulation – when the state withdrew from local government lending in the 1980s. Once state-controlled, Dexia was privatized in 1993 and embarked on a strategy directed at the financial markets. That strategy collapsed in 2008, requiring state intervention of last resort to avoid contagion spreading to the financial system and a credit crunch for local government. Having created market-based regulation of local government borrowing in the 1980s, it was left to the state to “foot the bill” for the excesses of market regulation.

EDF was founded in 1946 in line with the manifesto of the Conseil national de la Résistance in an attempt to ensure France’s sovereignty by creating “national champions”. As part of its anti-inflation policy, the state sought to impose wage controls across the board. This involved setting objectives for corporations like EDF that extended beyond their own concerns. In flow industries like EDF, wage setting entailed specific problems. Plants have to run non-stop to maintain output. Workers engaged in “supervision and control” use their skills to operate on the edge of what is predictable. This supports the idea of above-average wages and a protective employment status so as to stave-off labour unrest to some extent. However, this logic clashes with the supervisory authorities’ desire to control public-sector wages because of their supposed knock-on effect on the private sector. Under the management of André Decelle, EDF tried to link wage rises to productivity by developing overall productivity computations. The aim was to prove that wage increases were warranted because of improved productivity. These wage struggles raised the wider question of the status of a publicly owned corporation: could it be self-managing or was it necessarily an instrument subject to national economic issues? This paper aims to show that the wage issue crystallizes the tension between government – and the political objectives it pursues – and rational management by the engineer-economists running the corporation.

Commodification of the human body does not make for a pretty picture if we read through the sequence of France’s bioethical laws. But this work goes beyond appearances and focuses on the case of plasma. Government as a shareholder in the national plasma industry has contributed to turning plasma into a commodity. This paper traces the origins of the state’s shareholding in the sector through the transformation of the national corporation into a public limited company. The “shareholder state” takes on two faces as the “entrepreneurial state” and the “competitive state” thereby shaping up a sector for international competition in the bioeconomy. A qualitative survey reveals how the “shareholder state” has gone about making plasma commensurable with inert substances by providing it with an exchange value. To this end, the “shareholder state” produces a euphemistic discourse to legitimize the process.

This paper analyzes the measures taken by the Fed to deal with the covid-19 crisis. To explain the Fed’s interventions, we put them in their context by considering the problems it sought to solve. The Fed started by lowering its target rate to bring it back to the zero lower bound. In mid-March, several crucial markets became dysfunctional. Consequently, the Fed resumed its large-scale asset purchase programs and restored several credit and liquidity facilities introduced in 2008. It then expanded the scope of its interventions by creating new facilities. These measures prevented a collapse of the U.S. financial system. But they are likely to intensify the challenge faced by central banks concerning their role.

A very severe recession has hit the global economy in the wake of covid-19. The exact magnitude of this shock is uncertain, but many believe that the setback in GDP will be on a scale similar to, if not worse than, the first years of the Great Recession. As such, there is an imperative need for policy actions of a Keynesian nature, as have already been implemented in many countries. Given the atypical circumstances of the crisis, a new type of supply-side-oriented Post-Keynesian policy should be followed. The purpose of this policy should be to support the firms, in order to prevent them from destroying their production capacity and to move forward with the ecological transition. This paper uses the case of Denmark to present a demand-driven Post-Keynesian stock-flow consistant (SFC) model with labour market restrictions based. It highlights some aspects of the negative economic impact of covid-19 on the Danish economy and of the policies adopted by the Danish Parliament.

This paper analyzes the proposal that central banks should issue digital currencies (CBDC) to provide a public alternative to private digital accounts and cryptocurrencies. We build on some recent themes in political economy research to give a broader and more balanced perspective than the existing literature, highlighting both the promises and perils of CBDC. We argue that, on the one hand, the present state of the private financial sector is problematic and regulators should seek to tackle the issues of financial power, financial instability and lack of adequate monetary policy options. On the other hand, implementing CBDC comes with risks of its own, such as that of creating a “Frankenstein scenario” where too much power is given to unelected technocrats. Our tentative conclusion is therefore that CBDC should be seen as a second-best option, while the primary focus of policy makers should be on the possibility of financial re-regulation.

In modern, sophisticated banking systems, in addition to endogenously creating money, banks have the ability to innovate and stretch constraints on their portfolio to potentially raise profits. They fulfill demand for credit according to their liquidity preference and expectations of profits. On the other hand, the monetary authority influences credit supply by changing the availability of liquid assets compared to other assets through monetary policy instruments. By managing liquidity in the reserves market, central banks modify the price of access to short-term liquidity – the interest rate – and, thereby, cause changes in the yield curve and transform banks’ propensity to expand credit. Even though determining credit supply is a difficult task since it depends on expectations and cannot be calculated in advance, this paper aims to determine a credit supply function for Brazil. Our empirical strategy was to estimate a dynamic panel data model on a large cross-section bank-level dataset from the Brazilian Central Bank using balance sheet information from the fifty largest banks operating in the country from 1999 to 2016. Credit outstanding was matched with time-varying indicators that were prepared using data from banks’ portfolios and then combined with macroeconomic variables. We use a Post-Keynesian framework to analyze the relation between credit supply and the balance sheet composition of banks. Our findings suggest that variations in banks’ liquidity preference which are reflected on their changes in flexibility and leverage indicators have a significant impact on credit supply in Brazil. JEL codes: E51, E52, E47

Studying the hypothesis of a pro-conservative monetary policy convention in Brazil, as initially formulated by Bresser-Pereira and Nakano (2002) and Erber (2011), we add three particular sub-hypotheses to it: (i) the prevalence of high real interest rates in Brazil for decades has led to the formation of a rentier-financial class coalition. Its aim is to maintain high real interest rates so as to gain from the resulting financialization process, fueled by interest revenues (ii) the existence of a “two-way“ public debt contagion effect between the banking reserves market and the public securities market; and (iii) the use of a high interest rate to finance current account deficits. To this end, the paper adopts as its starting point Keynes’s view of the interest rate as an eminently conventional phenomenon.

The early successful experiences of the East Asian NICs confirmed the role of exports as an engine of growth. Surprisingly, most of the earlier studies omit one important empirical fact, namely that the feminization of work contributed significantly to their rapid industrialization. Feminist trade theories argue that export-oriented development strategies have so far been exploitative of cheap female labour in the South. As globalization gathers pace, an increasing number of women in Developing Countries (DCs) have been absorbed into labour-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing sectors. However, the structural changes that go hand in hand with export promotion, as well as the international environment the South faces today, have dramatically modified the inner drives behind the phenomenon. This paper reviews the salient mechanisms at work through a structuralist approach of gender. By examining women’s labour force participation rate in Viet Nam, we show how patterns of gender relations stemming from structural characteristics, as well as social and institutional practices, is related to export-oriented industrialization.

This paper offers a radical political economy critique of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, drawing on heterodox economics and the social structure of accumulation (SSA) theory. We argue that the dynamics of inequality in capitalist systems cannot be fully explained at the level of capitalism in general, or by supplementing such an account with reference to state policies or contingent events, but require attention to the specific institutional form of capitalism.

We propose in this paper a synthetic definition of monetary regimes for a capitalist economy derived from the principal research of the regulation theory on that matter. We arrive at a synthetic characterization of a monetary regime articulated in two layers: the first constituting the institutional frame regulating the conflict between industrial capital and financial capital and the second corresponding to a freedom space useful to the regime to reproduce itself in normal times and maintain its state in time of crisis. We will apply this framework to the Eurozone and will show that the financial capital has always the advantage over the industrial capital and that the financial capital takes mostly the form of fictitious capital. We will later analyze the role of monetary policy and financial regulation in this context. We find that monetary and financial policy is always conducted in coherence with that state of the balance of power between industrial and financial capital.

The present paper investigates how employer working time policies are related to the gender composition of the labour force. To study theses policies, we opted for a qualitative survey, based on semi-structured interviews of HR offciers. It proposes a gendered reinterpretation of time systems, as described and analysed in the labour force segmentation perspective: the results-based time system, the fragmented time system, the standard time system. The findings indicate that gender has an ambiguous influence on working time arrangements: depending on contexts, it may improve or worsen working conditions.

This paper examines the evolution of labor market gender gaps during the Great Recession in Europe. We focus on participation, employment, part-time, and unemployment gender gaps, and estimate fixed effects models that incorporate social, economic and institutional features of 14 European Union member states from 2003 to 2013. Our results indicate that gender gaps decreased during that time span, particularly during the recession years. Economic growth seems to foster gender inequalities, while more employment in the service sector or in the public sector tends to lower gender gaps. Labor market institutions, such as unionization and minimum wage policies, as well as employment protection for regular contracts, tend to narrow employment inequalities between female and male workers, whereas product market regulation increases gender gaps in participation and employment.

The paper shows that the concept of wage-labor nexus can be usefully enriched with an analysis of gender relations. Based on the example of sustainable work in the hotel industry, we argue that the wage labor nexus would explain more if it included an analysis of how gender power relations inside the firm are intertwined with more classical power relations. Specifically, the intertwining of hierarchical domination and gender relations can be grasped when focusing on the sexual division of labor that follows the introduction of sustainable work inside the firm.

At the crossing of International Political Economy and Political Science, the paper offers some analytical insights to consider the logics and dynamics of the “dependent capitalism” model. This model is illuminated by Eastern Europe, more than by Central Europe, the former region being emblematic of cumulative dependencies driven by economic pressures as well as politico-institutional requirements from the EU. Focalizing on the case of Eastern Europe – compared to Central Europe -, the article exposes the domestic foundations of the external dependency, ie. the “Weak State”, the “low cost” competitiveness regime, as well as the domestic actor’s strategies instrumenting the supranational norms in order to discipline local practices (corruption, informality, ect.). At this yard, the failure of the European integration is largely to be found in a EU governance unable to extract the periphery from a dependency trap that nurtures also a profound political crisis.

The research programme on regulation has progressed through two stages. The first stage is devoted to an “institutionalist” mark of the programme, by placing the emphasis on analysis of institutional forms conceived as codification of one or of several social relations which constitute capitalism. The second stage is more specific about this definition. The institutions are analysed as a mediation between the structure and the individual behaviour i.e. articulation between instituting collective action and individual action. This paper sums up the situation of this second stage about the characteristic of the socio-economic structure in question and about the accurate content to give to the term of mediation. This updating makes the common base of the two areas of research stand out and determines an institutionalism with its own identity in regard to other institutionalisms which have appeared in economics during the last thirty years.

Telemedicine is the use of telecommunication and information technology to provide a clinical healthcare from a distance. This paper develops a framework in order to discuss about the effects on régulation of this emerging sort of healthcare. The first part characterizes the healthcare system. To this purpose, we build a framework that takes into account the interactions between the different sub-systems of the healthcare system. The second part focuses on how telemedicine takes place in these systems. Since regulations are located, the analysis is restricted to the French healthcare system and to one sort of telemedicine, telemonitoring. The third part highlights the related regulation. It shows that the compromise of the healthcare system is based on a productive complementarity between two sub-systems of the healthcare system (the cure and the care). The performance of the healthcare system is thus based on a transfer of the production from one sub-system to the other. Such a transfer is possible through a reconfiguration of the role of the economic order, of the political order and of the domestic order into the system.

In France, for more than 15 years, many economics students have urged their professors to leave “imaginary worlds” behind. This paper takes this plea as an invitation to interrogate ourselves about the world(s) we tell our students about. In this context, it proposes a typology of the worlds outlined in the examples we find in microeconomics textbooks. Four types are distinguished: real, abstract, imaginary and impossible worlds. We then show that these impossible worlds cause pedagogical problems, not only due to theirs characteristics, but also because of the discourses in which they take place. These problems cannot be solved without a serious discussion about scope and method of microeconomics.

Financial services of French Post have played a key role to develop savings accounts in France. Since the Third Republic, postal services are linked to the State and have taken part in the process of bancarization in France. Post’s institutional trajectory participated in French banking offer and in mutations of social stratification as well. In this paper, I identify three historical periods of financial intermediation and make use of this periodization to shed a fresh light on social classes. These periods are characterized by the development of savings account for the one, by the specialization of banking products with a different relation to financial literacy as far as the second one is concerned and finally with a segmentation of customers banking since the French Post has been given the role to give access to bank services to the poor.

This paper examines how the frequent and extended use of credit as a social asset in lower-income families and how the interpretation of financialisation practices has led to a particular discourse on social mobility. Specifically, it addresses the process of credit expansion by department stores and how it relates to lower-income families, i.e. the post-industrial working class, who tend to both offer and consume credit products; the lower-middle class; and low-skilled entrepreneurs. Credit has transcended the boundaries of economics. It has become a valuable asset for achieving the goal of providing a « decent life » and is at the core of the lower-income groups’ purchasing and budgeting practices. I will argue that this empirical method shows how the financialisation of household economies is more than a unidirectional process and that household arrangements, particularly moral ones, influence the use of credit and everyday economic behaviour. Lower-income groups are constructing a narrative of social mobility. This narrative convinces them that they are part of a « new middle class », defined fundamentally as people who mobilise credit as an asset for achieving social goals instead of relying on State welfare or constructing identity through educational achievement or occupational mobility.

Assets financialisation isn’t new. But the advent of financial holdings has recomposed wealthy people morphology. These transformations blur common divisions - labor and capital, private and professional wealth, inheritance and recent fortunes - which have yet been echoed by the success of an entrepreneurial rhetoric. The latter provides a robust legitimation to wealth accumulation by building two separates figures: the rich annuitant and the wealthy entrepreneur. The paper underlines that transformations of wealthy people are difficult to capture, especially because the state has hidden these new ways of ownership.

From researchers’ point of view, the European professional football needs regulation because it is in financial crisis. That means it requires more regulatory measures to control clubs, as in the North American sports. However, the concept of regulation is more than the sole regulation in the French Régulation theory. In this way, this article identifies a regulation process which highlights the football reproductive capacity over time and in its current form. Thanks to institutional arrangements at the supranational and national levels, the clubs have the opportunity to accumulate deficits and debts. They are regularities. In view of the specificity of football meso-economics dynamics, the paper proposes a new reading of the financial crisis of professional football in Europe.

In this paper we describe the evolution of AMAP institution (french CSA) when the revision process of the Charter took place (2013) - a text that has to be signed to be allowed to use the name AMAP. Analyzing the evolution of contents of the documents as well as the innovative revision process, we show that a constitutional level was added. This resolved some tensions, but also completed the system of rules of the institution (Ostrom, 1990), and thus must have made this exchange system more durable.

Ecosystem services progressively became the standard concept of renewed discourses and debates on sustainability. The paper suggests some institutionalist arguments for a critical assessment of the scientific and political processes which led to proclaimed changes within the mainstream framework. We focus on the interactions between theoretical arguments and institutional changes involved by the integration of ecosystem services within policy and law. The political economy of ecosystem services appeared to be dual: on the one hand it could be a seminal framework to implement new strategies to overcome the failures of our development models; but, on the other hand, the strength of epistemological principles inherited from mainstream economics could enforce the processes of commodification through radical changes concerning the Humans and Nature relationships. The demonstration originally integrates law and economics to encompass the different aspects of the institutional changes.

This paper considers a non-economic approach of public goods to address their social construction and the variety of dimensions that constitute them. The first part presents the classical definitions of public goods and, inspired by the Kuhnian epistemological approach, describes the labelization process and reappropriation of public goods made by the neoclassical theory. The second part shows the main difficulties that this labeling encounters: it limits the reading of public goods to the only individual rationality, it considers such goods as demoralized and, from a practical point of view, it prevents their fully legitimate designation. The third part focuses on the social construction of these goods. On the one hand we mobilize and expand the process goods publicness proposed by Kaul and Mendoza (2003). On the other hand, we associate to the conceptual and economic reality of public goods a normative dimension and ontological dimension. These distinctions, which we observe as recurrent in the work of analysis of public goods, reflect the diversity of frameworks used to define these goods. These must be differentiated, and sociological works invite us to do so, as they designate a reality by essence, purpose or ontology. It is the inclusion of this framework which allows to embrace the process of publicizing, and which recalls, once again, the need to take into account the social dynamics when analyzing the public goods construction. public goods, economics, sociology, labellization, publicness, social construction

In modern societies, goods include more and more taste characteristics, i.e. characteristics that appeal to senses. Hedonic dimension of attitude is often dominant rather than utilitarian one (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Spangenberg, Voss et Crowley, 1997; Addis et Holbrook, 2001). That implies a growing role of tastes. Then, for firms, matching tastes and supplies in the markets of very diversified and differentiated goods becomes more problematic. May tastes be regulated to determine demands able to buy firms’ supplies? On the basis of the Foucault’s approach, the paper studies the microphysics of the regulations of tastes. Instead of reducing regulation to the result of the working of a specific and unique device, governed by the capitalist power, as Marcuse (1968), Galbraith (1968) and Baudrillard (1970, 1972), it considers a world regulation where firms try to turn tastes towards their goods, in a context of institutions (taste épistémès, cultural and social norms, taste heritages) and apparels (media, commercial networks…) playing on tastes and regulating some sides of them. Firms play on tastes to increase the value of their capital but encounter many other actors (the State, the consumers and their communities) in a world of competing powers and counter-powers.

Emerging countries and their leaders, the BRICS, can be revisited with an institutionalist approach enabling a better recognition of their diversity. Focusing on the composition of their labour nexus, this paper offers to question the category formed by these countries by studying their variety of quality of employment regimes. Two interesting results came out from this study using a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and a Mixed Clustering (MC) break two institutional dimensions into fourteen indicators. (1) Four specific quality of employment regimes appear, illustrating their heterogeneity and the weakness of this category. (2) The BRICS appear notably scattered over some socio-economic aspects of each leader. Far from composing a coherent and independent regime, BRICS countries dispersion can be explained by a specific combination of socio-economic and institutional factors to each one of them.