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Launched in 2019, the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate (CCC) tasked 150 randomly chosen citizens with proposing fair and effective measures to fight climate change. This was to be fulfilled through an “innovative co-construction procedure”, involving some unspecified external input alongside that from the citizens. Did inputs from the steering bodies undermine the citizens’ accountability for the output? Did co-construction help the output resonate with the general public, as is expected from a citizens’ assembly? To answer these questions, we build on our unique experience in observing the CCC proceedings and documenting them with qualitative and quantitative data. We find that the steering bodies’ input, albeit significant, did not impair the citizens’ agency, creativity, and freedom of choice. While succeeding in creating consensus among the citizens who were involved, this co-constructive approach, however, failed to generate significant support among the broader public. These results call for a strengthening of the commitment structure that determines how follow-up on the proposals from a citizens’ assembly should be conducted.

International audience; Social trust is at the center of democratic societies but it varies considerably between individuals and societies, which deeply affects a range of prosocial behaviours. Socioeconomic status has been identified as an important predictor of such variability. Although this association has mostly been reported for measures of socioeconomic status taken in adulthood, recent studies have found unique effects of harsh conditions experienced during childhood on social trust assessed decades later. Here, we report a series of three studies that provide further support for the long-lasting association between early childhood conditions and social trust. The first study revealed that higher childhood socioeconomic status was associated with greater social trust in a diverse sample of French participants (N=915), even after adjusting for current socioeconomic status. The second study replicated this result using data from the European Values Study, an independent large-scale survey of 46 European countries (N=66,281). Finally, the last study found a similar association between socioeconomic status and willingness to invest in a trust game (N=60 in original study, N=75 in replication study).

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether cities can improve their interna-tional attractiveness by investing in their public transport infrastructure. For this purpose, we examine the influence of a metro shock on the number of greenfield for-eign direct investment (FDI) projects received by a city during the period 2003–2014. We find that cities which have invested in expanding their metro network have at-tracted, on average, more FDI than comparable cities which have not improved their urban transport infrastructure.

National audience; Le monde, l’économie, la société ont changé plus vite que notre système de protection sociale. Aujourd’hui, la pauvreté s’est déplacée des plus âgés vers les plus jeunes (surtout les moins qualifiés) et singulièrement les jeunes femmes seules avec enfant. Le chômage de masse semble irréductible tandis que ceux qui travaillent le font de manière de plus en plus intense.Répondre à ces nouveaux enjeux n’est pas affaire de simples ajustements. Chez nos politiques pourtant, la quête sans fin de l’efficacité économique semble avoir escamoté la recherche d’une plus grande justice sociale.Il faut repenser ensemble nos politiques sociales et économiques. S’appuyant sur des expériences menées dans d’autres pays et sur leur connaissance de notre système de protection sociale, les auteurs proposent un nouveau contrat économique et social fondé sur l’investissement social, c’est-à-dire sur une réorientation de nos politiques publiques vers « les femmes, les jeunes et les enfants d’abord ». Pour sortir de l’économie du low cost qui est la nôtre en augmentant la qualification de tous. Pour proposer une montée en gamme de l’économie et de la société française.

International audience; a France est riche. La valeur de son patrimoine foncier s'élève aujourd'hui à 7 000 milliards d'euros, soit six années de revenu national, contre à peine une année après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Comment expliquer cette hausse et à qui profite-t-elle ? S'agit-il d'une bulle immobilière un peu plus durable que les autres ? Et, sinon, quelles conséquences faut-il en tirer pour notre économie ?Dans ce livre passionnant et minutieusement documenté, Alain Trannoy et Etienne Wasmer expliquent pourquoi la terre urbaine s'est considérablement valorisée au cours des trente dernières années, une tendance que la préférence française pour le foncier et les contraintes écologiques (le "zéro artificialisation") ne peuvent que conforter.Alors que faire de cette manne providentielle ? Les auteurs proposent ni plus ni moins qu'une révolution fiscale.Avec un objectif : diminuer fortement les impôts grevant l'activité économique, augmenter les salaires tout en soutenant l'accumulation du capital productif, afin de pérenniser notre modèle social.Une proposition audacieuse, pour réconcilier justice sociale et efficacité économique.

Exists also as CEPR Discussion Paper n°17310; We study the characteristics and behavior of small campaign donors and compare them to large donors by building a dataset including all the 340 million individual contributions reported to the U.S. Federal Election Commission between 2005 and 2020. Thanks to the reporting requirements of online fundraising platforms first used by Democrats (ActBlue) and now Republicans (WinRed), we observe contribution-level information on the vast majority of small donations. We first show that the number of small donors (donors who do not give more than $200 to any committee during a two-year electoral cycle) and their total contributions have been growing rapidly. Second, small donors include more women and more ethnic minorities than large donors, but their geographical distribution does not differ much. Third, using a saturated fixed effects model, we find that race closeness, candidate ideological extremeness, whether candidates and donors live in the same district or state, and whether they have the same ethnicity increase contributions, with lower effects for small donors. Finally, we show that campaign TV ads affect the number and size of contributions to congressional candidates, particularly for small donors, indicating that pull factors are relevant to explain their behavior.

We present a projection theory on the space of idiosyncratic histories for heterogeneous-agents models. This allows solving for optimal Ramsey policies in heterogeneous-agent models with aggregate shocks, using a Lagrangian approach. In addition, it allows improving current simulation methods using perturbation techniques, by using more steady-state information. We apply this to study the optimal level distorting tax on labor and unemployment insurance over the business cycle in a production economy. In the quantitative exercise, the average optimal replacement rate is 10% higher than the one implies by a sufficient-statistics approach, due to saving distortions. Moreover, the optimal replacement rate is countercyclical.

IDDRI I4CE JDI OFCE Policy Brief; Policy Brief; Il reste moins de 30 ans pour atteindre la neutralité carbone. Cette transformation des économies française et européenne, à peine entamée, est historique. Essentielle pour éviter le chaos climatique, elle doit aussi intégrer d’autres enjeux environnementaux, dont la biodiversité et la pollution de l’air. Elle constitue aussi une opportunité pour moderniser nos industries, créer des emplois de qualité, lutter contre la pauvreté, renforcer la prospérité économique et affirmer notre indépendance politique et énergétique.Si de nombreux pays ont annoncé des objectifs de neutralité carbone en amont de la dernière Conférence internationale sur le climat (COP 26), il manque encore des actes concrets, en France comme ailleurs. Beaucoup de chemins sont possibles pour atteindre la neutralité, il faut les préciser, les clarifier et les proposer au débat public.On ne peut traiter les différentes facettes de la transition écologique séparément les unes des autres. Investissements publics comme privés, changements de modes de vie, reconfiguration des espaces urbains, nouveau pacte social, formation des travailleurs, innovations, modification des incitations économiques et production d’énergies nouvelles devront ainsi être appréhendés conjointement pour apporter une réponse systémique et relever le défi climatique.Certains chantiers sont déjà ouverts : 2 % du PIB Français sont déjà consacrés à des investissements favorables au climat, l’Union européenne déploie un Pacte vert, les rénovations des bâtiments, productions d’énergies renouvelables et de véhicules électriques se développent. La Convention citoyenne pour le climat a démontré que ce mode de démocratie participative permet d’aboutir à des propositions concrètes, partiellement reprises dans la loi Climat et Résilience promulguée en 2021. Le plan France Relance permet d’apporter 30 milliards d’euros pour la transition écologique, mais sur une période limitée à deux ans. France 2030 donne de la prévisibilité aux financements de certaines filières innovantes.Dans ce Policy Brief, nous recensons les éléments structurants pour lesquels nous attendons des propositions concrètes de chaque candidat et de chaque famille politique. Sur le climat, tout projet politique peut être proposé aux Français, mais chaque projet politique doit être concrétisé dans une programmation pluriannuelle des investissements publics. Car si l’investissement ne fait pas tout, il est le point nodal d’expression des choix politiques et permet de mieux juger, au-delà des discours, du contenu réel des propositions.

International audience; This paper aims at testing whether there exist spending interactions between French municipalities by estimating a dynamic panel data model. Our results suggest that there are some interactions between neighbouring municipalities as regards primary and investment expenditures. A positive relationship between municipalities' wage bill and unemployment rates is likely to stress a rise of temporary employment in those municipalities that suffer from social troubles. Further, the estimation results show that these interdependences also exist between cities whose mayors have the same partisan affiliation. Finally, our results confirm the opportunistic behaviour of local governments, which increase all categories of public spending in pre-electoral periods.

This paper proposes an evaluation of the pre-retirement consequences of a reform of the Frenchpension system that increased the minimum legal retirement age. Our empirical strategy relies onthe comparison of two groups of cohorts. The control group consists of cohorts not affected by theincrease in the minimum legal retirement age while the treatment group consists of cohorts bornlater. Using a sample of 38,652 high-school teachers, we identify the effect of increasing theminimum retirement age on short sick leaves (i.e., of less than three months) by comparingprobabilities to take at least one sick leave during a schooling year before retirement across thetwo groups. Estimates of panel data models show that teachers affected by the reform have anincreased probability to take short sick leaves before retirement. This is mainly due to teacherswho decide to retire at the minimum legal retirement age, while those who continue to work abovethe minimum retirement age do not increase the frequency of their short sick leaves beforeretirement. This last result is predicted by a theoretical model that analyzes the optimal retirementchoice over the life-cycle, and it is confirmed by using an empirical strategy that distinguishesteachers according to their retirement age.

Using a sample of 12,463 high-school teachers, we evaluate the impact of the 2003 reform of the French national pension scheme. Considering the progressive implementation of the reform, we cannot use a reduced-form approach. Consequently, we estimate an option value modelà la Stock and Wise (Econometrica, 1990). Structural estimates suggest that teachers are slightly risk averse, that their quarterly discount factor is close to unity and that their preference for leisure is comparable to the one found by Stock and Wise (1990). Simulations imply that teachers respond significantly to monetary incentives offered to those who continue working after the legal retirement age. Our partial effectiveness analysis shows that the reform has progressively increased the average retirement age up to 61. This shift in the retirement age distribution should have resulted in year 2010 in a 6.37% decrease of public spendings associated with high-school teachers' pensions (except income taxes and other types of expenses, such as those relating to health, social security and widowhood).

International audience; Les politiques publiques incitent les Établissements et services d’aide par le travail (ESAT) à devenir des passerelles vers le milieu ordinaire de travail. Or, les passages du milieu protégé en milieu ordinaire relèvent d’exceptions. L’article explore ce paradoxe à partir de méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives. L’étude montre que la majorité des personnes interrogées ne souhaite pas travailler en milieu ordinaire, perçu comme trop violent. Cette vision du milieu ordinaire est renforcée par le discours des salarié·e·s des ESAT, qui façonnent les perspectives des personnes handicapées et effectuent un tri parmi les personnes souhaitant aller vers le milieu ordinaire.

International audience; Des inégalités salariales existent entre les personnes sans handicap et celles ayant grandi avec un handicap. Cet article en explore les ressorts à l’aide de l’Enquête Emploi en continu 2011 et de son module ad hoc. Selon les types et degrés d’incapacité, différents mécanismes sont impliqués : études plus courtes pour les personnes avec une incapacité cognitive ou motrice, moindre accès aux situations professionnelles les mieux payées pour les personnes avec une incapacité visuelle forte, moindre salaire à poste équivalent pour les personnes avec une incapacité visuelle forte ou auditive forte. Certaines institutions spécialisées et normes professionnelles contribuent à former ces écarts.

International audience

Ce rapport a pour finalité d’évaluer l’ancrage géographique et les effets sociaux d’activités de fabrication françaises, susceptibles de faire intervenir des ressources territorialisées, humaines et non humaines. La spécificité de cet objet d’étude nous a conduits à formuler le concept original de « manufacture patrimoniale ». La première partie s’attache à restituer la dynamique temporelle de la répartition territoriale des manufactures. Une série de cartes inédites, qui permettent de les localiser au fil du temps, sont éclairées par des disciplines aussi diverses que l'histoire de la pensée économique, la sociologie et la géologie. La deuxième partie se focalise sur les répercussions sociales des manufactures, saisies au crible d’une littérature scientifique et à partir d'une étude de cas jugés particulièrement heuristiques.

International audience

Although Hirschman's exit-voice theoretical model has been applied to labor markets, research up to now has not tested one of its most important features: the impact of job quality on exit-voice strategies. Hirschman's model of consumer behavior explains that those individuals unsatisfied with a product's quality are more likely to "voice," whereas those more concerned with its price are more likely to "exit." A rationale for this trade- off is based on information: first, information on the price of alternative options is much more accessible than information on quality; second, voice produces more information than exit and favors opportunities for specific improvements. We transpose Hirschman's assumptions to labor markets and use the French SalSa survey and DADS, declaration by employers on social data, to examine the conditions under which French employees are more likely to exit, and the conditions under which they are more likely to voice. Our results support the Hirschmanian hypothesis. A deterioration by one unit in our working-conditions index increases the probability of participation in collective action by 5 percentage points. An increase in log hourly wage by one unit decreases the probability of quitting by 5 percentage points.

International audience; The promotion system for French academic economists provides an interesting environment to examine the promotion gap between men and women. Promotions occur through national competitions for which we have information both on candidates and on those eligible to be candidates. Thus, we can examine the two stages of the process: application and success. Women are less likely to seek promotion, and this accounts for up to 76 percent of the promotion gap. Being a woman also reduces the probability of promotion conditional on applying, although the gender difference is not statistically significant. Our results highlight the importance of the decision to apply.

International audience; We are witnessing the spectacular end of a second period of globalization and the return of states in the definition of international order. Within this dynamic of global capitalism, the possibility of an environmental transition or a transition toward an economy of well-being respectful of the environment is as much an economic as a political issue. We should distinguish what is national in the transition to the economy of well-being, from what is based on international coordination, the prime example of which is the ecological transition. One can be optimistic about the transformations requiring the mobilization of welfare states or national social states. However, the environmental issue and the management of international risks pose far more complex challenges for which our social states are not suited. The perception of a fair distribution of efforts is essential, for both national and international coordination. A carbon border adjustment mechanism including a social dimension is an essential tool.

International audience; In this paper, we document the presence of “technology-induced” trade in France between 1997 and 2007 and assess its impact on consumer welfare. We use the staggered roll-out of broadband internet to estimate its causal effect on the importing behavior of affected firms. Using an event-study design, we find that broadband expansion increases firm-level imports by around 25%. The effect on domestic sales is positive but smaller, suggesting that the impact on trade is not limited to a scale effect. We further find that the “sub-extensive” margin (number of products and sourcing countries per firm) is the main channel of adjustment. Finally, we develop a model where firms optimize over their import strategy which yields a sufficient statistics formula for the quantification of the effects of broadband on consumer welfare. Interpreted within this model, our reduced-form estimates imply that broadband internet reduced the consumer price index by 2.22% and that the import-channel, i.e. the enhanced access to foreign goods that is allowed by broadband, accounts for about 33% of that effect.

International audience; We examine how corporate real estate market participants adjust to the take-off of teleworking. We develop an indicator of the exposure of counties to teleworking in France by combining teleworking capacity with incentives and frictions to its deployment. We study how this indicator relates to prices and quantities in the corporate real estate market. We find that for offices in counties more exposed, the Covid-19 crisis has led to (1) higher vacancy rates, (2) less construction, (3) lower prices. Our findings reveal that teleworking has already an impact on the office market. Furthermore, forward-looking indicators suggest that market participants are anticipating the shift to teleworking to be durable.

Comparé aux autres pays de l'OCDE, le capital public en France est élevé ainsi que la qualité des infrastructures. Mais la tendance depuis dix ans n'est pas favorable. L'investissement public brut est sur une tendance décroissante depuis maintenant plusieurs années. Le taux de croissance de l'investissement public net montre une chute plus importante encore. Cela signifie que la dépréciation du capital public et des infrastructures n'est que très partiellement compensée. La valeur patrimoniale des administrations publiques est encore positive mais a subi une chute importante et atteint un point bas inquiétant. En effet, la dette publique a cru plus vite que le capital public. En plus des effets de long terme, les analyses montrent que l'investissement public a l'avantage de stimuler l'activité économique à court terme. Pendant la période de crise de la Covid-19, il faut s'attendre à des effets positifs importants en France du fait de la situation économique courante. L'investissement public est presque autofinancé en période de récession. Les collectivités locales sont le premier investisseur public. Elles réalisent près de 70 % de l'investissement public civil. L'investissement public pour les ouvrages de génie civil, le logement, l'éducation et la protection de l'environnement est principalement réalisé par les collectivités locales. Trois fonctions de l'investissement public demandent un effort particulier. La première est la maintenance des infrastructures existantes, en particulier de génie civil. La seconde est la transition énergétique et l'investissement pour la biodiversité, dont les montants totaux nécessaires sont élevés. Enfin la troisième concerne les infrastructures de l'économie numérique. Le plan de relance de 100 milliards d'euros indique une inflexion encore modeste en faveur de l'investissement public. En effet, les montants nécessaires sont élevés sur plusieurs années. À court terme, l'enjeu essentiel est la mise en œuvre rapide de l'investissement public afin de bénéficier à la fois des effets de court et long terme.

This book analyzes public debt from a political, historical, and global perspective. It demonstrates that public debt has been a defining feature in the construction of modern states, a main driver in the history of capitalism, and a potent geopolitical force. From revolutionary crisis to empire and the rise and fall of a post-war world order, the problem of debt has never been the sole purview of closed economic circles. This book offers a key to understanding the centrality of public debt today by revealing that political problems of public debt have and will continue to need a political response. Today’s tendency to consider public debt as a source of fragility or economic inefficiency misses the fact that, since the eighteenth century, public debts and capital markets have on many occasions been used by states to enforce their sovereignty and build their institutions, especially in times of war. It is nonetheless striking to observe that certain solutions that were used in the past to smooth out public debt crises (inflation, default, cancellation, or capital controls) were left out of the political framing of the recent crisis, therefore revealing how the balance of power between bondholders, taxpayers, pensioners, and wage-earners has evolved over the past 40 years. Today, as the Covid-19 pandemic opens up a dramatic new crisis, reconnecting the history of capitalism and that of democracy seems one of the most urgent intellectual and political tasks of our time. This global political history of public debt is a contribution to this debate and will be of interest to financial, economic, and political historians and researchers.

All the states involved in the First World War issued massive war loans. These operations, combined with taxes, money creation, and foreign credits, had both economic and political motives. They not only mattered for domestic ends but also had international implications. By focusing on British and French war loans and the way they were campaigned for in both the metropolis and the empire, this chapter stresses the role of transnational practices of observation for financial reforms. While they created new opportunities for mass participation in public finances, war loans also brought about new risks, given that so many people were now involved in the business of funding the state, a matter that would become explosive after 1918. The First World War therefore ushered in a much more unstable world of public debts, while dramatically increasing the power of the state to penetrate civil society and regulate markets.

We simulate the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on corporate solvency using a sample of around one million French nonfinancial companies, assuming they minimize their production costs in the context of a sharp drop in demand. We find that the lockdown triggers an unprecedented increase in the share of illiquid and insolvent firms, with the former more than doubling relative to a No-Covid scenario (growing from 3.8% to more than 10%) and insolvencies increasing by 80% (from 1.8% to 3.2%). The crisis has a heterogeneous effect across sectors, firm size, and region. Sectors such as hotels and restaurants, household services, and construction are the most vulnerable, while wholesale and retail trade, and manufacturing are more resilient. Micro-firms and large businesses are more likely to face solvency issues, whereas SMEs and medium-large firms display lower insolvency rates. The furlough scheme put forward by the government (activité partielle) has been very effective in limiting the number of insolvencies, reducing it by more than 1 percentage point (approximately 12,000 firms in our sample). This crisis will also have an impact on the overall efficiency of the French economic system, as market selection appears to be less efficient during crisis periods relative to “normal times”: in fact, the fraction of very productive firms that are insolvent significantly increases in the aftermath of the lockdown. This provides a rationale for policy interventions aimed at supporting efficient, viable, yet illiquid firms weathering the storm. We evaluate the cost of such a scheme aimed at strength-ening firms' financial health to around 8 billion euros.

La COVID-19 a provoqué une crise sanitaire et économique sans précédent dans l'histoire récente. Le changement brutal du fonctionnement de l'économie a conduit les économistes à adapter rapidement leurs outils d'analyses et leurs prévisions économiques. Il a fallu d'abord comprendre l'état de l'économie dans un contexte de grande incertitude sur l'évolution épidémiologique ainsi que sur les comportements des ménages et des entreprises. Cette crise singulière conduit à repenser les concepts-clés de l'analyse économique. On identifie quatre nouvelles questions : quel sens donner à l'évolution des prix des services quand la notion même de qualité ne peut être mesurée ? Comment la crise est-elle socialement partagée ? De quelle façon l'économie est-elle financée ? Qu'est-ce qu'un choc d'offre et un choc de demande et quelles sont leurs implications sectorielles ?

Nous simulons l'impact de la crise Covid-19 sur la solvabilité des entreprises à partir d'un échantillon d'un million d'entreprises françaises (Données FARE 2017). Par défaillance, nous entendons l'état de cessation de paiement de l'entreprise, c'est-à-dire quand les fonds propres de l'entreprise sont négatifs. [Premier paragraphe]

International audience; In this study, we ask whether the U-shaped relationship between life satisfactionand age is flatter for individuals who are partnered. An analysis of cross-sectionalEU-SILC data indicates that the decline in life satisfaction from the teens to thefifties is almost four times larger for non-partnered than for partnered individuals,whose life satisfaction essentially follows a slight downward trajectory with age.However, the same analysis applied to three panel datasets (BHPS, SOEP andHILDA) reveals a U-shape for both groups, albeit somewhat flatter for the partneredthan for the non-partnered individuals. We suggest that the difference between thecross-sectional and the panel results reflects compositional effects: i.e., there isa significant shift of the relatively dissatisfied out of marriage in mid-life. Thesecompositional effects tend to flatten the U-shape in age for the partnered individualsin the cross-sectional data.

La convergence des marchés du travail européens et l’approfondissement de l’Europe sociale sont de nouveau discutés au niveau européen. Par exemple, la présidente de la Commission européenne Ursula von der Leyen a explicitement mis dans son projet d’évolution de l’Europe à la fois un cadre commun pour la mise en place de salaires minimaux et un système de réassurance chômage européen : « Un régime européen de réassurance des prestations de chômage soutiendra nos économies et nos citoyens en cas de chocs externes. Il existe bien entendu des assurances chômage au niveau national, mais il faut établir un régime européen de réassurance pour faire face aux chocs externes sévères. » [Premier paragraphe]

National audience; Malgré les progrès réalisés durant le XXe20ème siècle, les inégalités entre les sexes restent importantes en France. Depuis les années 1990, les inégalités professionnelles ne se réduisent plus et les tâches familiales et domestiques sont toujours majoritairement réalisées par les femmes. Ces inégalités s’articulent avec d’autres formes d’inégalités et de discriminations, en particulier sociales, territoriales et ethniques. La crise sanitaire de la Covid-19 et les mesures qui l’ont accompagnée ont révélé, et parfois renforcé, ces inégalités structurelles. Par exemple, la mortalité due à la Covid-19 aurait été deux fois plus élevée dans les municipalités pauvres relativement aux autres, ce qui tient en partie aux conditions de logement dégradées dans ces zones territoriales (Brandily et al 2020). Par ailleurs, les mesures de confinement ont également exacerbé les violences intrafamiliales qui ont fortement augmenté durant cette phase de la crise période. Ce chapitre s’appuie sur un socle disciplinaire large, économie, sociologie, science politique et droit, pour dresser un premier bilan partiel de la période de confinement sur les inégalités entre femmes et hommes qu’elles soient professionnelles ou familiales. Une analyse critique des discours sur la gestion différenciée de la crise en fonction du sexe des dirigeant.e.s met au jour un « sexisme bienveillant » qui justifie l’inclusion des femmes dans les lieux de pouvoir au nom de la « plus-value » que constitueraient les qualités prétendument féminines comme par exemple l’aversion au risque et la priorité donnée au soin des plus faibles.

We assess the role of internal migration and urbanisation in China on the nominal earnings of three groups of workers (rural migrants, low-skilled natives, and high-skilled natives). We estimate the impact of many city and city-industry characteristics that shape agglomeration economies, as well as migrant and human capital externalities and substitution effects. We also account for spatial sorting and reverse causality. Location matters for individual earnings, but urban gains are unequally distributed. High-skilled natives enjoy large gains from agglomeration and migrants at the city level. Both conclusions also hold, to a lesser extent, for low-skilled natives, who are only marginally negatively affected by migrants within their industry. By contrast, rural migrants slightly lose from migrants within their industry while otherwise gaining from migration and agglomeration, although less than natives. The different returns from migration and urbanisation are responsible for a large share of wage disparities in China.

This paper provides empirical evidence on how aspirations are formed and affect individual behavior, decisions, and paths in the context of education. Using unique data on aspirations, academic performance and actual track assignment to high school of French ninth graders, we show that low-SES students have lower aspirations than their equally-achieving high-SES classmates, and that track assignments to high school the next year are even more unequal due to dysfunctional dynamics: first, both low aspirations and low SES are associated with slower academic progress over the year. Second, aspirations and parental SES play a role in track assignment independent of one’s academic performance. Our results suggest that, in France, an aspirational trap at school contributes to the poverty trap, leading to the perpetuation of social inequalities.

World public debt has increased by 30% of world GDP between 2007 and 2017. During the same period, the real interest rate on public debt has fallen by roughly 200 basis points, whereas it should have increased by 100 basis points according to previous estimates. It reveals that demand for public debt has increased faster than supply. Where does the increase in savings come from? To answer this question, we construct the world financial market equilibrium to identify the country and agents across countries who increased their saving rate. Using the equality between the sum of private and public saving and investment at the world level, we find four lessons. First, the world investment rate has been slightly increasing during the period, with an impressive shift of investment to China. The investment rate of China was 4% of world GDP in 2007. It jumps to 12% in 2017. Second, during the period, the world experienced an impressive reduction of global imbalances. The Chinese saving rate increased less than Chinese investment and the US saving rate increased more than US investment. Third, the increase in the world saving rate comes from highly indebted countries before 2007, mostly from the US and southern Europe. The increase in the current account of Italy, Spain and Greece (from a negative territory) is the order of magnitude of the increase in the US current account. Fourth, there is no clear relationship between the household saving rate and national government borrowing, thus not confirming the Ricardian equivalence view. Finally, it seems that the factors generating a high net saving rate in China are temporary, whereas the deleveraging of US and southern Europe may be long-lasting. As a consequence, one can expect low interest rates for a long period of time.JEL codes: E21, E44, D91, D31.

This paper describes, in a non‑technical way, the main impact evaluation methods, both experimental and quasi‑experimental, and the statistical model underlying them. In the first part, we provide a brief survey of the papers making use of those methods that have been published by the journal Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics over the past fifteen years. In the second part, some of the most important methodological advances to have recently been put forward in this field of research are presented. To finish, we focus not only on the need to pay particular attention to the accuracy of the estimated effects, but also on the requirement to replicate evaluations, carried out by experimentation or quasi‑experimentation, in order to distinguish false positives from proven effects., Fougère Denis, Jacquemet Nicolas. Causal Inference and Impact Evaluation. In: Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, n°510-512, Special Issue 50th Anniversary. pp. 181-200.

Using an instrument based on a national contest in France determining researchers’ location, we find evidence of peer effects in academia, when focusing on precise groups of senders (producing the spillovers) and receivers (benefiting from the spillovers), defined based on field of specialisation, gender and age. These peer effects are present even outside formal co-authorship relationships. Furthermore, the match between the characteristics of senders and receivers plays a critical role. In particular, men benefit a lot from peer effects provided by other men, while all other types of gender combinations produce spillovers twice as small. Part of the peer effects results from researchers switching research fields.

How much are promises of democratic equality worth when the material situation of the middle and working classes is stagnating or regressing? Through an implacable analysis of global inequalities, Branko Milanovic brings to light the challenges faced by the struggle for social justice in the early twenty-first century....In January 2019, the NGO Oxfam, to raise consciousness, announced an instructive figure: the 26 richest people of the planet own as much as humanity’s poorest half. On the one hand, 26 multibillionaires, on the other, 3.8 billion people. How did we arrive at this situation? Herein lies the merit of economist Branko Milanovic’s book—published in English in 2016 and recently translated into French—which seeks to explain this dynamic and its political consequences. [...]

Xavier Ragot : Le ralentissement du commerce mondial s'explique-t-il uniquement par la guerre commerciale ? Quel sera l'ampleur du ralentissement américain ? Jusqu'où ira le ralentissement de l'économie chinoise ? Les banques centrales peuvent-elles reprendre le contrôle de l'inflation ? Faut-il s'inquiéter de l'endettement des entreprises ? [Premier paragraphe]

We present a general equilibrium model of the world economy where sovereigns face idiosyncratic risks and can default on their debt. In this model, the world interest rate is determined through the global financial market equilibrium, the amount of safe asset is endogenous and determines international risk sharing. Non-trivial multiple equilibria naturally arise, due to the endogeneity of the interest rate. These equilibria can be ranked according to their aggregate welfare, such that equilibria with a higher quantity of safe assets correspond to higher welfare. Due to a shortage in the safe asset supply, even the equilibrium with the highest welfare is not constrained-efficient. Finally, we prove that a world fund issuing a safe asset can reach the constrained-efficient aggregate welfare. With a standard calibration, the size of the fund is found to be around 4.1% of the world GDP. Its relationship with the Special Drawing Rights of the IMF is discussed.

We evaluate the evolution of productivity gains in cities in the People's Republic of China between 2002 and 2013. In 2002, rural migrants exerted a strong positive externality on the earnings of urban residents, which were also higher on average in cities with access to foreign markets through a seaport. In 2007 and 2013, city size (measured in terms of both employment density and land area) was the crucial determinant of productivity. Market access, whether internal or external, played no direct role. Rural migrants still enhanced urban residents’ earnings in 2007 and 2013, though the effect was less than half that in 2002. Urban gains and their evolution over time are very similar on a total and a per hour earnings basis. Finally, skilled workers and females experienced slightly larger gains than unskilled workers and males.

This study assesses the impact of a tax incentive scheme to boost private rental investment in force in France from 2009 to 2012, called the “Scellier scheme” (after the name of the minister who promoted it), on changes in the price of building land. A difference-in-differences estimation is implemented, drawing on data from the BNDP database covering the period 2004-2010. The definition of the control and treatment groups is based on the boundary between municipalities which are eligible for the Scellier scheme and municipalities which are not. The estimation results suggest that the scheme had an inflationary effect and point to land price capitalisation, with an increase in the price per square metre of around 7 euros in the first year and of 8 to 9 euros over 2009 and 2010, without a significant rise of the phenomenon in the second year, i.e. an increase of 8% in the first year and of 9 to 10% after two years. The regions where the market was the tightest saw the most rapid price increase, particularly the Mediterranean region., Bono Pierre-Henri, Trannoy Alain. The Impact of the ‘Scellier’ Income Tax Relief on Building Land Prices in France. In: Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, n°507-508, 2019. pp. 91-114.

This is yet another case where the US Supreme Court was called upon to determine the reach of a federal statute. It held, on the one hand, that ‘the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act’ (RICO) could be applied to conduct that occurs outside the United States. According to the Court, Congress intended certain provisions of RICO, such as §§1962 (b) and (c), to apply extraterritorially. This was significant, as it involved the rebuttal of the presumption against extraterritoriality in respect of those provisions. On the other hand, it also ruled that §1964(c), which provides for a private action, must prove an injury within the United States. It was, therefore, a bitter-sweet victory for the claimant, the European Community, who had brought a claim under §1964(c). As it alleged only foreign injuries, it failed to meet the test under this provision. The European Community and 26 of its Member States brought an action against RJR Nabisco and its related entities (‘Nabisco’), alleging that Nabisco participated in a global money laundering scheme in association with various organised crime groups, which violated RICO. This Act prohibits certain activities of organised crime groups, including the investing income derived from racketeering activities in an enterprise involved in interstate and foreign commerce; acquiring or maintaining an interest in an enterprise, and conducting affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity; and conspiring to violate any of these prohibitions.

À la veille des élections européennes, il est utile d’abonder le débat en réflexions et point de vue sur l’utilité de l’Union européenne pour l’industrie, sujet qui replace l’UE dans l’histoire de la réussite du Marché unique mais qui questionne l’existence des politiques européennes pour soutenir la compétitivité de l’industrie mise à mal par les États-Unis et la Chine. Le 10 avril 2019, l’OFCE organisait une conférence-débat sur la question de savoir si l’industrie avait besoin de l’Union européenne (UE), ce texte rassemble les contributions des intervenants. Il apparaît que la question peut être abordée sous différents angles, ce qui complique la définition d’une politique européenne pour l’industrie mais en même temps lui donne une étendue d’ambitions sans égale avec la réalité passée de la pratique européenne. De la politique de la concurrence à la politique commerciale en passant par les politiques industrielle et environnementale, tous les angles ont été abordés par les auteurs mais peu d’articulation ni d’emboîtement ne semblent s’imposer pour décrire la politique européenne récente sauf à reconnaître la primauté de la politique de concurrence. Finalement, il ressort de cette collection de contributions une impérieuse nécessité de trouver une cohérence entre ces politiques par l’établissement d’une ligne politique pour l’industrie européenne qui hiérarchiserait les objectifs pour mieux mobiliser les outils politiques disponibles. Les défis industriels que rencontre l’UE imposent à la future Commission européenne qu’elle définisse cette ligne.

Que vaut la promesse d’égalité démocratique lorsque la situation matérielle des classes moyennes et populaires stagne ou régresse ? À travers une analyse implacable des inégalités mondiales, Branko Milanovic met en évidence la difficulté du combat pour la justice sociale au début du XXIe siècle....En janvier 2019, l’ONG Oxfam rendait public un chiffre édifiant, pour alerter les consciences. Les 26 personnes les plus riches de la planète posséderaient autant de patrimoine que la moitié la plus pauvre de l’humanité. 26 multimilliardaires d’un côté, face à 3,8 milliards de personnes dans le besoin de l’autre : comment a-t-on pu en arriver là ? C’est tout le mérite du livre de l’économiste Branko Milanovic, publié en anglais en 2016 et récemment traduit en français par les éditions La Découverte, que de chercher à expliquer cet engrenage et ses conséquences politiques. [...]

La crise économique mondiale fait maintenant place à des crises politiques nationales, au retour des frontières et des murs. Cette situation est au moins en partie le résultat d’une sous-estimation des instabilités du capitalisme. Nos Etats providence ont permis de civiliser les capitalismes nationaux. Ils sont de plus en plus présents, sans réellement limiter les risques et inégalités issus de la mondialisation. S’appuyant sur l’histoire économique et sociale, aussi bien que sur une claire analyse du contexte économique contemporain, ce livre explore la possibilité d’une autre relation entre l’économie et la politique, en élargissant l’espace des solidarités. Il propose en particulier la création d’une assurance chômage européenne, compatible avec les systèmes nationaux et s’appuyant sur l’expérience des Etats-Unis. Contre le seul repli national, il existe un chemin économiquement cohérent pour préserver nos Etats providence.

International audience; This paper documents the extent of copying and estimates the returns to originality in online news production. We build a unique dataset combining all the online content produced by French news media (newspaper, television, radio, pure online media, and a news agency) during the year 2013 with new micro audience data. We develop a topic detection algorithm that identi_es each news event, we trace the timeline of each story and study news propagation. We unravel new evidence on online news production. First, we show that one quarter of the news stories are reproduced online in less than 4 minutes. Second, we _nd that only 32.6% of the online content is original. Third, we show that reputation e_ects partly counterbalance the negative impact of plagiarism on newsgathering incentives. By using media-level daily audience and article-level social media statistics (Facebook and Twitter shares), we _nd that original content represents between 54 and 62% of online news consumption. Reputation mechanisms actually appear to solve about 30 to 40% of the copyright violation problem.

International audience; The present paper sheds new light on the incidence of firm taxation by exploiting the design of a large-scale corporate income tax credit in France. The tax credit is proportional to the wage bill of workers paid below a hourly wage threshold, which induces a discontinuity in mandatory levies at the employee level. We use discontinuities at the employee level in order to estimate firm-level incidence. This turns out to be the relevant level for the effects of the policy, which would be undetectable with an estimation focused on the employee level impact of the shock. Relying on exhaustive matched employer-employee data, we find a discrepancy between the absence of incidence at the employee level and a substantial incidence on wages at the firm level, around 50%. We find more over that the policy in question has stark (anti)-redistributive effects. The tax cut is targeting the lowest part of wage earners, but the benefits accrue to other employees inside the firm, who earn substantially higher wages on average.

contribution à un site web; Pour lutter efficacement contre les inégalités, il importe non seulement de mesurer la progressivité du système socio-fiscal dans sa globalité mais également d’évaluer l’ensemble des politiques qui les structurent en amont – inégalités de rémunérations, d’accès à l’emploi – ainsi que celles qui gouvernent l’accès aux services publics. Démonstration à propos du cas des services à la personne.

Ce travail propose pour la première fois d’étudier les clivages cachés du soutien aux Gilets jaunes à partir des données de l’enquêe du Baromètre de la confiance du CEVIPOF. Nous montrons que le soutien au mouvement entérine l’ effacement de l’axe droite-gauche traditionnel. Les Gilets jaunes réunissent des personnes dont les taux de satisfaction dans la vie sont très faibles, indépendamment de leur accord sur les moyens d’y répondre. Ce sont majoritairement d’anciens éecteurs de Marine Le Pen, de Jean-Luc Mélenchon ou des abstentionnistes (dans cet ordre). Ils partagent une critique plus radicale de l’Etat et du gouvernement que l’un et l’autre de ces électorats, tout en ayant des positions plus médianes sur des questions morales comme la tolérance a l’ égard des minorités. L’analyse de la géographie des ronds-points confirme le caractère original de ce mouvement. Le Nord-Est et le Sud-Ouest sont les points forts de la mobilisation, soit les deux régions ou Marine Le Pen et Jean-Luc Mélenchon ont fait leurs meilleurs scores en 2017

The essays in this volume take off from themes in the work of eminent philosopher and political scientist Joshua Cohen. Cohen is a deeply influential thinker who has written on deliberative democracy, freedom of expression, Rawlsian theory, global justice, and human rights. The essays gathered here both engage with Cohen's work and expand upon it, embodying his commitment to the idea that analytical work by philosophers and social scientists matters to our shared public life and to democracy itself. The contributors offer novel perspectives on pressing issues of public policy from accountability for sexual violence to exploitation in international trade. The volume is organized around three central ideas. The first concerns democracy, specifically how we can improve collective decision-making both by elucidating our normative principles and enacting institutional changes. The second idea centers on how we confront injustice, investigating the role of emotions, social norms, and culture in democratic politics and public discussion. The final section explores how we develop political principles and values in an interdependent world, one in which theories of justice and forms of cooperation are increasingly extending beyond the state. The principle uniting this collection is that ideas matter-they can guide us in understanding how to confront difficult global problems such as the fragility of democratic institutions, the place of sovereignty in a globalizing world, and the persistence of racial injustice.