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In this paper, we aim to identify the main factors that explain the occurrence and intensity of armed conflicts in a specific region, the Middle East and North Africa. We extend the linear Bayesian Model Averaging procedure to allow for the outcome, conflict intensity, to be measured on an ordered scale. Our research led us to expand the traditional dichotomous outcome, war versus peace, into a conflict intensity measure dissociating the state of peace from four different levels of violence. We provide strong evidence that not only demographical, institutional and socio-economic but also, environmental factors must be considered when analyzing conflict intensity. Those factors being innately intertwined, we advise policy makers not to rely on a particular theory to assess policy decisions. By paying special attention to neighboring states’ characteristics, our results reveal that political economy factors, historical legacy, climate and access to natural resources are key in identifying conflict severity. Finally, we show that model averaging predictions for ordered categorical outcomes improve upon the existing out-of-sample conflict prediction techniques.JEL Codes: O11, O15, C11, C52

The continuing economic stagnation of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has typically been explained in terms of the resource‐curse thesis. Yet, without analyzing the geographical constraints of MENA and the institutions of the region, particularly ones that pertain to land and property rights, this explanation is partial at best. Specifically addressing the structural constraints on using land for economic transformation, we offer a new explanation for the underdevelopment of MENA. We show that transformation in agriculture is inhibited by fuzzy property rights in land that were inherited from colonial and post‐colonial agricultural policies. Political‐economic transformation in MENA could unleash the power of land in the region.

In Chapter 17, the same authors look at the all-important topic of the ‘Arab Spring’, its economic features, consequences and policy challenges. Here, the long-term failure of economic policies in the Arab world to generate significant domestically based growth is reviewed as a determinant of the Arab Spring and as a background to a more detailed focus on economic policies. An examination of the economic programmes of three Islamist political parties shows that they are relatively moderate and centrist, but suffer from important, though not surprising, gaps. The economic policies that might have been expected from any reformist (non-Islamist and non-authoritarian) governments which emerged from the uprisings are considered. While these two sets of policies have much in common (and coalitions could be envisaged), Cobham and Zouache argue that neither can successfully address the failures of the pre-Spring economic policy in the Arab countries and that new economic policies are needed. For example, the crony capitalism which developed out of the liberalisation process needs to be confronted and the associated corruption needs to be eliminated. In conclusion, an appeal is made for the development of more specific economic policy proposals in these and other areas, proposals which reformist governments could implement and which could be used to challenge authoritarian governments that are reluctant to reform.

This paper will propose a comparative analysis of the conceptualization of colonisation that could shed light on the contemporary economic analysis of the colonial legacy in Africa. More specifically, this article will propose a return to old debates on colonisation, with a special focus on French 19th century political economy. Three main institutionalist lessons can be drawn from a careful analysis of French colonial economics of the 19th century. First, by institutions, the authors referred not only to the modes of colonisation – liberalism or collectivism? – but also to the actors: What should be the respective role of states and of private actors (entrepreneurs, banks, settlers) in the colonisation of Africa? Second, the colonial debates involved a discussion of property, whether in the sense of land ownership (individual vs. collective) or under the prism of property rights. Third, the analysis of the colonisation of Africa by French economists reveals an understanding of institutions as cultural values, norms or even racial attributes.

This paper intends to re-examine the reflections of Werner Sombart, Vilfredo Pareto and Emile Durkheim, who provide general guide to interpreting some crucial elements of the discussions on Marxism and socialism from 1895 to 1901. From November 1895 to May 1896, Durkheim starts a broad reflection on socialism and Saint-Simon in a course held at the University of Bordeaux, where he begins a comprehensive evaluation of the “history of Socialism”, including also the assessment of thinkers like Fourier, Proudhon, Lassalle and Marx. Sombart in 1896 publishes a collection of eight lectures held in Zurich, highlighting the link between his reflection on socialism and the analysis on “modern capitalism” he develops in Der moderne Kapitalismus. Pareto publishes Sistemi Socialisti in 1901, after a systematic reflection on socialism begun in 1896, which allows him to verify the categories and interpretative models he would adopt in his economic and sociological inquiries. The paper illustrates some aspects of this challenging confrontation, namely: the analysis of the methodology and interpretative power of the socialist theories; the features of “modern socialism” as a “social fact”; and the debates on the relationships between capitalism and socialism.

L’article s’interesse a l’analyse economique de la question coloniale algerienne par Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Son positionnement semble peu connu dans la litterature. Proudhon propose une theorie institutionnaliste du droit de la force a partir de laquelle il est possible de penser la colonisation dans un cadre raciste. Ce cadre fournit les premices d’une economie coloniale algerienne. L’article examine egalement la coherence entre le systeme de Proudhon et sa vision coloniale. Le principal resultat est que la question coloniale intervient comme un cas particulier qui ne releve pas des principes derives a partir des ecrits de Proudhon, en particulier les principes de justice, d’egalite, de liberte et de propriete.

This article examines the contribution of J.R. Commons to race relations, competition, and institutional change. One result of our study is that, in his analysis of institutional dynamics in the United States, Commons’ rejection of laissez-faire is derived from a racist analytical framework: the “superior races” should be protected from the “inferior races”. Another result is that Commons adopts a neo-Lamarckian framework which takes education as the basis for the assimilation of “inferior races”. This article then shows that policies often defended as progressives, as education policies, may be derived from racist foundations. The final remarks single out the ambiguous connection between race and culture revealed by Commons’ approach.

The saint-simonians are active between 1825 and 1832, when the sect is banned. However, saint-simonism stays influent at least until the end of the reign of Napoleon the third. The movement is structured around famous authors, some of them now recognised as economists, others as real thinkers of society. In this chapter we propose a rational reconstruction of the relation between institutions and development from a saint-simonian perspective. This approach offers two advantages. Firstly, it helps understanding the construction of the French model of capitalism in the nineteenth century, which persists nowadays, around a close connection between industry, banking, state and higher education schools (grandes ecoles). Secondly, it throws light on development issues, since the saint-simonians had tried to implement their economic model also in French colonies, especially in Algeria. The chapter is organized as follows: after the introduction, in the second section the main saint-simonian economic principles are presented. In the third section, a saint-simonian institutional framework is given. The fourth section examines the impact of this framework on the analysis of development. Final remarks are presented in the last section.

This article examines the foundations of the colonial economics of the Saint-Simonians that were developed in Algeria after the French invasion in 1830. Saint-Simonian colonial economics may be seen as a leading contributor to the development of French orientalism. This article illustrates the ambiguous position of Saint-Simonian economics in the colonial project, especially in relation to the role of equality. According to the Saint-Simonians, collective socialism was the best economic system for Algeria. This article notes, however, the contradiction inherent in the Saint-Simonians' project with regard to the racial argument they used to justify their position.

This paper evaluates the concepts of natural rates of interest and output in Woodford’s »neo-Wicksellian« and »benchmark New Keynesian« version of the New Neoclassical Synthesis (NNS) by comparing them with the original approach of Wicksell and critical assessments and adaptations by Lindahl, Myrdal, Keynes and Friedman. It is shown that the theoretical foundations of the NNS prescriptions for monetary policy are ambiguous and incomplete. Using the NNS definition(s) of the natural rate of output, New Keynesian policy rules do not necessarily yield results superior to those of »Old Keynesian« strategies of output stabilization. Moreover, natural rates of interest can hardly be defined independently of the influences of monetary policy. The use of natural-rate concepts in the NNS disregards essential problems that were identified in the older Wicksellian and Keynesian literature.

International audience; This article contributes to the literature on the Hayek-Keynes controversy on two points. The first contribution is to show that the question of the micro-foundations of macroeconomics is crucial to understand the Hayek-Keynes controversy. The second contribution is to reveal that Hayek's attack on the micro-foundations issue had a methodological impact on the making of the General Theory especially via the concept of marginal efficiency of capital. The paper concludes that what finally contrasts Hayek and Keynes is the kind of micro-foundations that economists should adopt to explain business cycles

An analysis of the determinants of Algerian industrial employment growth in a framework that includes a spatial dependency effect reveals that there is no convergence process between the Algerian regions. Nonetheless, a convergence club gathering three wilayates appears when spatial heterogeneity of industrial employment growth is considered. Furthermore, our paper demonstrates that the hydrocarbon and the construction and public works sectors did not have externality effects on local industrial employment growth. Accordingly, Algerian public plans had some impact on unemployment, but mainly on informal unemployment through the support of the construction and public work sector.

Cet article propose un bilan de l’analyse de Keynes au regard de la macroéconomie keynésienne contemporaine. Dans la première section, nous montrons dans quelle mesure le principe de la demande effective est fondé sur une conception du problème de coordination interindividuelle. La deuxième section avance que si le recours à la concurrence imparfaite peut servir de base à une interprétation contemporaine du principe de demande effective, elle n’est pas une condition suffisante à l’existence du chômage involontaire tel que Keynes l’entendait. De même, les modèles de défauts de coordination proposent une interprétation intéressante du problème de coordination de Keynes, mais ne démontrent pas l’existence du chômage involontaire., This article makes an evaluation of what remains of Keynes in New Keynesian economics (NKE). In section 2, we show to what extent Keynes’s principle of effective demand is based on an inter-individual coordination problem. Then, section 3 examines if NKE – in particular imperfect competition and coordination failures models – provides a modern interpretation of Keynes’s coordination problem. The result of our analysis is twofold. On the one hand, NKE modelizes certain part of Keynes’s theory. In particular, NKE provides microeconomic foundations for the principle of effective demand and sheds light on the role of expectations in Keynes’s coordination problem. But, on the other hand, it does not succeed to model involuntary unemployment à la Keynes.

La composition du parlement libanais est basée sur un compromis entre les différentes confessions religieuses de ce pays, souvent considéré comme seule démocratie parlementaire de l’Orient arabe. A partir des outils de la théorie des jeux coopératifs et en utilisant les fichiers électoraux libanais, cet article analyse le pouvoir des différentes confessions dans le parlement libanais. Nous étudions la différence entre le pouvoir “apparent” et le pouvoir “réel” de chaque confession prenant part au processus de décision. Cet article analyse aussi l’impact des dispositions de la nouvelle réforme électorale sur le pouvoir de chaque confession représentée au parlement libanais. Nous montrerons que le compromis confessionnel au Liban est loin d’être parfait.

L’article propose une analyse comparative du traitement de la question coloniale par les anciens et les neo-institutionnalistes nord-americains. A la difference des neo-institutionnalistes, les anciens institutionnalistes apprehendent le colonialisme a travers un prisme racial. L’article montre neanmoins une convergence analytique entre les deux traditions autour d’une explication culturaliste de la dynamique institutionnelle. Les anciens et les neo-institutionnalistes mettent au premier plan le role de la culture religieuse comme facteur explicatif de l’emergence des institutions efficaces. La convergence entre anciens et neo-institutionnalistes sur le role de la culture dans la selection et l’evolution d’institutions favorisant la croissance illustre l’ambiguite de la relation entre race et culture.

This article examines the growth performance of Africa and the Middle East for the period 1990-2005. It employs a Bayesian model-averaging method that constructs estimates as a weighted average of spatial autoregressive estimates for every possible combination of included variables. One of the results is that the inclusion of spatial dependences has a direct impact on the determinants of growth in Africa and the Middle East. A main contribution of this article is to consider geographical effects in a more flexible way, which allows an enriched comprehension of the role of institutional factors in explaining low economic development.

Economic Research Forum Working paper n°490; International audience; This paper examines Africa's and Middle East's growth performance for the period 1990- 2005. It employs a Bayesian Model Averaging method that constructs estimates as a weighted average of Spatial Autoregressive estimates for every possible combination of included variables. One of the results of the paper is that the inclusion of spatial dependencies has a direct impact on the determinants of growth in Africa and Middle-East. Indeed, the methodology used in the paper offers an interesting response to the institution/geography debate on the explanation of growth and development. In particular, our methodology allows a selection of the institutional variables that count to explain low development since the geographical variables are partially integrated in the spatial dependence effect.

Notre analyse de la coordination inter-individuelle dans la controverse Hayek-Keynes nous permet de distinguer deux types de probleme de coordination. Le probleme de coordination au sens de Hayek est temporaire. Il est la consequence de chocs informationnels exogenes perturbant les interactions entre les individus. Il implique un concept de chomage temporaire. Le probleme de coordination au sens de Keynes est permanent. Il est le resultat endogene des interactions entre les individus evoluant au sein de marches interdependants. Il conduit au concept de chomage involontaire au sens de Keynes.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Lobjet de cet article est declairer les rapports quentretiennent le droit naturel et leconomie dans la pensee de F. Bastiat. On montre que le statut de la raison humaine occupe une place centrale dans cette articulation. On met egalement en evidence les tensions entre le mecanisme de repartition des droits de propriete soumis a une procedure de concurrence et le respect de la loi naturelle. A cet egard, F. Bastiat definit la liberte comme la capacite a utiliser la raison.The aim of this paper is to throw a new light on the close relations between natural rights and economics in F. Bastiats thought. We show that the human reason status holds a central place in this articulation. We also underscore the problematic compatibility between the natural rights allocation mechanism based on a competition process and the natural law. We explain how F. Bastiat comes to grips with this tension. He proposes to define the notion of liberty as the faculty of using human reason.

International audience

This impressive volume centres on the relationship between Austrian and Swedish economics. Exploring themes such as capital theory, expectations, policy, market theory and the history of economic thought, this book makes for an interesting read. It will appeal across a wide range of disciplines within economics as well as the philosophy of social science.