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Since 1993, Nepal has implemented one of the most ambitious and comprehensive program of decentralization of forest management in the world, which is widely considered a success story in terms of participatory management of natural resources. Using quasi-experimental methods, we first quantify the net gains in tree cover related to the program in the Hills and Mountains of Nepal, and describe their temporal evolution. We then discuss the mechanisms driving forest restoration, highlighting that, while community forestry played a role in increasing forest biomass and forest size, it also reduced demand pressures by altering energy choices.

What determines whether or not multinational firms transplant their mode of organisation to other countries? We embed the theory of knowledge hierarchies in an industry equilibrium model of monopolistic competition to examine how the economic environment may affect the decision of a multinational firm about transplanting its business organisation to other countries. We test the theory with original and matched parent and affiliate data on the internal organisation of 660 Austrian and German multinational firms and 2200 of their affiliate firms in Eastern Europe. We find that three factors stand out in promoting the multinational firm’s decision to transplant the business model to the affiliate firm in the host country: a competitive host market, the corporate culture of the multinational firm, and when an innovative technology is transferred to the host country. These factors increase the respective probabilities of organisational transfer by 18.5 percentage points, 37, and 31 percentage points.

International audience; This paper evaluates how three different international accreditations for business schools (AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA) affect student preferences, expressed via enrollment decisions. Focusing on the French context, we build a relative preference indicator to compare schools using data collected by the central clearinghouse that allocates students to schools. We observe that all three accreditations positively and significantly influence students, but that the impact of the AACSB accreditation is larger than the other two accreditations. Having an AACSB accreditation is equivalent to moving up four places in rankings by L’étudiant magazine, whereas the impact of having EQUIS or AMBA is similar to moving up two places. We also find a sizeable “triple crown” effect, meaning that the three accreditations tend to complement each other. Our results are robust to different ways of assessing potential self-selection into accreditation.

Depuis une dizaine d’années, plus précisément depuis l’attribution du prix Nobel d’économie à Elinor Ostrom en 2009, les recherches sur la notion de communs ont bénéficié d’une reconnaissance accrue et se sont intensifiées. L’attrait pour les communs n’a cessé d’augmenter et de s’élargir à de nouveaux publics au sein notamment des chercheurs et enseignants, des militants associatifs et politiques, du grand public, des responsables des collectivités territoriales et des entrepreneurs. Un tel e...

International audience; Although franchise chains are increasingly committed to environmental, social, and societal transitions, only a few researchers have focused on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the specific case of franchising. The aim of our paper is to discuss the specificities and challenges of CSR in franchising, explore how franchisors report on their sustainable practices, and emphasize subsequent directions for future research. In order to do so, we focus on the Corporate Social Disclosure (CSD) practices of twenty-two retail and service franchisors operating in the French market where regulations of non-financial information disclosures exist for large companies. Our findings show that these franchisors disclose rich and diversified information about their CSR activities. However, franchisors’ disclosures can vary significantly, especially depending on their chain size and whether they are subject to reporting regulations. Our research contributes to the literature on CSR in franchise chains, as well as the practice.

We propose to estimate the price effects of a positive housing demand shock on French real estate markets. The "Interest Free Loan" system is expected to support housing demand by first-time buyers. From 2009 to mid-2010, the amount of subsidies paid to first-time buyers was increased. We evaluate the effect of this new housing policy on land parcel prices using a new methodological approach of a hybrid of difference-in-difference and matching techniques, and exploiting geographical differences in the policy design to identify possible inflationary effects. We identify significant but transitory inflationary effects suggesting that land supply elasticity is low in France.

International audience; Chester Barnard was an American manager and public administrator who greatly influenced economics and the history of economic thought. Oliver Williamson’s early works were published after Barnard’s death, but the intellectual proximity they show to Herbert Simon, along with the significant influence of John Commons on their analysis, brings them closer. This study investigates Barnard legacy (particularly his work in 1938) in Williamson’s “science of organisation” project by analysing the Barnardian origins of his organisational micro-approach from their complementary theories of cooperation.

International audience; Inclusive business models are promoted as unique opportunities to combine profitability for firms needing reliable supply from small-scale farmers with market inclusion for those farmers. In environments with weak public institutions, such agreements may be conducive to sustainable income, yet costly or even impossible to enforce. They rely on firms willing to provide investment while being exposed to high appropriability hazards. This paper explores the relationship between investments, appropriability hazards, and safeguards based on ten African case studies. Results suggest that in environments in which commitments are hard to secure, the business model chosen is largely determined by safeguarding against side-selling.

Economic disruptions due to the global Covid-19 pandemic have unleashed uncountable litigation between firms on how to enforce their contractual relationships. In this context, the survival of undertakings becomes a real issue when partners in vertical relationships or global value chains behave opportunistically. Should this exploitative conduct be scrutinized as anti-competitive practices by the competition authorities in full separation from ordinary courts? In this paper, we argue that the well-known rule of abuse of the state of economic dependence (ASED) could deter opportunism that arises likewise during the Covid-19 pandemic or any other global crises. Actually, rejected by the Chicago School of Antitrust, and not acknowledged by the contract doctrine except its facet of negligent conduct, exploitative abuses could reintegrate the list of harmful practices to the consumers albeit after an intricate analysis. The article further investigates the extent to which the ASED, deterring a wide spectrum of exploitative conduct, fills the gap left by the provisions punishing unfair practices albeit it confers a considerable room for the specialist judges' discretion. Such ASED implementation would ensure more deterrence of the lawful opportunism inasmuch it narrows cracks of the legal corpus between exclusionary and exploitative abuses., Les perturbations économiques dues à la pandémie mondiale de Covid-19 ont déclenché d'innombrables litiges entre les entreprises sur la manière de faire respecter leurs relations contractuelles. Dans ce contexte, la survie des entreprises devient un réel problème lorsque les partenaires dans les relations verticales ou les chaînes de valeur mondiales se comportent de manière opportuniste. Ce comportement d'exploitation devrait-il être examiné comme des pratiques anticoncurrentielles par les autorités de la concurrence, en toute séparation des tribunaux ordinaires?Dans cet article, nous soutenons que la règle bien connue de l'abus de l'état de dépendance économique (ASED) pourrait dissuader l'opportunisme qui survient également lors de la pandémie de Covid-19 ou de toute autre crise mondiale. En fait, rejetés par la Chicago School de l'antitrust, non reconnus par la doctrine du contrat, à l'exception de sa facette de conduite négligente, les abus d'exploitation pourraient réintégrer la liste des pratiques néfastes pour les consommateurs, bien qu'après une analyse complexe. L’article examine en outre dans quelle mesure l’ASED, dissuadant un large éventail de comportements d’exploitation, comble le vide laissé par les dispositions réprimant les pratiques déloyales, même s’il confère une latitude considérable au pouvoir discrétionnaire des juges spécialisés. L'article soutien que la mise en œuvre de l'ASED assurerait une plus grande dissuasion de l'opportunisme légal dans la mesure où elle rétrécit les fissures du corpus juridique entre les abus d'exclusion et d'exploitation.

International audience; University–industry knowledge transfer is an important source wealth of creation for all partners; however, the practical management of this activity within universities is often hampered by procedural rigidity either through the absence of decision-making protocols to reconcile conflicting priorities or through the inconsistent implementation of existing policies. This is problematic, since it can impede operational effectiveness, prevent inter-organisational knowledge-creation and hamper organisational learning. This paper addresses this issue by adopting a cross-discipline approach and presenting meta-rules as a solution to aid organisational decision making. It is proposed that meta-rules can help resolve tensions arising from conflicting priorities between academics, knowledge transfer offices and industry and help facilitate strategic alignment of processes and policies within and between organisations. This research contributes to the growing debate on the strategic challenges of managing knowledge transfer and presents meta-rules as a practical solution to facilitate strategic alignment of internal and external stakeholder tensions. Meta-rules has previously only been applied in a computer intelligence context however, this research proves the efficacy of meta rules in a university–industry knowledge transfer context. This research also has practical implications for knowledge transfer office managers who can use meta-rules to help overcome resource limitations, conflicting priorities and goals of diverse internal and external stakeholders.

Using a social dilemma game, we study the cooperative behavior of individuals who reintegrate their group after being excluded by their peers. We manipulate the length of exclusion and whether this length is imposed exogenously or results from a vote. We show that people are willing to exclude the least cooperators and they punish more, and more severely, chronic defections. In return, a longer exclusion has a higher disciplining effect on cooperation after reintegration, but only when the length of exclusion is not chosen by group members. Its relative disciplining effect is smaller when the length of exclusion results from a vote. In this environment, a quicker reintegration also limits retaliation. The difference in the impact of long vs. short exclusion on retaliation is larger when the length of exclusion is chosen by group members than when it is exogenous. Post-reintegration cooperation and forgiveness depend not only on the length of exclusion but also on the perceived intentions of others when they punish.

International audience; La théorie de l’agence stipule que la surveillance constante est nécessaire pour augmenter l’effort des agents. Alors que la littérature se concentre plutôt sur la surveillance probabiliste de la production, cet article étudie l’impact de la surveillance constante et continue rendue possible par les technologies de l’information et la compare avec la surveillance classique, imparfaite et probabiliste. Nous analysons ainsi les différences des effets de la surveillance informatique et de la surveillance classique sur les comportements des agents. Nous analysons également les impacts sur les comportements des principaux qui sont largement ignorés dans la littérature existante. À cette fin, nous avons mené une expérience contrôlée en laboratoire, en utilisant le cadre de l’organisation virtuelle qui nous permet d’introduire une tâche à effort réel, ainsi que le suivi des activités de loisir et de tricherie. Nous constatons que la surveillance informatique implique un effet disciplinant, qui apparaît lorsque les agents ont une rémunération endogène et qu’ils perçoivent la sanction. La surveillance informatique, même si elle a un coût en termes de temps (le temps que le principal ne peut pas consacrer à travailler), est utile au principal pour qu’il sanctionne les comportements contre-productifs, en particulier la tricherie, et n’est pas préjudiciable à sa performance.It monitoring: a real effort experiment Agency theory states that constant monitoring is necessary to increase agents’ effort. While the existing experimental evidence focuses on probabilistic output monitoring, this article studies the impact of constant and continuous monitoring allowed by information technologies (IT) and compares it with the classic imperfect and probabilistic form. We analyze thus the differences in the effects of IT vs. classic monitoring on agents’ behaviors. We also analyze the impacts on principal’s behaviors that are largely ignored in the existing literature. For this purpose, we conducted a controlled laboratory experiment using a virtual organization setting which enables us to introduce a real-effort work task as well as IT monitoring and shirking activities (leisure and cheating). We find that IT monitoring implies a disciplining effect which appears when the agents are in an endogenous share pay scheme and perceive the sanction of being caught shirking. IT monitoring, even if it implies a time cost (that the principal cannot dedicate to work), is yet useful for the principal to sanction counterproductive activities, especially cheating, and is not detrimental to his/her performance.

International audience; The Capability Approach, first developed by Amartya Sen, cab be used as a mean to analyse occupational health and safety related behaviours. Accidents at work more frequently occur among atypical workers and migrants, making this an interesting context in which to apply Sen's theoretical framework; namely showing how freedoms, rights, organisational climate and capabilities are important factors in risk prevention. It is logical to expect that workers' participation and rights should provide a safer environment, but the application of the Capability Approach offers a tool to measure organisational inequalities and their consequences. Furthermore, its application could help to improve occupational health and safety chiefly among atypical workers. In this paper, I consider Safety Capability to encompass the workers attitude to their own protection, their understanding of safety procedures and the risks they face, and their freedom to ask their organisation to comply with the law and implement safe work processes.

Because work is most often performed in a social context, social incentives are key to understand incentive setting in firms. We assess the strength of social incentives, which critically depend on the extent of social preferences and social pressure at work, by assessing the difference in human performance when people complete a sequential task with either other humans or robots. We find evidence that, despite maintaining monetary incentives intact, humans who work with robots underperform those who work with other humans, especially under team pay. The lack of altruism toward robots and the lack of social pressure exerted by robots are key to explain this negative effect under team pay. Under piece rate, the lack of envy toward robots plays a crucial role. Regardless of the payment scheme, our findings show that social incentives are powerful. Accounting for the weakening of social incentives when assessing the cost-efficiency of replacing humans with robots is thus critical.

International audience; Power has traditionally been rejected from economics and more particularly from the economics of the firm. Although he proposes building an interdisciplinary approach to the firm, Williamson rejects power from the economics of transaction costs. However, regarding the theoretical and behavioral hypotheses he makes, we can raise the following question: does the Williamsonian approach to the firm have intrinsic properties for developing a theory of power? After analyzing Williamson’s argument on power/authority, this paper aims to shed light on the fact that the 2009 Nobel Prize winner has built a theory based on power that he rejects due to a questionable methodological choice. Conversely, we defend the thesis according to which power cannot be removed from the economics of the firm and transaction cost economics–at the risk of providing a distorted picture of the reality of capitalism.

https://www.afd.fr/fr/la-distance-est-elle-toujours-importante-pour-organiser-lapprovisionnement-alimentaire-urbain-le-cas-de-lagglomeration-de-rabat; La question de sécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle (SAN) des populations des villes est devenue centrale ces dernières années suite aux phénomènes de métropolisation croissants, notamment dans les pays du sud. En effet, la dynamique d’urbanisation s’accompagne de nouveaux besoins alimentaires et nécessite le déploiement de nouvelles zones marchandes. Pour satisfaire cette demande urbaine, les systèmes de distribution alimentaire (SDA) doivent s’adapter. Les villes marocaines n’échappent pas à ce défi. Dans cet article, nous cherchons à comprendre quelles sont les zones de production qui alimentent la ville de Rabat au Maroc, dans un contexte où l’urbanisation avance mais où le secteur de distribution traditionnel reste dominant. Est-ce que les avancées technologiques et organisationnelles qu’effectuent aujourd’hui les grossistes marocains permettent de s’affranchir de la distance pour l’ensemble des produits ? Au travers d’enquêtes qualitatives et quantitatives auprès des protagonistes concernés, nos résultats montrent qu’à l’instar de nombreux pays, il y a bien un allongement des chaines d’approvisionnement alimentaire pour l’agglomération de Rabat. Cependant, nous montrons que pour certains produits, les SDA n’ont pas réussi à s’affranchir de la proximité notamment de part la nécessité d’acheminer rapidement les produits très périssables. Ainsi, pour les légumes feuilles (laitue, épinard, etc.) et les plantes aromatiques (menthe, coriandre, persil) très utilisées dans la diète marocaine, seule la proximité géographique supporte les échanges commerciaux avec la ville. Par ailleurs, nos résultats montrent que les SDA traditionnels et l’immense secteur informel de l’alimentation urbaine demeurent extrêmement dynamiques et résilients au Maroc. Les produits frais passent par des marchés de gros, en principe soumis à une réglementation, ou par d’autres circuits parallèles. Le système de distribution est complexe, peu maitrisé et désorganisé. Premièrement on assiste à la multiplicité de petits prestataires de services, d’intermédiaires de vente qui jouent un vrai rôle de services dans un contexte où les productions sont peu normées et où les technologies restent précaires. Deuxièmement, on recence une multiplicité de points de vente des fruits et légumes dans l’espace de la ville et sa périphérie, donnant lieu à des déplacements et des flux intra urbains de produits, de marchands et de consommateurs. L’existence et la pérennité de ces lieux de distribution sont fortement dépendantes des niveaux de prix du marché de gros et de liquidité des acteurs.

We extend Akerlof's (1982) gift-exchange model to the case in which reference wages respond to changes in the work environment such as those related to unemployment benefits or workers' productivity levels. Our model shows that these changes spur disagreements between workers and employers regarding the value of the reference wage. These disagreements tend to weaken the gift-exchange relationship thus reducing production levels and wages. We find support for these predictions in a controlled, yet realistic, workplace environment. Our work also sheds light on several stylized facts regarding employment relationships such as the increased intensity of labor conflicts when economic conditions are unstable.

Share repurchases announcement are discretionary transactions that stimulate analyst's activity. We use the multi-dimensional concept of informativeness to capture the integration of information in the stock prices. Our empirical test comprises American and European buybacks in the period 2000-2013. We refer to three independent measures of informativeness: the synchronicity measure introduced by Roll (1988), the Amihud (2002) illiquidity ratio, and the Llorente, Michaely, Saar, and Wang (2002) measure. We relate these three measures to analysts' activity in earning forecasting. We show that share repurchase decisions initiate a process, stimulate revisions by analysts, but do not systematically improve the informativeness of stock prices. An effective information process may develop if first it is pegged on negative cumulative abnormal return (CAR) values, and/or if the analysts are revising downward their earnings forecasts. We also highlight that informativeness improves asymmetrically depending on whether a change in the dividend policy occurs simultaneously.

Existing theoretical and empirical work on contracting highlights the efficiency gains possible from optimizing asset ownership when projects span firm boundaries. However, in settings where firms are able to choose among heterogenous projects, asset ownership can also determine which projects are selected for execution. Using a regulatory shock to the US broadcast television industry, this study finds restricting television network ownership over television shows altered the types of shows commissioned by the networks. This result extends prior theoretical and empirical work on contracting by showing asset ownership not only determines the efficiency of outcomes given a project but also can change the relative attractiveness of different projects. The relationship between asset ownership and project selection is especially important in innovation contexts where project selection has a cumulative effect by changing the marginal returns to future projects; an industry’s contracting environment can therefore be a driver of the direction of innovation.

We compare procurement contracts where the procurer is either a public agent or a private corporation. Using algorithmic data reading and textual analysis on a rich dataset of contracts for a standardized product and service from a single provider, we find that public contracts feature more rigidity clauses than private-to-private contracts and their renegotiation is formalized more frequently in amendments. We further compare in-sample public contracts and find similar patterns rising in political contestability using several measures. We argue that a significant part of the contractual rigidity difference between purely private and public contracts is a political risk adaptation of the public agent to curtail plausible challenges from political contesters and interest groups.

We present experiments exploring why high ability workers join teams with less able coworkers when there are no short-term financial benefits. We distinguish between two explanations: prosocial preferences and expected long-term financial gains from teaching future teammates. Participants perform a real-effort task and decide whether to work independently or join a two-person team. Treatments vary the payment scheme (piece rate or revenue sharing), whether teammates can communicate, and the role of teaching. High ability workers are more willing to join teams in the absence of revenue sharing and less willing to join teams when they cannot communicate. When communication is possible, the choice of high ability workers to join teams is driven by expected future financial gains from teaching rather than some variety of prosocial preferences. This result has important implications for the role of adverse selection in determining the productivity of teams. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, decision analysis.

Members of groups and organizations often have to decide on rules that regulate their contributions to common tasks. They typically differ in their propensity to contribute and often care about the image they project: in particular, they want to be perceived by other group members as being high contributors. In such environments we study, from both a positive and normative perspective, the interaction between the way members vote on rules and their subsequent contribution decisions. We show how endogenous norms can emerge. We study in particular the role played by the visibility of individual actions, votes or contributions. While making votes visible always increases welfare in our setting, making contributions public can be welfare decreasing as it makes some rules more likely to be rejected.

International audience; Mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) schemes combining information about and access to multiple means of transportation through a single electronic interface require transportation operators sharing data. In doing so, they coopete: they compete over rides while they collaborate to build a service that can bring them all more rides. Building on microeconomic theory and the experiences of the existing MaaS schemes, we show that, although every operator has incentives to share data if a critical mass of coopetitors do, the coopetitive dynamics of data sharing can lead to multiple mixes of operators. In some mixes, certain operators will not decide not to participate.; Les modèles "mobility-as-a-service" (MaaS) combinant l'information sur et l'accès à plusieurs moyens de transport au sein d'une même interphase numérique requièrent que les opérateurs de transport partagent leurs données. Par ce biais, ils rentrent dans une dynamique coopétitive : ils sont en competition pour gagner des courses et ils collaborent pour produire un service qui peut leur apporter plus de courses à tous. En nous appuyant sur la théorie microéconomique et les experiences existantes de modèles MaaS, on montre que, alors que tout opérateur a des incitations à partager ses données si une masse critique de coopétiteurs le fait aussi, les dynamiques de la coopétition via le partage de données peuvent conduire à plusieurs combinaisons d'opérateurs. Dans certaines combinaisons certains opérateurs vont décider de ne pas participer.

This paper investigates the growth of professional services firms [PSFs] in the US. It first demonstrates based on a 20 year longitudinal dataset, that Gibrat's law of firm growth doesn't hold for PSFs as the growth rate of their establishment is age and size dependent. While this behavior is shared across the US economy and the notable reference point of US manufacturing firms, US PSFs exhibit a specificity in the development of their firms that exhibit persistence in growth and in their development pattern that relies on the creation of small establishments (

We propose to model the relationship between a biobank and a research unit. We are interested in the problem of a research unit that wishes to invest in a new project. This project can potentially lead to a new drug or process whose profitability is uncertain. This project requires access to a collection of biological resources (biological samples and associated data) stored in a biobank. The commercial value of this innovation is unknown by the biobank and the research unit, but it is endogenous, i.e. it depends on the actions and decisions of the different actors. Our objective is to identify how these actions and decisions modify the value of the innovation.

International audience

This article explores to what extent farming preservation or development initiatives from public authorities and/or Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) resting upon Long-term and Full Rights Acquisitions (LFRA) of land succeed in preserving farmland. The line adopted is to assess whether this mode of access to land use decreases farm profitability. With this aim, we compare ex ante transaction costs and some other costs and benefits incurred by farmers with access to land use, in the case of LFRAs, with the corresponding costs and benefits associated with the two other major coordination mechanisms, namely, conventional lease arrangements and purchasing transactions. The comparison rests on original data on costs obtained in a survey of farmers within a French region. We find that these farmers incur fewer ex ante exchange costs than by purchasing land and higher ex ante exchange costs than by leasing to an individual owner relative to the total cost of accessing land use. This difference is due to negotiation costs, which are nearly twice as high as in conventional lease arrangements. Our results imply that LFRAs would improve their efficiency by limiting the period and the intensity of tenant involvement in their own implementation without reducing their understanding of tenants’ expectations.

International audience; In this paper we conduct a laboratory experiment to test the extent to which Moore and Repullo’s subgame perfect implementation mechanism induces truth-telling, both in a setting with perfect information and in a setting where buyers and sellers face a small amount of uncertainty regarding the good’s value. We find that Moore–Repullo mechanisms fail to implement truth-telling in a substantial number of cases even under perfect information about the valuation of the good. Our data further suggests that a substantial proportion of these lies are made by subjects who hold pessimistic beliefs about the rationality of their trading partners. Although the mechanism should—in theory—provide incentives for truth-telling, many buyers in fact believe that they can increase their expected monetary payoff by lying. The deviations from truth-telling become significantly more frequent and more persistent when agents face small amounts of uncertainty regarding the good’s value. Our results thus suggest that both beliefs about irrational play and small amounts of uncertainty about valuations may constitute important reasons for the absence of Moore–Repullo mechanisms in practice.

Mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) schemes combining information about and access to multiple means of transportation through a single electronic interface require transportation operators sharing data. In doing so, they coopete: they compete over rides while they collaborate to build a service that can bring them all more rides. Building on microeconomic theory and the experiences of the existing MaaS schemes, we show that, although every operator has incentives to share data if a critical mass of coopetitors do, the coopetitive dynamics of data sharing can lead to multiple mixes of operators. In some mixes, certain operators will not decide not to participate., Les modèles "mobility-as-a-service" (MaaS) combinant l'information sur et l'accès à plusieurs moyens de transport au sein d'une même interphase numérique requièrent que les opérateurs de transport partagent leurs données. Par ce biais, ils rentrent dans une dynamique coopétitive : ils sont en competition pour gagner des courses et ils collaborent pour produire un service qui peut leur apporter plus de courses à tous. En nous appuyant sur la théorie microéconomique et les experiences existantes de modèles MaaS, on montre que, alors que tout opérateur a des incitations à partager ses données si une masse critique de coopétiteurs le fait aussi, les dynamiques de la coopétition via le partage de données peuvent conduire à plusieurs combinaisons d'opérateurs. Dans certaines combinaisons certains opérateurs vont décider de ne pas participer.

This paper aims at explaining the determinants of using an estate agent vs. conducting a private sale on the French housing market. From a survey that collected 4,142 responses relating to effective completed transactions, the results show that the decision of whether to use an estate agent is not explained by the physical or spatial features of the property or socio-demographic variables. But by buyers’ and sellers’ heterogeneous perceptions of whether it is worthwhile to use estate agents, of how far they feel themselves having market expertise, and their wish to complete quickly. Five perceived transaction costs explain why buyers and sellers use brokerage intermediation, in a consumer’s standpoint.

The keiretsu relationship in the Japanese automotive industry was once admired as a source of competitive advantage. Yet, after the collapse of the bubble economy, arguments emerged that keiretsu was instead a source of weakness and its role had ended; in fact, some automakers dismantled their keiretsu relationships. Meanwhile, however, other automakers have maintained these relationships, and as such, discussions continue regarding whether or not keiretsu contributes to competitive advantage. In this study, we analyze some empirical data in order to explore the changes to keiretsu relationships in the Japanese automotive industry, and the reasons behind these changes. We propose that there are two types of keiretsu relationships, inward and outward keiretsu, where the former type is likely to be dismantled and the latter to be maintained. Future research agenda are also presented.

The keiretsu relationship in the Japanese automotive industry was once admired as a source of competitive advantage. Yet, after the collapse of the bubble economy, arguments emerged that keiretsu was instead a source of weakness and its role had ended; in fact, some automakers dismantled their keiretsu relationships. Meanwhile, however, other automakers have maintained these relationships, and as such, discussions continue regarding whether or not keiretsu contributes to competitive advantage. In this study, we analyze some empirical data in order to explore the changes to keiretsu relationships in the Japanese automotive industry, and the reasons behind these changes. We propose that there are two types of keiretsu relationships, inward and outward keiretsu, where the former type is likely to be dismantled and the latter to be maintained. Future research agenda are also presented.

International audience; This paper investigates the relationship between the financial performance and social performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) from 10 countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Two models with interacting variables are applied to an unbalanced panel of 67 MFIs, including 18 Islamic ones (IMFIs), over the period 2004-2015. It distinguishes SolebusinessIMFIs granting exclusively Islamic services from Window IMFIs that diversify their services (Islamic and conventional). It tests five assumptions about the controversial superiority of IMFIs over conventional MFIs (CMFIs), with respect to their financial performance and social performance. Results show that MFIs, whether Islamic or conventional, face a financial vs. social performance trade-off. Window IMFIs experience higher financial performance than Solebusiness IMFIs and CMFIs. However, the three assumptions regarding financial performance are unverified. Outreach of the Solebusiness IMFIs differs from that of Window IMFIs and CMFIs. Nevertheless, the two assumptions concerning social performance are also unverified. Hence, there is no evidence that IMFIs exceed CMFIs.

We study optimal contracting in a communication setting in which an uninformed principal has the opportunity to undertake an outside option if an informed agent refuses the contract. The contract specifies a decision rule and a transfer for each unit of information revealed by the agent. Due to the existence of the outside option, the informational rent isnonmonotonic, and we characterize the properties of the optimal contract. We show that the outside option becomes a credible threat for the agent because it allows the principal to punish him severely with negative transfers. Moreover, we compare our optimal contract to the one under perfect commitment without an outside option developed by Krishna and Morgan [2008]. We find that regardless of the divergence of preferences between the principal andthe agent, the contract with an outside option is always better for the principal. Moreover, we show that the threat of using an outside option increases information extraction.

We study how upstream tariffs affect downstream investment in US manufacturing firms. Exploiting tariff reductions following multinational trade agreements, we estimate that a 10% decrease of upstream tariffs entails an increase in downstream investment by 4% to 6%. This effect stems from tariff reductions for homogeneous and low-R&D inputs (e.g., cement), consistent with the investment response being due to cost reductions rather than superior foreign technology embodied in imported inputs. Extending the analysis beyond tariffs, we use the sudden increase in Chinese import penetration in an instrumental variable estimation and show that higher import competition leads to higher downstream investment.

International audience; L'objectif de cet article est d'apprécier quelle stratégie pourrait être mise en place par Gazprom, le fournisseur dominant de l'UE, durant la phase de transition que connaît le marché gazier européen, afin de conserver (augmenter ?) ses parts de marché et maximiser ses revenus. Il s'agit d'explorer les possibilités d'actions stratégiques sur le long terme, autres que celles consistant à défendre les volumes au travers d'une guerre des prix. En particulier, on tentera de définir si Gazprom répond aux conditions (spare capacity, swing producer, bas coût de production) qui lui permettraient de mettre en œuvre une stratégie visant à instrumentaliser l'incertitude sur les prix. Cette stratégie sera définie par référence à celle menée par l'Arabie Saoudite sur le marché pétrolier international.

Should rights be publicly or privately enforced in the case of digital piracy? The emergence of large-scale anti-piracy laws and the existence of illegal non-monitored channels raise important issues for the design of anti-piracy policies. We study the impact of these demand-side policies in two enforcement settings (namely, public and private enforcement settings) with an outside adoption option for users of an illegal non-monitored channel. Our results show that public enforcement generates higher monitoring and lower price levels, and also higher legal welfare than private enforcement. However, we identify potential conflicts of interest between the legal seller and the social planner when the efficiency of the illegal non-monitored channel is low. Introducing supply-side policies, i.e. policies targeted to suppliers of illegal content, we find that they may have unexpected impacts and can damage legal welfare. We also identify situations in which the two policies are substitutes or complements.

Pourquoi un acheteur public choisit-il d’attribuer un marché public au moyen d’une procédure d’appel d’offres plutôt que par la négociation directe avec les candidats potentiels ? Pour répondre à cette question, nous examinons empiriquement l’impact des trois principaux déterminants économiques des choix des modes d’attribution des marchés publics identifiés dans la littérature, à savoir l’intensité concurrentielle prévalant sur le marché des fournisseurs, le niveau de la contrainte budgétaire de l’acheteur et la complexité du projet à réaliser. A partir d’une base de données exhaustive portant sur les marchés publics de travaux attribués en 2007 en France, notre analyse suggère que le choix du mode d’attribution des marchés publics ne s’explique pas uniquement par des considérations d’efficacité économique. Cela nous conduit à envisager d’autres explications, tenant compte notamment des aspects politiques liés au fait que les acheteurs publics sont des élus forcément sensibilisés à l’impact politique de leurs décisions. Auctions versus negotiations in public procurement : an empirical analysisWhy do public buyers use competitive bidding instead of negotiation to select a contractor? To shed light on this question, we consider the impact on the main economic determinants identified in the literature on the choice of auctions versus negotiations, namely competitive intensity, buyer’s budgetary constraints and level of complexity of the project to be done. We then examine a comprehensive data set of public sector building contracts awarded in France in 2007. The analysis suggests that the choice of awarding procedures can not be fully explained by economic efficiency considerations. Alternative explanation involving political aspects may usefully be considered since public buyers are elected and therefore aware of the political impact of their decisions.

International audience; Economic freedom, which measures the protection of property and freedom to contract, is generally argued to capture the quality of a state’s institutions regarding market activity. As to be expected, numerous studies have found that economic freedom is associated with good economic outcomes. Additionally, much effort in public economics has worked to identify the features of quality non-market public institutions. No effort has been made to connect institutions that influence market activity and institutions that govern non-market activities. We take a first step. We employ a linear programming method for measuring relative efficiencies known as Data Envelopment Analysis. We apply this technique to information on the use of inputs to the production of the prosecution of crime across the thousands of local prosecutor offices in the U.S. We then compare state-level measurements of prosecution productivity with data on state-level economic freedom from the Economic Freedom of North America index. We show that there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between the two. Those states that develop institutions respecting economic freedom also tend to be the states that develop efficient publicly-provided services. The results are extended to complementary economic freedom measurements.

International audience; Software firms that produce and sell proprietary software can use dual licensing (DL) strategies,that is, they can distribute their products under different (proprietary, OS, e.g., open source)licensing terms. We investigate the relevance and impacts of such distribution strategies in thepresence of an OS software competitor. We determine the conditions for this strategy to be profitablefor the software firm, and its impact on price, market share, and welfare. We show that aDL strategy can be used to crowd the OS software out of the market. This strategy then is profitablefor the software firm only if the spillovers coming from the hybrid software (i.e., second distributionlaunched by the software firm) are sufficiently high and result in both a higher price anda lower market share for the proprietary software. We also consider a situation where the introductionof DL leads to a market shared between the firm's software and the OS competitor. Inthis situation, the profitability of the DL strategy depends also on the degree of compatibilitybetween the proprietary software and its OS competitor. We show also that this situation cangenerate conflicts of interests between proprietary software vendors and users, resulting in suboptimaloutcomes.

International audience

This paper analyzes the issue of implementing correlated and communication equilibria when pre-play communication is restricted to a particular network (e.g., a hierarchy). When communication between the mediator and the players is not direct and private, as assumed when invoking the revelation principle, there may be incentives for other players in the network to misbehave during the communication phase while players report their private information to the mediator and the mediator sends suggested actions to the players. To remedy this issue, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions on the topology of the network of communication such that restricting communication between the mediator and the players to a particular network does not restrict the set of (communication equilibrium) outcomes that could otherwise be achieved. We show that for any underlying game and any equilibrium outcome available when communication is direct, there exists a communication scheme restricted to a particular network that implements all such outcomes (i.e., does not induce players to deviate in the communication phase) if and only if that network satisfies our conditions.

International audience; We study a principal-agent framework in which principals can assign wage-irrelevant goals to agents. We find evidence that, when given the possibility to set wage-irrelevant goals, principals select incentive contracts for which pay is less responsive to agents' performance. We show that average performance of agents is higher in the presence of goal setting than in its absence despite weaker incentives. We develop a principal-agent model with reference-dependent utility that illustrates how labor contracts combining weak monetary incentives and wage-irrelevant goals can be optimal. It follows that recognizing the pervasive use of non-monetary incentives in the workplace may help account for previous empirical findings suggesting that firms rely on unexpectedly weak monetary incentives.

International audience; We analyze risk allocation and contractual choices when public procurement is plagued with moral hazard, private information on exogenous shocks, and threat of corruption. Complete contracts entail state-contingent clauses that compensate the contractor for shocks unrelated to his own effort. By improving insurance, those contracts reduce the agency cost of moral hazard. When the contractor has private information on revenues shocks, verifying messages on shocks realizations is costly. Incomplete contracts do not specify state-contingent clauses, thereby saving on verifiability costs. This makes incomplete contracts attractive even though they entail greater agency costs. Because of private information on contracting costs, a public official may have discretion to choose whether to procure under a complete or an incomplete contract. When the public official is corrupt, such delegation results in incomplete contracts being chosen too often. Empirical predictions on the use of incomplete contracts and policy implications on the benefits of standardized contracts are discussed.

In this paper, we use a large database of more than 3 700 strategic relationships in force between French firms in 2003 to study the way they achieve cooperation. We find that cooperation is enhanced by a partner’s reputation and the perceived balance of the relationship. Our results also suggest that while formal contracts have a negative impact on ex‐post cooperation when relationships are “simple,” contracts are an enhancing factor of cooperative behaviors as soon as the intrinsic hazards of the relationship require higher ex‐ante contractual safeguards to secure agreements. As a result, formal contracts can, on the one hand, have a pernicious effect on the willingness of firms to implement cooperative behaviors; and, on the other, and under precise circumstances, appear a prerequisite allowing the emergence of ex‐post interfirm cooperation.

Après avoir rappelé les traits originaux du modèle économique du logiciel libre et ses phases d'émergence et de diffusion dans l'industrie du logiciel, l'article présente le numéro spécial de la Revue d'Économie Industrielle consacré à l'Economie du logiciel libre. Il met en évidence deux préoccupations essentielles liées au stade actuel d'évolution du modèle du logiciel libre : la question de sa viabilité à long terme et celle des formes prises par les interactions concurrentielles entre le modèle propriétaire et le modèle Open Source.

We study the problem of an inventor who brings to the market an innovation that can be legally copied. Imitators may `enter' the market by copying the innovation at a cost or by buying from the inventor the knowledge necessary to reproduce and use the invention. The possibility of contracting dramatically affects the need for patent protection. Indeed, our results reveal that: (i) Imitators wait to enter the market and the inventor becomes a temporary monopolist; (ii) The inventor offers contracts which allow resale of the knowledge by the imitators; (iii) The proffits of the inventor typically increase with the number of potential imitators.

In this article, we study nationalizations in the oil industry around the world during 1960--2006. We show, both theoretically and empirically, that governments are more likely to nationalize when oil prices are high and when political institutions are weak. We consider a simple dynamic model of the interaction between a government and a foreign-owned oil company. Even though nationalization is inefficient, it does occur in equilibrium when oil prices are high. The model's predictions are consistent with the analysis of panel data on nationalizations in the oil industry around the world since 1960. Nationalization is more likely to happen when oil prices are high and the quality of institutions is low, even controlling for country fixed effects. The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Yale University. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.