Jeudi 27 juin 2013, 14h-15h30, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- Industrial Seigniorage, the Other Face of Competition

This paper tries to develop an original view on industrial practices in competitive capitalist economies. In particular, we question the link between prices, competition and the quality of goods and services. We try to show that it is rational for firms to try to reduce the quality and/or the identity of goods and services while still presenting theses goods and services as the same as before, in order to reduce their prices and so to improve their relative position in the competitive struggle and in order to increase their profits. By reducing quality, we mean the practice that consists of mixing inputs at the margin with cheaper ones or with alternative products that give weight. This practice reminds us of the old Seigneurs who used to mix gold with other metals to produce more coins. That's why we propose to label this practice « industrial seigniorage ». The article first tries to delineate the widespread existence of this practice among French firms, and then explains the fundamental elements of (Post Keynesian) consumers' behaviour which allow for this practice to exist. We especially insist on the inability of the consumer to evaluate the quality of goods and services, and his inability to distinguish a good which have been modified at the margin. In a third part, we analyze the phenomenon of industrial seigniorage in a kaleckian model. We show the impact on sectoral profit rates and on prices, as well as the global and macroeconomic consequences on growth, distribution and employment.

- The role of Patents in Business Ecosystem's Coordination: How do Leader Firms Maintain Technological Knowledge and Create New Trajectories?

This paper discusses the management of IPR, particularly patents, in business ecosystems. We seek to understand how a leader of a business ecosystem mobilizes patents as a tool to ensure the coordination and sustainability of its business ecosystem. Our paper rely on a case study that highlights the specific patent management approach adopted by the leader of a business ecosystem in space: The leader firm uses its patents to ensure the coordination and sustainability of the ecosystem by granting them to members under the form of licenses. They draw on the fact that the threats coming from economic crisis and from more specific features of the ecosystem activity (cyclical) can lead to the disappearance of the most vulnerable partners - usually SMEs - which are the most dependent on the leader. And this loss may in turn affect the performance of the leader. In this context, the grant of licenses appears as a solution envisaged by the leader to help out SMEs-partners to diversify their activity while keeping them in the space business ecosystem. In addition, our research shows that by granting licenses for their valuation and development outside the core business of the ecosystem, the leader promotes the emergence of new technological trajectories. Our results have important implications for both research on business ecosystems development and sustainability and research on technological pre-adaptation.

Jeudi 20 juin 2013, 14h-15h30, salle Picasso

- Modular Exaptation: A Missing Link in the Synthesis of Artificial Form

Exaptation, the serendipitous discovery of a new function for an existing trait or artifact, is a significant event in evolutionary systems. Drawing from the philosophy of technology, evolutionary biology, and innovation studies, the authors develop a description of exaptation, taking into account the agency inherent in the technological sphere and the modularity of technological systems. This multilevel description of exaptation supports a multilevel analysis of technological change. We describe the impact of exaptation on technological change, before we examine the concept of analogy and discuss the foundations for a robust application of evolutionary concepts to technological change, focusing in particular on function, modularity, and selection. Next, we introduce a revised definition of exaptation to account for the modular nature of artifacts and suggest a basic taxonomy of technological change based on modular exaptation. The relationship between exaptive and adaptive processes is investigated and two models that reframe technological change, as a coupled interaction of modular exaptive and adaptive processes, are introduced. In the final section, we discuss some implications for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Mercredi 19 juin 2013, 14h-15h30, salle Picasso

- Does Excessive Liquidity Creation Trigger Bank Failures?

According to the "Excessive Liquidity Creation Hypothesis" (ELCH) introduced in this paper, a rise in a bank's core liquidity creation activity increases its probability of failure. We test the ELCH in the context of Russia that experienced many bank failures over the past decade, thus making it an ideal natural field experiment. Using Berger and Bouwman's (2009) liquidity creation measures, we find that excessive liquidity creation significantly increases the probability of bank failure and this finding survives multiple robustness checks. Our results further suggest that regulatory authorities can mitigate systemic distress and reduce the costs to society from bank failures through early identification of excessive liquidity creators and enhanced monitoring of their activities.

Mardi 18 juin 2013, 14h-15h30, salle Klee

- Elicitation of Subjective Probabilities in the Light of Signal Detection Theory

Most theories of decision-making under uncertainty are based on the idea that individuals weight events by some (transformation of) subjective probabilities. Elicitation of these subjective probabilities has thus become a major concern for evaluating and applying these models. In order to do so, one needs: (i) to be sure that such subjective probabilities actually exist in individuals' minds and, (ii) to be able to infer these subjective probabilities from behavioral data. Cognitive sciences demonstrate that decisions in perceptive tasks are based on probabilities encoded at the neuronal level. Moreover, Signal Detection Theory (SDT) provides a theoretical model, confirmed by experimental neuronal data, that relates these probabilities to behavioral data. Here we use three different elicitation rules to measure individuals' confidence in a perceptive task, and compare the results with the theoretical predictions based on SDT. We find that subjective probabilities elicited by a specific rule, the Matching Probabilities, fit very well the theoretical predictions. We also show that these results are consistent with those obtained for the same subjects in a non-perceptive task (a knowledge and logic quiz). This paves the way for extending our findings to non-perceptive tasks.

Jeudi 13 juin 2013, 14h-15h30, salle Picasso

- Investment Strategies of Cross-border Venture Capital Investors

Venture capital (VC) firms investing abroad use several strategies to mitigate liabilities of foreignness (LOF). Analyzing 1770 VC investments in young technology based companies, of which 20% by cross-border VC firms and 7% by their local branches, we confirm that cross-border VC firms invest in companies with lower information asymmetries. This effect disappears when controlling for co-investor characteristics. Cross-border VC firms have a higher probability to invest with local investors, with larger investment syndicates and with more experienced investors. When investing through a local branch, investors exhibit the same investment behavior as domestic VC firms. We thereby show that local co-investors or establishing a local presence mitigate LOF and enable cross-border investors to invest in the same companies as domestic VC firms.

Mardi 11 juin 2013, 14h-15h, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- Le brevet envisagé en tant que signal de proximités ou de complémentarités technologiques : l'exemple des entreprises françaises de biotechnologie

Cette contribution vise à montrer comment les informations contenues dans les documents brevets peuvent être utilisées dans le cadre de l'identification de proximités ou complémentarités technologiques entre partenaires potentiels de coopérations en recherche et de développement (R&D). La démarche suivie débute par un état de l'art relatif au rôle du brevet dans les accords de coopération en R&D (ACRD) puis une méthode d'analyse des profils des différents partenaires potentiels est décrite et un exemple d'application est donné. L'étude exploratoire se fonde sur l'analyse du portefeuille de brevets des 14 entreprises françaises de biotechnologie cotées, ainsi que celui de leurs principaux partenaires de R&D. L'analyse des 5 603 brevets déposés par les firmes focales et leurs partenaires souligne l'intérêt de considérer le brevet en tant que point de départ de collaborations.

Mardi 4 juin 2013, 14h-15h30, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- Policy Design, Eco-innovation and Industrial dynamics in an Agent-Based Model: An Illustration with the REACH Regulation

This paper proposes an agent-based model to study the impact of European regulation REACH on industrial dynamics. This new regulation adopted in 2007 establishes a new philosophy in how to design environmental protection and health. For this reason, REACH appears as a privileged object of study to analyze the impact of regulation on innovation strategies of firms and the structure of market. Our model focuses on the interactions between clients and suppliers in the metallurgical industry and, more particularly, in surface treatment activities. Interdependencies in the heart of vertical relationships affect the development of technologies particularly in the surface treatment activities and they are upset by the new principles introduced by REACH. The main contribution of this paper is to show, through an agent-based model, how different configurations of the REACH Regulation (Extended Producer Responsibility, authorization process and restrictions) will change the dynamics of innovation and shape market selection.

- Rationality and Efficiency: from Experimentation in (recent) Applied Microeconomics to Conceptual Issues

This paper investigates how foundational and conceptual issues around economic rationality, which are usually discussed with respect to economic theory, materialize into recent applied microeconomics. We concentrate on three radically different subfield of microeconomics – the economics of discrimination, development economics and the economics of insurance – to look at how the recent rise of experimental methods and behavioral economics within mainstream economics have changed the conceptual relationship between economic rationality and economic efficiency, without changing the substance of these notions. The perspective of going from applied work of microeconomics in the field to conceptual and foundational issues on rationality reveals another issue that has not been much discussed in the reflexive literature yet: how warranted is the analytical distinction made in economics among interpersonal preferences, intertemporal preferences and preferences for risk and uncertainty? We show that this issue has straightforward consequences both on both economic theory and on the real world through the policy recommendations made by microeconomists.

Jeudi 30 mai 2013, 15h-16h30, campus MSHS

• Séminaire méthodologique (10h-12h) : "Perspectives interdisciplinaires pour l'étude des interactions population-environnement : défis historiques et actuels"
• Conférence-débat (14h-16h) : "Complexité socio-écologique et représentation. La théorie sociale à l'épreuve de la transformation amazonienne contemporaine"

Mardi 28 mai 2013, 14h-15h, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- Organizational Attention Elasticity: An Exploratory Case of Cement Production

We use longitudinal, qualitative data from a cement plant to develop a model of Organizational Attention Elasticity (OAE). The model shows how coherent attention to emerging threats varies horizontally across different teams and vertically across different levels in the hierarchy. The data reveal the micro-processes of attention through which OAE develops, and how coherent attention is accomplished horizontally and vertically. By showing 'how' OAE and coherent attention intersect, this work identifies the underlying mechanisms of attention that are important to balance the tension between attention elasticity and attention coherence. These findings have implications for theories of organizational attention.

- Residents' Influence on the Adoption of Environmental Norms in Tourism

Since the expansion of environmental awareness and protection in recent decades, market actors, tourists and stakeholders are progressively more aware of ecological issues and conscious of existing pollution caused by mass tourism. Therefore, a new concept of sustainable tourism have appeared, including environmental and societal concerns, and was enhanced the development of more responsible products, which meet environmentally conscious consumers' needs. Subsequently, this paper considers the case of a tourism service provider, in a situation of monopoly, facing heterogeneous demand (differentiated by the sensibility to environmental issues) and located in a destination inhabited by a population of residents, more or less active in their resistance to tourism activities. Hence, this paper gives a theoretical framework of this 'service provider - residents - tourists' interaction. After having defined the level of profits in each possible setting, it appears that taking into account residents' actions leads the service provider to the reduction of his offer, and in most cases, to choose the sustainable solution.

Jeudi 23 mai 2013 14h-15h30, salle Picasso

- Networks, Proximities and Inter-Firm Knowledge Exchanges

The aim of this paper is to analyse how inter-firm collaborations, and the consequent knowledge exchanges among partners, are affected by the features of the networks in which firms are involved and by the distance (measured with respect to different dimensions) among participants. More specifically we assess the likelihood that two organizations choose to be partners according to their relative geographical, technological, social, organizational and institutional proximity and their positioning within the network (centrality and closeness). We base our empirical analysis on announced agreements with at least one firm localised in Italy over the period 2005-2012. We also collect data for the years 2000-2004 to control for the previous participations in collaboration networks. Data are retrieved from the SDC Platinum database (Thomson Financial) and include both domestic and international collaborations. In total we consider 631 agreements over the eight years 2005-2012 which involve 1078 firms (of which 511 Italian). It is important to remark that in our analysis we cover all economic activities and this allow us to offer a more general scenario and more specifically to assess the role of technological relatedness across different sectors. The econometric analysis is based on a logit model where the dependent variable is the vector of all possible pairs of firms which takes value 1 when the two firms have actually announced a collaboration and zero otherwise.

Vendredi 17 mai 2013, 9h30-11h, campus Trotabas, amphi 202 ( Séminaire - Conférence)

- Comment penser le droit global ?

Jeudi 16 mai 2013, 14h-15h30, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- Heterogeneity in the Euro Effect on Price-Cost Margins: Evidence from French Manufacturing Firms

This paper investigates the effects of the introduction of the euro on the markups of French manufacturing firms. It relies on the recent methodology from De Loecker and Warzynski (2012) that allows us to compute markups per year and per firm. We confirm that the introduction of the euro led to a decrease in the markups average but this decrease had a differentiated effect conditional on the location of firm's customers. While being an exporter irrespective of the destination is associated with larger markups, it is as expected the largest when exporters have at least one non eurozone customers. Second, the decrease in markups following the introduction of the euro was lower for firm exporting in the eurozone while exporters beyond the eurozone experienced a higher decrease. Our intuition is that eurozone exporters didn't pass through the decrease in cost they encountered thanks to the introduction of the euro. Unlike eurozone exporters, reduction in fixed export costs for global exporters was not a significant change in total cost and starting from a higher markup level, they experienced a larger drop in markups in response to the introduction of the euro. For them, the pro-competitive effect of the introduction of the euro was not mitigate by the decrease in fixed cost. Additional results are brought by the quantile regression in order to explore heterogeneity in the euro effect on markups. Among other results, we find that the introduction of the euro has been far more dramatic for firms with an initially high market power, decreasing their markups by almost 23 percentage points for the 90th percentile of the distribution, whereas firms with a lower market power have decreased theirs by less than 10 percentage points. Therefore, by boosting competition, the introduction of the euro has reduced heterogeneity in market power across firms.

- Garantir la confiance du public en la discipline économique : les recommandations en matière d'éthique scientifique de l'Association Française de Sciences Economiques

L'évolution de la société ainsi que la crise économique actuelle ont conduit à des interrogations portant sur la probité des économistes. Dans le cadre de son objectif de promotion du développement de la science économique, l'AFSE a élaboré une liste de bonnes pratiques en matière d'éthique scientifique afin d'y répondre. Nous revenons sur ces recommandations dans le but d'en souligner la pertinence mais aussi certaines limites.

Jeudi 02 mai 2013 14h-15h30, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- Toying with Regulation: 'Strategizing Tools' as Organizational Bricolage

This paper studies why and how managers develop 'strategizing tools. We call strategizing tools those self-made tools crafted by managers as opposed to off-the-shelf established strategy tools, such as BCG matrix, five forces, etc. We conceptualize strategizing and the crafting of tools as bricolage (Levi-Strauss, 1966; Duymedjian and Rüling, 2010). Drawing on two longitudinal participatory observations in highly regulated industries, we show how practitioners try to materialize rules and standards from the macro-institutional environment into daily practice. We identify three phases: framing the issue, assembling the tool and outcome. The findings reveal that the managers draw on different elements of their mental and technical repertoire, and on dialogue to craft the tool. However, to become materialized in practice, the tool needs to acquire institutional legitimacy.

- Le rôle des connaissances architecturales dans l'élaboration de la plateforme technologique d'un écosystème en émergence. Le cas des plateformes NFC.

Cette recherche met l'accent sur les conditions relatives à l'élaboration d'une plateforme technologique dans l'objectif d'identifier quelle en est, ou quelles en sont, les composantes clefs structurant l'émergence d'un écosystème d'affaires. Elle mobilise pour cela la théorie de l'innovation architecturale (Henderson et Clark, 1990 ; Anderson et al. 2008). Elle s'inscrit dans une démarche de recherche abductive par l'observation participante et propose une grille d'analyse utile à l'identification des prérogatives essentielles à la construction des plateformes technologiques. Testée dans le cadre d'une étude de cas contemplative (Savall et Zardet, 2004), cette grille d'analyse permet de montrer comment la dimension relationnelle des connaissances architecturales facilite l'élaboration des plateformes technologiques de type supply chain dont l'évolution vers la forme industrielle relève en revanche des trois autres dimensions des connaissances architecturales. Du point de vue managérial enfin, cette grille d'analyse facilite aux praticiens l'identification de leur positionnement stratégique et leur rôle dans le processus de conception d'une plateforme technologique.

Jeudi 30 avril 2013 14h-15h30, salle Klee (séminaire GREDEG-OFCE)

- Trade and Labor Reallocation with Heterogeneous Enforcement of Labor Regulations

This paper revisits the question of how trade openness affects labor market outcomes in a developing country setting. We explore the fact that plants face varying degrees of exposure to global markets and to the enforcement of labor market regulations, and rely on Brazil's currency crisis in 1999 as an exogenous source of variation in industry-specific real exchange rates and hence, access to foreign markets. Using administrative data on employers matched to their employees and on the enforcement of labor regulations at the city level over Brazil's main crisis period, we document that the way trade openness affects labor market outcomes for plants and workers depends on the stringency of de facto labor market regulations. In particular, we show that after a trade shock plants facing stricter enforcement of the labor law decrease job creation and increase job destruction by more than plants facing looser enforcement. Consistent with our predictions, this effect is strongest among small, labor-intensive, non-exporting plants, for which labor regulations are most binding. We also note a stronger impact of enforcement on younger workers. Finally, our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that increased regulatory enforcement limits the plant-level productivity gains associated with trade openness. The latter implies that increasing the flexibility of de jure regulations will allow for broader access to the gains from trade.

Jeudi 25 avril 2013 14h-15h30, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- Designing a Qualitative Research Project that is Consistent with its Explicit or Implicit Epistemological Framework

This paper investigates the issue of qualitative research validity in various epistemological frameworks, including those of critical realism and pragmatic constructivism. It provides an overview of epistemological paradigms frequently mobilized in contemporary research in management and explains the epistemological reasons why certain kinds of qualitative research methods are adapted to carrying out research in certain epistemological frameworks, whereas they are not adapted for use with other frameworks. In addition, for each epistemological paradigm, we precisely discuss at least one kind of qualitative method adapted to doing research in this paradigm. The explanations provided about consistency between research methods and epistemological frameworks constitute useful landmarks for navigating among the various kinds of methods and numerous guidelines for doing rigorous qualitative research available in the literature. Precise clues are also offered for making sound methodological decisions from the start of a research project through to publication of research results.

- Research Diary Mapping: A Methodological Tool for Reflectivity in Longitudinal Process Research

The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodological tool that helps interpreting data in a reflective way: the visual mapping of the research diary. This tool is consistent with the concept of data reduction proposed by Miles and Huberman (1994) and relies on the methodological insight provided by Langley and Truax' (1994) implementation of visual mappings of organizations' processes. The tool proposed here aims at providing a mean of reaching a higher level of reflectivity, and of providing help in overcoming the limits inherent to the research diary. The research diary is a specific self-report, and provides reflexivity by situating the phenomenon in the eye of the researcher. However, qualitative data gathered following ethnographic method is hard to grasp for whom has not being involved. These considerations lead us to develop a methodological tool allowing the use of data gathered during a collaborative research to create a visual mapping of the associated research diary. Beside the visualization interest lying into the visual mapping of the diary, the process of mapping extend the explicatory power of diary because it brings a reflective dimension. It is valuable for process studies since longitudinal studies help to better comprehend phenomenon arising on mid-term period. It also helps in making sense of links between elaborated knowledge and empirical data.

Jeudi 18 avril 2013 14h-15h30, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- Adoption et modèles de diffusion régionale de l'innovation dans les gouvernements locaux: le cas du développement de l'e-Gouvernement en Lorraine

Cette recherche prend part au débat portant sur le déterminisme technologique relatif au développement des services internet par les administrations publiques (e-Gouvernement). Il propose dans un premier temps une revue de la littérature sur les déterminants à l'origine de la fracture numérique, des comportements d'adoption des services internet et de l'e-Gouvernement. Appliquée dans le cas d'un échantillon représentatif et exhaustif de communes lorraines, cette recherche s'est ensuite intéressée à deux dimensions du développement numérique d'un territoire : les dimensions technologies d'accès et services d'e-Gouvernement. Il souligne une véritable fracture entre les communes lorraines, expliquée par les caractéristiques géographiques et socio-économiques de leurs territoires.

- Modeling Luxury Consumption: An Inter-income Classes Study of Demand Dynamics and Social Behaviors

We start from the observation that theoretical studies of luxury consumption are relatively rare in the economic analysis. In fact, while homothetic preferences simply cannot address the issue of luxury consumption, the use of non-homothetic preferences is restricted, at least in standard models, by the absence of consensus about the nature of luxury goods. Using the agent-based computational economics methodology, we, therefore, choose to define a luxurious item by its ability to display social statute. We, first, put our analysis in perspective via a short revue of the main contributions about consumption behavior in social context. Through this revue, we identify a few social phenomenons involved in the formation of individual preferences: imitation, differentiation and innovation. Second, building on these simple social behaviors, we develop a model of luxury preference formation, in which preferences evolve endogenously. Third, we explore the emerging properties of the model, especially, under which conditions we observe a specialization of consumption by social classes.

Jeudi 11 avril 2013 14h-15h, salle Picasso

- Politiques de soutien à la capture et au stockage géologique du carbone en France

La France s'est fixée comme objectif de diviser par quatre ses émissions de gaz à effet de serre d'ici 2050 par rapport au niveau de 1990. L'objectif de l'étude est de déterminer les politiques publiques à mettre en œuvre pour atteindre ce Facteur 4 compte tenu de la disponibilité de la capture et du stockage du carbone d'origine fossile (CSC) et d'origine biomasse (BCSC). Nous évaluons les effets de l'introduction de la contribution climat-énergie (CCE) envisagée par le Grenelle de l'environnement et nous comparons l'efficacité économique de plusieurs instruments grâce à un modèle d'équilibre général calculable. L'étude montre que les instruments les plus économiquement efficaces sont ceux qui permettent de développer la CSC et la BCSC, notamment la taxe carbone dont les revenus sont recyclés pour subventionner la BCSC.

Jeudi 4 avril 2013 14h-15h, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- Liquidity in European Equity ETFs: What Really Matters?

Despite the importance ETFs have recently gained, little is known about their liquidity. The conventional view on ETF liquidity is that what really matters is not the size of the ETF or its trading volume but the liquidity of its benchmark index. We argue that while creation/redemption effectively creates a tight link between the ETF and the index liquidity, other factors are likely to affect the former. The aim of our paper is to provide empirical evidence of the determinants of the spreads in the European equity ETF markets from their inception in 2000 to the end of 2011. We find that, while the liquidity of ETFs effectively depends on the liquidity of its benchmark index, size also matters: larger and more heavily traded ETFs display tighter spreads. We also find that swap-based ETFs exhibit lower spreads than stock-based ETFs but that this effect becomes insignificant when competition is accounted for. Finally, market fragmentation also affects spreads but does so differently in physical and synthetic ETFs, which may be explained by the degree of fragmentation these ETFs really face.

Jeudi 28 mars 2013 14h-15h30, salle Picasso

- Illegal Governance:Is It Always Inefficient? The Examples of Transactions on Used Horses and Prostitution Services

This paper is not the first to view Criminal Organizations (CO's) as illegal governance. In his seminal work, Reuter (1983) considers the modern American underworld as a structure to solve disputes within illegal Markets (Reuter, ibid, p. IX). The question of the comparative transaction costs efficiency of illegal versus legal forms of governance has not been raised however. Common knowledge views illegal governance by CO's as inefficient for transactions in all industries, independently of the variety in their transaction attributes such as asset specificity, uncertainty and frequency, as coined by Williamson (1976, 1985). In this paper we analyze the influence of CO's as illegal governance in two industries with different intensities of transaction attributes to determine if their presence always results in lower efficiency than in their absence. The two service sectors are: the trade of used horses in Sicily and prostitution services. In spite of conventional wisdom, our results differ according to the industry. Criminal organizations show better governance adaptability than legal forms for the trade of used horses in Sicily while the reverse obtains for the regulated firm. It is more efficient than criminal organizations for transactions of prostitution services. A research agenda and anti-criminal policy propositions are developed in the discussion.

Jeudi 21 mars 2013 14h-15h30, salle Picasso

- Heterogeneous Impact of Trade Liberalization on Vertical FDI: Evidence from Japanese Firm-level Data

This paper empirically explores the reason why a recent surge of FDI to developing countries mainly has been driven by less productive firms. To this end, we present a simple model of FDI with vertical division of labor in heterogeneous firm framework. From the theoretical point of view, in countries with low unskilled worker wage and low trade cost, high productivity firms invest abroad and engage in international division of labor. Furthermore, if trade cost has further reduced, productivity cut-off level becomes lower and the middle range of productivity firms will start investing in low wage countries. Our empirical analysis using logit estimation or a multinomial logit model of Japanese firms $B!G (B FDI choices reveals that a reduction in tariff rates attracts even less productive VFDI firms. This result is consistent with a different definition of VFDI. Because developing countries, particularly East Asian countries, have experienced a relatively rapid decrease in tariff rates, our results indicate that the increase in VFDI through tariff rate reduction led to the recent relative surge of FDIs in developing countries.

Jeudi 21 février 2013, 14h-15h, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- Régulation endogène de la qualité et distorsion commerciale : une analyse en termes de duopole mixte

Dans le cadre d'un modèle de commerce international, l'article évalue les effets en termes de qualité et de bien-être d'une politique de régulation endogène. En supposant que les autorités publiques ont la possibilité d'entrer dans le jeu concurrentiel national comme acteur de la production, nous analysons les circonstances pour lesquelles une telle politique: (i) est efficace sur le marché national où elle est appliquée et, (ii) joue favorablement dans un environnement économique global. Nous construisons un modèle de duopole mixte où une firme peut choisir le marché où elle désire s'installer (national ou étranger) et nous identifions deux effets, respectivement un effet réglementaire et un effet structurel, dont la combinaison explique plusieurs résultats. Nous montrons que la mise en œuvre d'une politique de régulation endogène n'est pertinente nationalement que si l'intensité concurrentielle, qui prévaut sur le marché national est suffisamment faible. On met cependant en évidence des conflits d'intérêt entre les perspectives de développement de la firme d'une part et l'accroissement du bien-être social de l'économie dans son ensemble d'autre part.

vendredi 15 février 13h30 - 15h, salle Klee (séminaire GREDEG-OFCE)

- Wage and Productivity Differentials in Japan: The Role of Labor Market Mechanisms

This paper aims at explaining two stylized facts of the Lost Decade in Japan: rising wage inequalities and increasing firm-level productivity differentials. We build a model where firms can choose between efficiency wages with endogenous effort and competitive wages, and show that it can replicate those facts. Using Japanese microeconomic data, we find support for the existence of efficiency wages in one group of firms and competitive wages in the other group. Based on those results, a simulation shows that the share of firms using efficiency wages has declined, within sectors, during the Lost Decade, as predicted by the model.

Jeudi 14 février 2013, 14h-15h30, salle Picasso

- Control by Proximity: Evidence from the "Aerospace Valley" Competitiveness Cluster

This article is concerned with the links that exist between control of inter-organisational relationships and effects of proximity. We propose a theoretical framework which explains how geographical and organisational proximities reinforce formal and informal control mechanisms. This framework is then used to analyse mechanisms of control by proximity in collaborative R&D projects carried out within the Aerospace Valley competitiveness cluster, which is located in the southwest of France and specialised in aerospace activities. We have obtained two essential results. We observe that formal and informal control is concentrated in a small number of big groups located near the majority of the establishments which are members of the cluster. We also show that informal control mechanisms require a stronger geographical proximity than formal control mechanisms in order to operate.

Jeudi 7 février 2013, 14h-15h, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- Growth and Fluctuations under Alternative Fiscal and Bank Bail-out Rules

The European sovereign debt crisis poses the question of how to deal with banking crises in a recession economy. This paper presents an evolutionary, agent-based model in which banking crises emerge endogenously from micro technological shocks and demand shocks, and fiscal costs of bank bailouts are explicitly considered. Furthermore, we test how fiscal policy rules (such as the Growth and Stability Pact) affect the economy. In this setting the Government sets as priority the saving of banks, before the payment of unemployment subsidies. Before carrying out policy analysis, we empirically validate the model by showing that it is able to replicate a wide spectrum of macroeconomic and microeconomic stylized facts. In terms of policy, we find that the fiscal costs of banking crises depend on the structure of the banking sector, and a systematic bailout policy is to be preferred in cases of high financial instability. Second, we show that instead of stabilizing debt, a balanced budget rule causes higher levels of unemployment and volatility

Jeudi 31 janvier 2013, 14h-15h, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

Christophe Charlier (GREDEG)
Sarah Guillou (OFCE-GREDEG)

- Are Export Restrictions a Pro-Environmental Trade Policy? An Analysis of China - Raw Materials Dispute

The China - Raw Materials dispute recently arbitrated by the WTO is important in many contextual respects. It opposed China as defendant to the US and the EU as claimants on a somewhat unusual issue: export restrictions. For the claimants, these Chinese exports restrictions on various raw materials for which the country is a major producer create shortage on the world market. This scarcity would not prevail on the Chinese market and a higher price on the world market would emerge as a consequence, giving the Chinese industries using these raw materials a cost advantage. China defends these export limitations using Article XX of the GATT 1994 pointing out possible exceptions to the prohibition of quantitative restrictions for the conservation of exhaustible natural resources concerns. The paper offers a theoretical analysis of the dispute with the help of a model of a monopoly extracting a nonrenewable resource and selling it on both domestic and foreign markets using Fischer and Laxminarayan (2004)'s framework. The theoretical results focus on the effects of imposing an export quota on quantities, prices and efficacy, and are used to comment on the claims of the parties and on the Panel and Appellate Body findings. Given the crucial importance of demand elasticities in this theoretical understanding of the conflict, the empirical part provides, in a first step, estimates of import demand elasticity of main claimants for each product concerned by the case defined at the HS6 level. The estimates are based on the methodology of Hauk (2008) using Arellano and Bond panel data techniques to account for endogeneity problems. In a second step, the empirical work try to grasp the effect of Chinese trade policy on prices.

Jeudi 24 janvier 2013, 14h-15h30, salle Picasso

- The effect of donors' aid policy coherence on growth

The literature has shown that aid and migration are not independent from each other: a donor can provide aid and simultaneously tighten his migration policy. This finding can be generalized to other aid policy dimensions: trade, investment, technology, environment, security policies and it must be incorporated in the way aid effectiveness is assessed. The effect of aid can be dampened of enhanced, depending on whether aid is a substitute or a complement for other policies. In other words, donors should be consistent to be efficient. Taking advantage of CGD indices, this paper estimates growth equations by controlling for consistency. We estimate a robust and significant positive effect of donors' policy coherence from 22 DAC donors on the economic growth in developing countries. One standard deviation increase of changes in consistency results in 14% more economic growth in developing countries.

Jeudi 17 janvier 2013 14h30-16h00, salle Picasso

- Prices, Markups and Quality at the Firm-Product Level

In this paper, we analyze price and markup dynamics at the firmproduct level in Belgian manufacturing over more than a decade and relate these to firm-product productivity and quality dynamics. We use a detailed dataset that provides information about firms' product portfolio composition and the value and quantity sold for each product. We estimate a firm-product level marginal cost accounting for the multiproduct nature of production and compute a firm-product markup variable. We then estimate demand elasticity and product quality following Berry (1994). As a next step, we estimate a multi product production function (MPPF) using physical quantity as dependent variable and obtain a firm-product measure of TFP. We relate all these variables to better understand what is driving price and markup dynamics over a long time period. We find that our methodology generates sensible estimates in line with recent theoretical models of international economics with endogenous markups.

Jeudi 10 janvier 2013, 14h-15h30, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- Persistence vs. Mobility in Industrial and Technological Specialisations: Evidence from 11 Euro Area Countries.

This paper analyses the evolution of the specialisation pattern of 11 Euro area countries by analysing their comparative and technological advantages over the period 1990-2008. Using the estimation of marginal densities and Markov transition probabilities, we examine both the external shape of the distribution of technological and comparative advantages and the intradistribution dynamics. Our results point out that there is, on average, a high persistence in industrial specialisation patterns of the 11 Euro area countries under scrutiny, confirming a lock-in effect, notably for Italy. Nevertheless, our results related to technological specialisation reveal a large mobility of technological advantages during the same period, especially in Spain.

- Les relations perverses entre actifs productifs et improductifs

Jeudi 20 décembre 2012, 14h-15h30, salle Picasso

- On the Relevance of Social and Environmental Disclosures and Corporate Governance for Financial Analysts Forecasts: Canadian Evidence

Dans cette étude, j'explore les relations entre le reporting social et environnemental, la gouvernance d'entreprise, et la précision des prévisions des analystes. Les résultats sont les suivants. Premièrement, les résultats montrent que le reporting social et le reporting environnemental de même que la gouvernance augmentent la précision des prévisions des analystes. Deuxièmement, les résultats montrent l'existence d'un effet de substitution entre le reporting environnemental et social dans leurs relations avec la précision des prévisions des analystes. Troisièmement, la gouvernance d'entreprise a un effet de substitution au reporting environnemental et social dans l'amélioration de la précision prévisions des analystes. Enfin, les résultats montrent également un effet médiateur de la gouvernance et du suivi des analystes dans la relation entre le reporting environnemental et social et la précision prévisions des analystes. Il semble que le reporting social et environnemental et la gouvernance d'entreprise attirent les analystes et, dès lors, améliorent leur capacité à prédire les résultats comptables.

Mercredi 12 décembre 2012, 11h-12h30 , salle Klee (séminaire interne GREDEG-OFCE)

- Modeling Monetary Economies with Multiple Autonomous Agents

Jeudi 6 décembre 2012 14h-15h, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- The Co-Evolution of Knowledge and Economic Structure: Evidence from European Regions

This paper articulates an analysis of the co-evolutionary patterns of structural change in knowledge and economics. The former is made operationally through the analysis of co-occurrences of technological classes within patent documents, so as to derive the indicators of coherence, variety and cognitive distance. The latter is instead made operational in a synthetic way by implementing a shift share analysis, which allows to decomposing the growth in labour productivity in the effects due to the changing allocation of employment, those ascribed to intra-sector productivity growth and those due to the interaction of these two. The results of the analysis conducted on a sample of 227 European regions, show the existence of interesting lead-led dynamics between knowledge and economic structure that call for further investigation.

Jeudi 29 novembre 2012 14h-15h30, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- The Survival of Venture Capital Backed Companies: An Analysis of the French Case

We analyze the impact of venture capital on firm performance; more precisely, we investigate whether venture capital adds value to innovative French companies in terms of increasing their survival time. To this end, we use a hand-collected data set based on a sample of 139 French companies that went public at the \Nouveau Marché" between 1996 and 2002 to compare the survival rates of venture capital backed and non-venture capital backed companies. We develop two sets of econometric models to evaluate the factors that affect the fate of French initial public offerings. First, we estimate a discrete time duration model to explain the probability of exit. Second, we apply a competing risk model to account for heterogeneity in firm exit (liquidation versus merger/acquisition). Contrary to common wisdom, the estimates show that venture capital backed companies have a lower survival rate than non-venture capital backed companies and have a higher probability of being liquidated than other firms. Our results are comparable to those obtained in previous studies on Germany and Belgium which show that receiving venture capital does not improve firm survival.

- The Environmental Kuznets Curve Reconsidered from the Rerspective of Heterogeneity: Insights for Climate Change and Energy Policy

Designing an efficient global climate policy turns out to be a difficult yet crucial task since there are noteworthy cross-country differences in energy and carbon intensities. In this paper, the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis is tested for carbon dioxide ( 2 CO ) emissions and the iterative Bayesian shrinkage procedure is employed to handle the crosscountry differences. The results suggest that: first, the EKC hypothesis is rejected for 49 out of the 51 countries considered when the heterogeneity in countries' energy efficiencies and cross-country differences in the 2 CO emissions trajectories are accounted for; second, a classification of the results, with respect to the development levels of the countries concerned, reveals that the emergence of an overall inverted U-shape curve is due to the fact that in the high-income countries, increase in gross domestic product (GDP) decreases emissions, while in the low-income countries emissions and GDP are positively correlated.

Jeudi 22 novembre 2012 14h30-16h, salle Picasso

- - Capitalist Development, Innovations, Business Cycles and Unemployment: Joseph Alois Schumpeter and Emil Hans Lederer

Jeudi 15 novembre 2012 14h-15h, salle Picasso (séminaire interne)

- The "Economics of Attention": A New Avenue of Research in Cognitive Economics

Jeudi 8 novembre 2012 14h-15h30, salle Picasso

- Every Little Helps? ESG News Disclosure and Stock Market Reaction

In this paper, we investigate the extent and the determinants of the stock market's reaction subsequent to ordinary news disclosure on environmental, social and governance issues - the so-called ESG factors. To that purpose, we use an original database provided by Covalence EthicalQuote, containing, after several filters, more than 75,000 events concerning 100 listed firms on the period 2002-2010. On average, firms facing negative events experience a drop in their market value of 0.1% on a window of three days around the day of the announcement, whereas companies facing positive events do not experience a significant change in their market value. Our results suggest also that market participants only react to media sources of information. We then point out that some features of an event influence the extent of the firms' changes in market value.

Mardi 30 octobre 2012 14h, salle Picasso

- Regional Growth, Shocks and Regional Industrial Resilience: A Quantitative Analysis of the Danish ICT Sector

 The resilience of regional industries to economic shocks has gained a lot of attention in evolutionary economic geography recently. This paper uses a quantitative approach to the study of regional industrial resilience based on highly detailed longitudinal data. It is shown that factors for industry structure commonly applied in studies of growth also affect resilience to economic shocks. Regional ICT industries characterised by young, small service firms were more adaptable and hence able to exploit the opportunities arising after the shock. There is furthermore evidence that some diversity and urbanisation increases the sensitivity of a region to shocks.

Jeudi 25 octobre 201214h-16h, Salle Picasso, séminaire interne

- Social Decision Theory and Non-Strategic Behaviour

Using the Expected Utility framework, this paper develops a general model of other-regarding preferences under risk. I assume that in addition to conventional preferences over outcomes, individuals could have preferences over outcomes of their peers. The axiomatic system and the representation are simple. The decision maker values his outcome in a private utility function as well as his own and that of others in a social value function which is separable across his peers.

- Social Capital and Enterprise Innovative Performance: A Multi-Level Analysis of Developing Nations

The basic objectives of this paper are to explore the relation between social capital and the innovative performance of enterprise for a sample of 27 developing nations in different regions of the world. Social capital has been defined in various ways and this paper works with the notion of social capital defined as connections among individuals and social networks. A multi-level regression approach is used with national-level indicators of social capital being derived from different waves of the World Values Survey. Enterprise-level data are derived from the results of different waves of the World Bank Enterprise Survey, a unique micro-level data set using a common survey design to measure the characteristics of enterprises including their innovative activities for a large number of developing nations. The results of the analysis demonstrate a positive impact of the level of social capital in a nation on the likelihood that an enterprise innovates. The analysis also investigates the relation between the firm's absorptive capacity and its expenditures on R&D.

Jeudi 18 octobre 2012 14h-15h, Salle Picasso, séminaire interne

- Financial Reforms, International Financial Flows and Growth in Advanced Economies

This study analyzes the impact of financial and banking reforms and of international financial, banking and monetary variables on real GDP growth in a sample of advanced economies. The methodology is based on factor-augmented VARs and on time-varying state space estimates, using different possible specifications and robustness checks. The main result is that, even before the 2008-09 crisis, the surge in equity prices and to a lesser extent in portfolio investment had a substantial and increasing impact on the volatility of the international growth factor in OECD countries, starting from the mid-1990s which marked a turning point after the completion of the liberalization process of stock markets and capital accounts. Among different financial reforms, only the removal of domestic credit controls had an immediate, large and negative effect on common growth until the mid-1990s. These results are robust to different specifications.

Vendredi 12 octobre 2012 10h00-11h30, salle Picasso, professeur invité

- E Pluribus Unum: Macroeconomic Modelling for Multi-agent Economies

From the point of view of the average macroeconomist, agent based modelling has an obvious drawback: It makes impossible to think in aggregate terms. The modeller, in fact, can reconstruct aggregate variables only "from the bottom up" by summing the individual quantities. As a consequence the interpretation of the transmission mechanism of shocks is somehow arbitrary. We propose a modelling strategy which reduces the dimensionality of an agent based framework by replacing the actual distributional features (in our model: the distribution of firms' financial conditions) with the first and second moments of the distribution itself. The main message is that the difficulty of thinking in macroeconomic terms when dealing with multi-agent economies can be circumvented by means of an appropriate aggregation procedure –which we label the Modified-Representative Agent –such that the distribution of agents' characteristics can be approximated by (at least) the (first and second) moments of the distribution. The moments of the distribution play the role of macroeconomic variables.

Jeudi 11 octobre 2012 14h-15h30, salle Miro

- Learning in a Constellation of Interconnected Practices: Canon or Dissonance

In this paper we argue that the learning of safety in a constellation of communities of practice is mediated by comparison among the perspectives of the world embraced by the co-participants in the production of this practice. Our discussion is based on two empirical research projects in which we investigated the accounts of the causes of accidents provided by the members of three different communities of practice (engineers, site foremen and main contractors), in a medium sized building firm. In the paper we suggest that comparison among perspectives is made possible by a discursive practice targeted on the alignment of elements both mental and material, within mutually accountable discursive positions. These alignments are provisional and unstable, they produce tensions, discontinuities and incoherence (cacophony) just as much as they produce order and negotiated meanings (consonance).

Jeudi 4 octobre 201214h-15h30, salle Picasso, séminaire interne

- Ambiguity, Agency Relationships and Adverse Selection

This paper applies recent results and advances in the field of ambiguity theory to adverse selection in a delegation process. Our results are the following ones: i) a relevant second-best contract induces no production distortion considering the efficient agent. This alike to the standard case. But the principal will pay him an higher information rent compared the standard case; ii) This is due to the level of transfer paid to the inefficient agent which is higher than under the complete information system (i.e. the first best…); The above results are reached when the agent has neither fully optimistic nor optimistic beliefs. When, he feels an extreme feeling then, the information rent and second best transfers are inside bounds similar to the SEU case; iv) as a consequence, the principal has to adopt a flexible behavior consisting in acquiring new information for becoming either entirely optimistic or pessimistic to minimize transfers and information rent in the proposed delegation contract.

- Comparative Advantage, Trade Costs, and International Productivity Gap: Evidence Built from French and Japanese Fi rm-level Data

This paper provides new evidence on international productivity gaps built from large-scale firm-level data on French and Japanese Manufacturing industries. Basically, it shows French and Japanese firms which compete on international markets are closer in terms of productivity only in industries in which France has a productivity lead. At the opposite, in industries in which Japan has the lead, the productivity gap between Japanese and French exporters is larger than between Japanese and French non-exporters. At the light of recent models of international trade and heterogenous firms, we interpret our result as evidence that French and Japanese firms face both different comparative advantage and different trade costs. This calls for more theoretical and empirical attention on how both firm-specific production costs and firm-specific trade costs interact to shape international productivity gaps.

Jeudi 27 septembre 201214h, salle Picasso

- Firm Size Distortions and the Productivity Distribution: Evidence from France

A major empirical challenge in economics is to identify how regulations (such as firing costs) affect economic efficiency. Almost all countries have regulations that increase costs when firms cross a discrete size threshold. We show how these size-contingent regulations can be used to identify the equilibrium and welfare effects of regulation through combining a new model with the firm-level distributions of size and productivity. Our framework adapts the Lucas (1978) model to a world with size-contingent regulations and applies this to France where there are sharp increases in firing costs (which we model as a labor tax) when firms employ 50 or more workers. Using administrative data on the population of firms 2002 through 2007, we show how this regulation has major effects on the distribution of firm size (a "broken power law") and productivity. We then econometrically recover the key parameters of the model in order to estimate the costs of regulation which appear to be nontrivial.

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