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Abstract Voici un cinquième article publié dans le cadre de notre forum « Covid-19 : causes, impacts et stratégies », qui vise à ouvrir les colonnes de Futuribles à divers experts pour évoquer, encore « à chaud », différents aspects, d’ordre économique, social, sanitaire, alimentaire, écologique…, de la crise du Covid-19. Gilbert Cette y montre qu’en dépit des difficultés inhérentes à cette crise sanitaire et aux conséquences économiques qui vont s’ensuivre, il existe aussi une opportunité à saisir dans le domaine du travail. En effet, le confinement et la limitation des déplacements ont permis une large extension du télétravail, qui pourrait perdurer par la suite et permettre, à terme, de relancer la productivité économique, qui semblait en phase d’épuisement depuis plusieurs décennies. S.D.
Abstract L'objectif du chantier de la restructuration des branches est de remplacer un paysage conventionnel morcelé par des branches professionnelles plus cohérentes. Ce processus soulève des difficultés. La réponse à ces difficultés peut résider dans l'articulation renouvelée du dialogue social dans les branches et les entreprises. Un moratoire de quelques années peut être utile à un stade de la restructuration. Explications et analyse de Jacques Barthélémy, avocat et Ancien professeur associé à la faculté de droit de Montpellier, Gilbert Cette, Banque de France et Aix-Marseille University, AMSE et Gepy Koudadje, avocate au Cabinet Flichy Grangé Avocats et chargée d'enseignement université Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Abstract No abstract available
Keywords Sex based disparities, Primary care, Premiums, Physicians, Physician pay, Health policy, Health disparities, Gender pay gap
Abstract We present a model of market hyper-segmentation, where a monopolist acquires within a short time all information about the preferences of consumers who purchase its vertically differentiated products. The firm offers a new price/quality schedule after each commitment period. Lower consumer types may have an incentive to delay their purchases until next period to obtain a better introductory offer. The monopolist counters this incentive by offering higher informational rents. Considering the dynamic game played by the monopolist and its customers, we find that there is always a Markov perfect equilibrium (MPE) in which the firm immediately sells the good to all customers, offering the Mussa-Rosen static equilibrium schedule to first time customers (and getting full commitment profits). However, if the commitment period between two offers is long enough, there is another MPE with gradual market expansion. Contrary to the Coasian result for a durable-good monopoly, we find that in both equilibria the profit of the monopolist increases (and the aggregate consumers surplus decreases) as the interval of commitment shrinks. The model yields policy implications for regulations on collection and storage of customers information. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords Informational rent, Monopoly, Customer information, Markov perfect equilibrium, Coase conjecture
Abstract We provide real-time evidence on the impact of Covid-19 restrictions policies on conflicts globally. We combine daily information on conflict events and government policy responses to limit the spread of coronavirus to study how conflict levels vary following shutdown and lockdown policies. We use the staggered implementation of restriction policies across countries to identify their effect on conflict incidence and intensity. Our results show that imposing a nationwide shutdown reduces the likelihood of daily conflict by around 9 percentage points. The reduction is driven by a drop in the incidence of battles, protests and violence against civilians. Across actors the decline is significant for conflicts involving political militias, protesters and civilians. We also observe a significant cross-country heterogeneity in the effect of restriction policies on conflict: no conflict reduction is observed in low income countries and in societies more fractionalized along ethnic or religious lines. We discuss the potential channels that can explain this heterogeneity.
Abstract Tests are crucial to know about the number of people who have fallen ill with COVID-19 and to understand in real-time whether the dynamics of the pandemic is accelerating or decelerating. But tests are a scarce resource in many countries. The key but still open question is thus how to allocate tests across sub-national levels. We provide a data-driven and operational criterion to allocate tests efficiently across regions or provinces, with the view to maximize detection of people who have been infected. We apply our criterion to Italian regions and compute the shares of tests that should go to each region, which are shown to differ significantly from the actual distribution.
Keywords COVID-19, Italy, Acceleration of harm, Deceleration of harm, Epidemic dynamics, Efficiency criterion, Sub-national allocation of tests, Real-time Analysis
Abstract How much do weather shocks matter? The literature addresses this question in two isolated ways: either by looking at long-term effects through the prism of calibrated theoretical models, or by focusing on both short and long terms through the lens of empirical models. We propose a framework that reconciles these two approaches by taking the theory to the data in two complementary ways. We first document the propagation mechanism of a weather shock using a Vector Auto-Regressive model on New Zealand Data. To explain the mechanism, we build and estimate a general equilibrium model with a weather-dependent agricultural sector to investigate the weather’s business cycle implications. We find that weather shocks: (i) explain about 35% of GDP and agricultural output fluctuations in New Zealand; (ii) entail a welfare cost of 0.30% of permanent consumption; (iii) critically increases the macroeconomic volatility under climate change, resulting in a higher welfare cost peaking to 0.46% in the worst case scenario of climate change.
Keywords Agriculture, Business Cycles, Weather shocks, Climate change
Abstract Using two earned income/tax declaration experimental designs we show that only partial liars are affected by a truth-telling oath, a non-price commitment device. Under oath, we see no change in the number of chronic liars and fewer partial liars. Rather than smoothly increasing their compliance, we also observe that partial liars who respond to the oath, respond by becoming fully honest under oath. Based on both response times data and the consistency of subjects when several compliance decisions are made in a row, we show that partial lying arises as the result of weak preferences towards profitable honesty. The oath only transforms people with weak preferences for lying into being committed to the truth.
Keywords Tax evasion, Commitment, Oath, Honesty, Part-time Lying
Abstract Two traditional theorems of welfare economics posit a trade-off between a government redistribution targets and efficiency. We propose a third ‘claim’ of welfare economics, stating that in closed economies the actual efficiency costs associated with redistribution are small. We then examine the claim in the current phase of ‘hyper-globalization’. On the one hand, a race-to-the-bottom in taxation restricts the capacity to tax high-earners and the associated brain drain may affect a country’s long-run growth. On the other hand, demand for social insurance should be particularly high in an open economy, especially with advancing digitalization. Xenophobic sentiments may, however, offset this demand. We also discuss the impact of globalization on wage equalization and productive efficiency. We conclude against the idea that the welfare state is intrinsically unable to carry out its redistributive function in an era of globalization. However, its strategies and tools of intervention must be rethought.
Keywords Taxation, Race to the bottom, Welfare state, Redistribution, Globalization
Abstract Background: The future burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) depends on numerous factors such as population ageing, evolution of societal trends, behavioural and physiological risk factors of individuals (e.g. smoking, alcohol use, obesity, physical inactivity, and hypertension). This study aims to assess the burden of NCDs in Europe by 2050 under alternative scenarios. Methods: This study combines qualitative and quantitative forecasting techniques to examine how population health in Europe may evolve from 2015 to 2050, taking into account future societal trends. Four scenarios were developed (one business-as-usual scenario, two response scenarios and one pessimistic scenario) and assessed against 'best' and 'worst'-case scenarios. This study provides quantitative estimates of both diseases and mortality outcomes, using a microsimulation model incorporating international survey data. Findings: Each scenario is associated with a different risk factor prevalence rate across Europe during the period 2015-2050. The prevalence and incidence of NCDs consistently increase during the analysed time period, mainly driven by population ageing. In more optimistic scenarios, diseases will appear in later ages, while in the pessimistic scenarios, NCDs will impair working-age people. Life expectancy is expected to grow in all scenarios, but with differences by up to 4 years across scenarios and population groups. Premature mortality from NCDs will be reduced in more optimistic scenarios but stagnate in the worst-case scenario. Interpretation: Population ageing will have a greater impact on the spread of NCDs by 2050 compared to risk factors. Nevertheless, risk factors, which are influenced by living environments, are an important factor for determining future life expectancy in Europe.
Keywords Behavioral and social aspects of health, Social systems, Public and occupational health, Death rates, Health care policy, Epidemiology, Life expectancy, Europe