Publications

Abstract We study whether fiscal policies, especially public debt, can help to curb the macroeconomic and health consequences of epidemics. Our approach is based on three main features: we introduce the dynamics of epidemics in an overlapping generations model to take into account that old people are more vulnerable; people are more easily infected when pollution is high; public spending in health care and public debt can be used to tackle the effects of epidemics. We show that fiscal policies can promote convergence to a stable disease-free steady state. When public policies are not able to permanently eradicate the epidemic, public debt, and income transfers could reduce the number of infected people and increase capital and GDP per capita. As a prerequisite, pollution intensity should not be too high. Finally, we define a household subsidy policy that eliminates income and welfare inequalities between healthy and infected individuals.
Keywords Epidemics, Pollution, Overlapping generations, Public debt
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Abstract Objectifs : Cette étude vise à établir un état des lieux de l’enseignement de l’Éducation Thérapeutique du Patient (ETP) en formation initiale des sages-femmes françaises. Méthode : Une étude quantitative descriptive a été menée sur le territoire français. Un questionnaire en ligne, comportant 27 questions a été diffusé aux 35 écoles de sages-femmes françaises. Résultats : Sur 19 écoles ayant répondu à l’enquête, 11 enseignaient l’ETP, 8 ne l’abordaient pas en formation. Cet enseignement est principalement transversal. Les freins à l’enseignement de l’ETP sont la densité actuelle du programme, l’absence de texte réglementant cet enseignement et des difficultés à circonscrire le champ de l’ETP par rapport à celui de la prévention, de la promotion et de l’éducation pour la santé. La simulation est utilisée dans une seule école. Discussion : Cette enquête montre une volonté des équipes pédagogiques à investir dans l’enseignement des éducations en santé, notamment de l’ETP. Pour cela, il s’agit de renforcer la formation des enseignants afin de clarifier les domaines d’intervention de la sage-femme faisant appel à la promotion de la santé, la prévention et les éducations en santé ; de proposer des stages spécifiques aux étudiants et de faire appel à la simulation. L’allongement de la durée de la formation initiale constitue une opportunité de planifier un enseignement spécifique et de discuter la place du service sanitaire.
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Abstract Despite their high predictive performance, random forest and gradient boosting are often considered as black boxes which has raised concerns from practitioners and regulators. As an alternative, we suggest using partial linear models that are inherently interpretable. Specifically, we propose to combine parametric and non‐parametric functions to accurately capture linearities and non‐linearities prevailing between dependent and explanatory variables, and a variable selection procedure to control for overfitting issues. Estimation relies on a two‐step procedure building upon the double residual method. We illustrate the predictive performance and interpretability of our approach on a regression problem.
Keywords Machine leaning, Lasso, Autometrics, GAM
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Abstract This paper studies the behavioral and socio-demographic determinants of reported compliance with prophylactic measures against COVID-19: barrier gestures, lockdown restrictions and mask wearing. The study contrasts two types of measures for behavioral determinants: experimentally elicited preferences (risk tolerance, time preferences, social value orientation and cooperativeness) and stated preferences (risk tolerance, time preferences, and the GSS trust question). Data were collected from a representative sample of the metropolitan French adult population (N=1154) surveyed during the first lockdown in May 2020, and the experimental tasks were carried out on-line. The in-sample and out-of-sample predictive power of several regression models - which vary in the set of variables that they include - are studied and compared. Overall, we find that stated preferences are better predictors of compliance with these prophylactic measures than preferences elicited through incentivized experiments: self-reported level of risk, patience and trust are predicting compliance, while elicited measures of risk-aversion, patience, cooperation and prosociality did not.
Keywords COVID-19, Individual preferences, Social preferences, Elicited preferences, Stated preferences
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Abstract Plain English Summary Corruption and regulation can have ambiguous relationships with entrepreneurship unless you take a careful look at it. We examine the impact of corruption and entry-regulation on opportunity and necessity-motivated entrepreneurship within different economic development contexts. Corruption and entry-regulation correlate negatively with entrepreneurship but might have a tempering effect on each other. Thus, we consider whether corruption reduces the negative impact of entry-regulation on entrepreneurship while remaining globally negative (i.e., the “weak view”) or if it completely counterbalance the negative effect (the “strong view”). Exploiting a cross-country dataset on 105 countries over the 2003–2016 period, we find that, while corruption might somewhat temper the negative impact of a heavy administrative machinery in developing countries, this tempering effect of corruption will generally be non-significant. Furthermore, our findings suggest that corruption deters opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship—the type of entrepreneurship that may contribute the most to productivity, economic growth and development. Corruption and regulation would then be particularly harmful for economic development. The policy-maker tackling these issues would do well to consider direct effects and possible interrelationships according to context.
Keywords Entreprenarial motives, Necessity, Opportunity, Sand the wheels, Grease the wheels, Doing business, Régulation, Corruption, Entrepreneurship
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Abstract We study a class of location games where players want to attract as many resources as possible and pay a cost when deviating from an exogenous reference location. This class of games includes political competitions between policy-interested parties and firms' costly horizontal differentiation. We find that the introduction of reference locations simplifies the set of pure-strategy equilibrium to a unique candidate which has a strong property: at most four players, the two most-left and two most-right, deviate from their reference locations. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the candidate to be an equilibrium. We illustrate our results in particular cases including the duopoly competition where we moderate the principle of minimal differentiation.
Keywords Location games Spatial competition Spatial voting theory Costly product differentiation
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Abstract This paper has two parts. In the mathematical part, we present two inexact versions of the proximal point method for solving quasi-equilibrium problems (QEP) in Hilbert spaces. Under mild assumptions, we prove that the methods find a solution to the quasi-equilibrium problem with an approximated computation of each iteration or using a perturbation of the regularized bifunction. In the behavioral part, we justify the choice of the new perturbation, with the help of the main example that drives quasi-equilibrium problems: the Cournot duopoly model, which founded game theory. This requires to exhibit a new QEP reformulation of the Cournot model that will appear more intuitive and rigorous. It leads directly to the formulation of our perturbation function. Some numerical experiments show the performance of the proposed methods.
Keywords Quasi-equilibrium problem, Proximal point method, Inexact version, Monotone bifunction, Cournot duopoly, Moving constraints
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Abstract Introduction There is a lack of quantitative evidence on the role of food innovations—new food ingredients and processing techniques—in the nutrition transition. Objective Document the distribution of food innovations across 67 high-income (HIC) and middle-income (MIC) countries between 1970 and 2010, and its association with the nutritional composition of food supply. Methods We used all available data on food patents, as compiled by the European Patent Office, to measure food innovations. We considered innovations directly received by countries from inventors seeking protection in their territories, and those embedded in processed food imports. Food and Agricultural Organization data were used to estimate the associations between international diffusion of food innovations and trends in total food supply and its macronutrient composition, after adjusting for confounding trends in demand-side factors. We identified the role of trade by simulating the changes in average diet due to innovations embedded in food imports. Results Trends in food innovations were positively and significantly associated with changes in daily per capita calorie supply available for human consumption in MIC between 1990 and 2010 (elasticity of 0.027, 95% CI 0.019 to 0.036). Food innovations were positively correlated with the share of animal and free fats in total food supply (elasticities of 0.044, 95% CI 0.030 to 0.058 for MIC between 1970 and 1989 and 0.023, 95% CI 0.003 to 0.043 for HIC between 1990 and 2010). Food innovations were associated with substitutions from complex carbohydrates towards sugars in total food supply for MIC after 1990 (elasticities of −0.037, 95% CI −0.045 to −0.029 for complex carbs, 0.082, 95% CI 0.066 to 0.098 for sugars). For these countries, the trade channel capturing access to innovations through imports of processed food played a key role. Conclusion Policy-makers should consider the impacts of the international diffusion of food innovations in assessing the costs and benefits of international trade regulations.
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Abstract The increase in employment polarization observed in several high-income economies has coincided with a reduction in inter-generational mobility. This paper argues that the disappearance of middling jobs can drive changes in mobility, notably by removing a stepping stone towards high-paying occupations for those from less well-off family backgrounds. Using data from two British cohorts who entered the labour market at two points in time with very different degrees of employment polarization, we examine how parental income affects both entry occupations and occupational upgrading over careers. We find that transitions across occupations are key to mobility and that the impact of parental income has grown over time. At regional level, using a shiftshare IV-strategy, we show that the impact of parental income has increased the most in regions experiencing the greatest increase in polarisation. This indicates that the disappearance of middling jobs played a role in the observed decline in mobility.
Keywords British cohort, Parental income, Occupational transition, Job polarization, Inter-generational mobility
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Abstract The expansion of digital financial services leads to severe consumer protection issues such as fraud and scams. As these potentially decrease trust in digital services, especially in developing countries, avoiding victimization has become an important policy objective. In an online experiment, we first investigate how well individuals in Kenya identify phone scams using a novel measure of scam identification ability. We then test the effectiveness of scam education, a commonly used approach by organizations for fraud prevention. We find that common tips on how to spot scams do not significantly improve individuals’ scam identification ability, i.e., the distinction between scams and genuine messages. This null effect is driven by an increase in correctly identified scams and a decrease in correctly identified genuine messages, indicating overcaution. Additionally, we find suggestive evidence that genuine messages with scam-like features are misclassified more often, highlighting the importance of a careful design of official communication.
Keywords Consumer protection, Consumer fraud, Digital financial services, Scam susceptibility, Scam education, Kenya
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