Publications

Most of the information presented on this page have been retrieved from RePEc with the kind authorization of Christian Zimmermann
The international diffusion of food innovations and the nutrition transition: retrospective longitudinal evidence from country-level data, 1970-2010Journal articleAnne-Celia Disdier, Fabrice Etile and Lorenzo Rotunno, BMJ GLOBAL HEALTH, Volume 8, Issue 11, pp. e012062, Forthcoming

IntroductionThere is a lack of quantitative evidence on the role of food innovations-new food ingredients and processing techniques-in the nutrition transition.ObjectiveDocument 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.MethodsWe 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.ResultsTrends 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.ConclusionPolicy-makers should consider the impacts of the international diffusion of food innovations in assessing the costs and benefits of international trade regulations.

Framing cognitive machines: A sociotechnical taxonomyJournal articlePedro H. Albuquerque and Sophie Albuquerque, Forthcoming

Aims: we propose a sociotechnical taxonomy for the analysis of socio-economic disruptions caused by technological innovations. Methodology: a transdisciplinary principled approach is used to build the taxonomy through categorization and characterization of technologies using concepts and definitions originating from cybernetics, occupational science, and economics. The sociotechnical taxonomy is then used, with the help of logical propositions, to connect the characteristics of different categories of technologies to their socio-economic effects, for example their externalities. Results: we offer concrete illustrations of concepts and uses, and an Industry 5.0 case study as an application of the taxonomy. We suggest that the taxonomy can inform the analysis of opportunities and risks related to technological disruptions, specially of those that result from the rise of cognitive machines.

Asymmetric Reciprocity and the Cyclical Behaviour of Wages, Effort and Job CreationJournal articleMarco Fongoni, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Forthcoming
Salience or event-splitting? An experimental investigation of correlation sensitivity in risk-takingJournal articleMoritz Loewenfeld and Zheng Jiakun, Journal of the Economic Science and Association, Forthcoming

Salience theory relies on the assumption that not only the marginal distribution of lotteries, but also the correlation of payoffs across states impacts choices. Recent experimental studies on salience theory seem to provide evidence in favor of such correlation effects. However, these studies fail to control for event-splitting effects (ESE). In this paper, we seek to disentangle the role of correlation and event-splitting in two settings: 1) the common consequence Allais paradox as studied by Bordalo et al. (2012), Bruhin et al. (2022), and Frydman and Mormann (2018); 2) choices between Mao pairs as studied by Dertwinkel-Kalt and Köster (2020). In both settings, we find evidence suggesting that recent findings supporting correlation effects are largely driven by ESE. Once controlling for ESE, we find no consistent evidence for correlation effects. Our results thus shed doubt on the validity of salience theory in describing risky behavior.

Bayesian inference for non-anonymous growth incidence curves using Bernstein polynomials: an application to academic wage dynamicsJournal articleEdwin Fourrier-Nicolaï and Michel Lubrano, Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, Issue online 2023-07-24, Forthcoming

The paper examines the question of non-anonymous Growth Incidence Curves (na-GIC) from a Bayesian inferential point of view. Building on the notion of conditional quantiles of Barnett (1976. “The Ordering of Multivariate Data.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A 139: 318–55), we show that removing the anonymity axiom leads to a complex and shaky curve that has to be smoothed, using a non-parametric approach. We opted for a Bayesian approach using Bernstein polynomials which provides confidence intervals, tests and a simple way to compare two na-GICs. The methodology is applied to examine wage dynamics in a US university with a particular attention devoted to unbundling and anti-discrimination policies. Our findings are the detection of wage scale compression for higher quantiles for all academics and an apparent pro-female wage increase compared to males. But this pro-female policy works only for academics and not for the para-academics categories created by the unbundling policy.

The Macroeconomic Impact of the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic in SwedenJournal articleMartin Karlsson, Mykhailo Matvieiev and Maksym Obrizan, The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, Forthcoming

In this paper, we develop an overlapping generations model with endogenous fertility and calibrate it to the Swedish historical data in order to estimate the economic cost of the 1918–19 influenza pandemic. The model identifies survivors from younger cohorts as main benefactors of the windfall bequests following the influenza mortality shock. We also show that the general equilibrium effects of the pandemic reveal themselves over the wage channel rather than the interest rate, fertility or labor supply channels. Finally, we demonstrate that the influenza mortality shock becomes persistent, driving the aggregate variables to lower steady states which costs the economy 1.819% of the output loss over the next century.

Valuation of ecosystem services and social choice: the impact of deliberation in the context of two different aggregation rulesJournal articleMariam Maki Sy, Charles Figuières, Hélène Rey-Valette, Richard B. Howarth and Rutger De Wit, Social Choice and Welfare, Forthcoming

This paper describes an empiric study of aggregation and deliberation—used during citizens’ workshops—for the elicitation of collective preferences over 20 different ecosystem services (ESs) delivered by the Palavas coastal lagoons located on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea close to Montpellier (S. France). The impact of deliberation is apprehended by comparing the collectives preferences constructed with and without deliberation. The same aggregation rules were used before and after deliberation. We compared two different aggregation methods, i.e. Rapid Ecosystem Services Participatory Appraisal (RESPA) and Majority Judgement (MJ). RESPA had been specifically tested for ESs, while MJ evaluates the merit of each item, an ES in our case, in a predefined ordinal scale of judgment. The impact of deliberation was strongest for the RESPA method. This new information acquired from application of social choice theory is particularly useful for ecological economics studying ES, and more practically for the development of deliberative approaches for public policies.

The Regularity of the Value Function of Repeated Games with Switching CostsJournal articleYevgeny Tsodikovich, Xavier Venel and Anna Zseleva, Mathematics of Operations Research, Forthcoming

We study repeated zero-sum games where one of the players pays a certain cost each time he changes his action. We derive the properties of the value and optimal strategies as a function of the ratio between the switching costs and the stage payoffs. In particular, the strategies exhibit a robustness property and typically do not change with a small perturbation of this ratio. Our analysis extends partially to the case where the players are limited to simpler strategies that are history independent―namely, static strategies. In this case, we also characterize the (minimax) value and the strategies for obtaining it.

Equilibrium set-valued variational principles and the lower boundedness condition with application to psychologyJournal articleJing-Hui Qiu, Antoine Soubeyran and Fei He, Optimization, pp. 1-33, Forthcoming

We first give a pre-order principle whose form is very general. Combining the pre-order principle and generalized Gerstewitz functions, we establish a general equilibrium version of set-valued Ekeland variational principle (denoted by EVP), where the objective function is a set-valued bimap defined on the product of quasi-metric spaces and taking values in a quasi-ordered linear space, and the perturbation consists of a subset of the ordering cone multiplied by the quasi-metric. From this, we obtain a number of new results which essentially improve the related results. Particularly, the earlier lower boundedness condition has been weakened. Finally, we apply the new EVPs to Psychology.

Enquête sur les libertés et l’égalité : Tome 1 : Origines et fondements - Volume 2 : Economie, et métaphysiqueBookPhilippe Grill, E-conomiques, Number 2, Forthcoming

Le projet de Philippe Grill est d’enquêter sur les origines et les fondements des doctrines et théories relatives aux libertés et à l’égalité. Son approche est proprement philosophico-économique, au sens où elle s’appuie sur l’une et l’autre discipline. Cette exploration conceptuelle des théories économiques et philosophiques, des hypothèses qui les fondent, des notions qui les irriguent, ou encore des masses de données empiriques aux interprétations multiples, voire contradictoires, se révèle cruciale car c’est à partir de ces doctrines et théories que sont conçues et promues les organisations sociales et les politiques publiques qui déterminent « dans quel monde on vit », en décrétant le possible et l’impossible en ces domaines. L’ouvrage contribue ainsi pleinement aux débats actuels d’éthique sociale en fournissant les moyens de définir ce que pourrait être une organisation sociale « humaniste ».
En effet, si l’on veut changer le monde, il faut le comprendre… Sereinement, pédagogiquement, c’est notamment à cette compré­hen­sion maximale que nous invite Philippe Grill. La somme encyclopédique qu’il nous propose déploie le panorama d’une philosophie économique où sont convoqués les savoirs contemporains issus de nombreuses disciplines (outre les sciences économiques bien sûr, les autres sciences sociales, la logique, l’épistémologie, les sciences cognitives, les neurosciences, la biologie de l’évolution, etc., ainsi que les engagements ontologiques des nombreux penseurs que l’ouvrage étudie). Ici, point de simple juxtaposition de disciplines, mais une architecture des connaissances qui veut montrer que les conceptions idoines sont nécessairement connexes si l’on entend démêler l’écheveau d’un homo œconomicus authentique, renversant le modèle factice que rabâchent les propagandistes de vulgates économiques outrancièrement simplistes et irréalistes. Ainsi, ce livre est un puissant levier de ce mouvement salutaire. Moins