bourles

Publications

Risk-Taking and Risk-Sharing Incentives under Moral HazardJournal articleMohamed Belhaj, Renaud Bourlès et Frédéric Deroian, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Volume 6, Issue 1, pp. 58-90, 2014

This paper explores the effect of moral hazard on both risk-taking and informal risk-sharing incentives. Two agents invest in their own project, each choosing a level of risk and effort, and share risk through transfers. This can correspond to farmers in developing countries, who share risk and decide individually upon the adoption of a risky technology. The paper mainly shows that the impact of moral hazard on risk crucially depends on the observability of investment risk, whereas the impact on transfers is much more utility dependent.

Do Product Market Regulations in Upstream Sectors Curb Productivity Growth? Panel Data Evidence for OECD CountriesJournal articleRenaud Bourlès, Gilbert Cette, Jimmy Lopez, Jacques Mairesse et Giuseppe Nicoletti, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Volume 95, Issue 5, pp. 1750-1768, 2013

We identify the impact of intermediate goods markets imperfections on productivity downstream. Our empirical specification is based on a model of multifactor productivity (MFP) growth in which the effects of upstream competition can vary with distance to frontier. This model is estimated on a panel of fifteen OECD countries and twenty industries over 1985 to 2007. Competitive pressures are proxied with industry product market regulation data. We find evidence that anticompetitive upstream regulations have significantly curbed MFP growth over the past fifteen years, and more strongly so for observations that are close to the productivity frontier. © 2013 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Employment and Productivity: Disentangling Employment Structure and Qualification EffectsJournal articleRenaud Bourlès, Gilbert Cette et Anastasia Cozarenco, International Productivity Monitor, Volume 23, pp. 44-54, 2012

Based on a disaggregation of the workforce into three qualification or educational attainment categories, the article estimates the effects on hourly productivity from changes in the employment rate structure and from changes in the qualification structure. 21 OECD countries are then ranked in terms of the potential gains in GDP they could expect from moving to the educational attainment rates and employment rates of the best performing countries.

Risk-sharing Contracts with Asymmetric InformationJournal articleRenaud Bourlès et Dominique Henriet, The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Volume 37, Issue 1, pp. 27-56, 2012

We examine how risk-sharing is impacted by asymmetric information on the probability distribution of wealth. We define the optimal incentive compatible agreements in a two-agent model with two levels of wealth. When there is complete information on the probability of the different outcomes, the resulting allocation satisfies the mutuality principle (which states that everyone's final wealth depends only upon the aggregate wealth of the economy). This is no longer true when agents have private information regarding their probability distribution of wealth. Asymmetry of information (i) makes ex-post equal sharing unsustainable between two low-risk agents, and (ii) induces exchanges when agents have the same realization of wealth.

The Impact on Growth of Easing Regulation in Upstream SectorsJournal articleRenaud Bourlès, Gilbert Cette, Jimmy Lopez, Jacques Mairesse et Giuseppe Nicoletti, CESifo DICE Report, Volume 8, Issue 3, pp. 8-12, 2010

We identify the impact of intermediate goods markets imperfections on productivity downstream. Our empirical specification is based on a model of multifactor productivity growth in which the effects of upstream competition can vary with distance to frontier. This model is estimated on a panel of 15 OECD countries and 20 industries over 1985-2007. Competitive pressures are proxied with industry product market regulation data. We find evidence that anticompetitive upstream regulations have significantly curbed MFP growth over the past 15 years, and more strongly so for observations that are close to the productivity frontier.<br><small>(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)</small>

Education, market rigidities and growthJournal articleRenaud Bourlès, Gilbert Cette, Philippe Aghion, Philippe Askenazy et Nicolas L. Dromel, Economics Letters, Volume 102, Issue 1, pp. 62-65, 2009

The paper exploits macro-panel data for OECD countries. Close to the technological frontier, the education level, product market rigidities and employment protection legislation would be significantly related to TFP growth, with a substantial contribution of the interaction between market rigidities.

Distance to Technological Frontier, Market Rigidities, Education, and GrowthJournal articlePhilippe Aghion, Philippe Askenazy, Renaud Bourlès, Gilbert Cette et Nicolas L. Dromel, Économie et Statistique, Issue 419-420, pp. 11-30, 2008

This study ties in with recent literature on how a country’s growth determinants are shaped by its technological position. In addition to the effects of education and regulations on the goods market and labour market, we also explore potential interaction between these regulations. We use data on 17 OECD countries for the period 1985-2003. Our main novel findings are the characterization of the effects of (1) the education level of the working-age population and (2) rigidities in the goods market and labour market on total factor productivity (TFP) growth. For countries close to the technological frontier, the effects seem very significant. An interaction between the rigidities in the two markets is clearly visible. The strong impact of higher-education level and rigidities on TFP growth appears to reflect a direct influence and an indirect effect via the diffusion of ICTs. In the goods market, the “entry barriers”, “market structure”, and “degree of vertical integration” seem to have a major influence. For countries far from the technological frontier, our estimates show that the higher-education level of the working-age population and rigidities in the goods market and labour market do not necessarily have a significant impact on TFP growth. These results underscore the importance of gains in productivity growth, and therefore in potential GDP growth, that some industrialized countries—mainly in Europe, including France—could expect from policies aimed at raising the education level of the working-age population and at reducing rigidities in the goods market and labour market.

Education supérieure, rigidités de marché et croissanceBook chapterPhilippe Aghion, Philippe Askenazy, Renaud Bourlès, Gilbert Cette et Nicolas Dromel, In: Les leviers de la croissance française, 2007, pp. 185-210, Documentation Française, 2007

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Trends in "structural" productivity levels in the major industrialized countriesJournal articleRenaud Bourlès et Gilbert Cette, Economics Letters, Volume 95, Issue 1, pp. 151-156, 2007

Estimating returns to hours worked and the employment rate provides us with an original interpretation of changes in US productivity and other industrialized countries' catch-up with US productivity levels over recent decades.

Les évolutions de la productivité « structurelle » du travail dans les principaux pays industrialisésJournal articleRenaud Bourlès et Gilbert Cette, Bulletin de la Banque de France, Issue 150, pp. 23-30, 2006

L’estimation de la productivité horaire « structurelle » permet une lecture originale des inflexions de la productivité aux États-Unis et du phénomène de rattrapage, sur les dernières décennies, de son niveau par les autres pays industrialisés.