Documents de travail

Résumé A central idea in the institutions and development literature is whether the executive is adequately checked by the legislature and judiciary (North, 1990; Acemoglu et al., 2001; La Porta et al., 2004). This paper provides plausibly causal evidence on how increased constraints on the executive, through removal of Presidential discretion in judicial appointments, impacts judicial decision-making. In particular, we find that when the judge selection procedure in Pakistan changed, from the President appointing judges to appointments by judge peers, rulings in favor of the government decreased significantly and the quality of judicial decisions improved. The age structure of judges at the time of the reform and the mandatory retirement age law provide us with an exogenous source of variation in the implementation of the selection reform. We test for and provide evidence against potential threats to identification and alternative explanations for our findings. The analysis of mechanisms reveals that our results are explained by rulings in politically salient cases and by “patronage” judges who hold political office prior to their appointments. According to our estimates, Presidential appointment of judges results in additional land expropriations by the government worth 0.14 percent of GDP every year.
Mots clés Court subversion, Expropriation risk, Property rights, Judges, President
Télécharger HAL Google Scholar
Résumé Although it is recognized that parental time is a strong determinant of child development, little is known about heterogeneity across the effects of parental time. Using the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Children, I model the cognitive and socio-emotional skills production functions for children born in 1999-2000, from 4 to 11 years old, using, among others, a cumulative value-added and a generalized method of moments model. I find that the effect on children's verbal and socioemotional skills of time spent on educational activities with the father is smaller than that with the mother or both parents together. For socio-emotional skills, this difference seems to be driven by fathers who spend little time with their children.
Mots clés Parental time investment, Socio-emotional skills, Cognitive skills, Child development
Télécharger HAL Google Scholar
Résumé This study investigated elements affecting the ability to achieve optimal health (health capability) in people living in the rural area of Niakhar, Senegal, using data from the 12356 ANRS AmBASS survey. A structural equation modelling (SEM) strategy was used to develop a multidimensional and dynamic health capability model (Ruger, 2010) that allowed the analysis of determinants of health to be extended beyond the usual one-way study between determinants and health status found in the literature. Three factors (dimensions) were identified: 1) access to local healthcare services, 2) participation in decisionmaking, and 3) current self-reported health status. The model analyzed interactions between these dimensions as well as the dimensions' relationships with other demographic, psychosocial and economic variables (household size and resources, age, gender, education, marital status, intrinsic motivation, etc.) Results reveal a much greater diversity of variables associated with shortfalls in the various dimensions of health capability than what would have appeared had a standard unidimensional model been used. This SEM-based strategy could be an attractive alternative to traditional approaches to measure determinants of health and provide valuable empirical results for policy-makers.
Mots clés Determinants of health, Capability approach, Simultaneous equation model, Sub-Saharan Africa
Télécharger HAL Google Scholar
Résumé Higher uncertainty about government spending generates a persistent decline in the economic activity in the Euro Area. This paper emphasizes the transmission channels explaining this empirical fact. First, a Stochastic Volatility model is estimated on European government consumption to build a measure of government spending uncertainty. Plugging this measure into a SVAR model, we stress that government spending uncertainty shocks have recessionary, persistent and humped-shaped effects. Second, we develop a New Keynesian model with financial frictions applying to a portfolio of equity and long-term government bonds. We argue that a portfolio effect-resulting from the imperfect substitutability among both assets-acts as a critical amplifier of the usual transmission channels.
Mots clés Government spending uncertainty, Stochastic volatility, Portfolio adjustment cost
Télécharger HAL Google Scholar
Résumé We analyze the integration of intermittent renewables-based technologies into an electricity mix comprising of conventional energy. Intermittency is modeled by a contingent electricity market and we introduce demand-side flexibility through the retailing structure. Retailers propose diversified electricity contracts at different prices allowing consumers to choose their optimal electricity consumption. These contracts are modeled by a set of state-contingent electricity delivery contracts. We show existence and uniqueness of a competitive equilibrium of the contingent wholesale and retail markets. We provide a welfare analysis and only obtain constraint efficiency due to a limited number of delivery contracts. Finally, we discuss the conditions under which changing the set of delivery contracts improves penetration of renewables and increases welfare. This provides useful policy insights for managing intermittency and achieving renewable capacity objectives.
Mots clés Electricity market, Renewables, Intermittency, Demand flexibility
Télécharger HAL Google Scholar
Résumé Background We revisit fertility regulation in Tunisia by examining the role of the extended family. As marriage is the exclusive acknowledged childbearing context, we examine fertility analysis in Tunisia through the se-quence: woman’s marriage age, post-marriage delay in the first use of contraception, and past and cur-rent contraceptive use. We trace the family socio-economic influences that operate through these deci-sions. Methods Using data from the 2001 PAP-FAM Tunisian survey, we estimate the duration and probability models of these birth control decisions. Results In Tunisia, family ties and socio-cultural environment appear to hamper fertility regulation that oper-ates through the above decisions. This is notably the case for couples whose marriages are arranged by the extended family or who benefit from financial support from both parental families. Conclusion This calls for family planning policies that address more the extended families. Keywords: Fertility regulation; Age at marriage; Birth control; Family influence; Contraception; Tunisia
Mots clés Tunisia, Contraception, Family Interference, Birth control, Age at marriage, Fertility regulation
Télécharger HAL Google Scholar
Résumé Even though much has been learned about the new pathogen SARS-CoV-2 since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of uncertainty remains. In this paper we argue that what is important to know under uncertainty is whether harm accelerates and whether health policies achieve deceleration of harm. For this, we need to see cases in relation to diagnostic effort and not to look at indicators based on cases only, such as a number of widely used epidemiological indicators, including the reproduction number, do. To do so overlooks a crucial dimension, namely the fact that the best we can know about cases will depend on some welldefined strategy of diagnostic effort, such as testing in the case of COVID-19. We will present a newly developed indicator to observe harm, the acceleration index, which is essentially an elasticity of cases in relation to tests. We will discuss what efficiency of testing means and propose that the corresponding health policy goal should be to find ever fewer cases with an ever-greater diagnostic effort. Easy and low-threshold testing will also be a means to give back people’s sovereignty to lead their life in an “open” as opposed to “locked-down” society.
Mots clés Uncertainty, Acceleration Index, Anti-fragility, Reproduction factor, Test strategy, Sovereignty
Télécharger HAL Google Scholar
Résumé Uprising in China, the global COVID-19 epidemic soon started to spread out in Europe. As no medical treatment was available, it became urgent to design optimal non-pharmaceutical policies. With the help of a SIR model, we contrast two policies, one based on herd immunity (adopted by Sweden and the Netherlands), the other based on ICU capacity shortage. Both policies led to the danger of a second wave. Policy efficiency corresponds to the absence or limitation of a second wave. The aim of the paper is to measure the efficiency of these policies using statistical models and data. As a measure of efficiency, we propose the ratio of the size of two observed waves using a double sigmoid model coming from the biological growth literature. The Oxford data set provides a policy severity index together with observed number of cases and deaths. This severity index is used to illustrate the key features of national policies for ten European countries and to help for statistical inference. We estimate basic reproduction numbers, identify key moments of the epidemic and provide an instrument for comparing the two reported waves between January and October 2020. We reached the following conclusions. With a soft but long lasting policy, Sweden managed to master the first wave for cases thanks to a low R 0 , but at the cost of a large number of deaths compared to other Nordic countries and Denmark is taken as an example. We predict the failure of herd immunity policy for the Netherlands. We could not identify a clear sanitary policy for large European countries. What we observed was a lack of control for observed cases, but not for deaths.
Mots clés SIR models, Phenomenological models, Double sigmoid models, Sanitary policies, Herd immunity, ICU capacity constraint
Télécharger HAL Google Scholar
Résumé In this paper, I use a pseudo-panel approach with data from the European Union Labour Force Survey to study the impact of paternity leave policies on mothers' employment in ten countries. Using a dynamic Difference-inDifference strategy, I show that paternity leave increased mothers' employment rate by up to 17% in the long run, and average hours worked by 2 to 4%. There is substantial heterogeneity across countries in the effect of paternity leave policies. The impact on employment rates is positive and significant in eight of the ten countries of the sample, while the impact on hours worked can be either positive or negative. I find no evidence that the reforms had any impact on Greece or Portugal.
Mots clés Paternity leave, Labour supply, Gender equality
Télécharger HAL Google Scholar
Résumé We provide evidence on the impact of Covid-19 restriction policies on conflicts worldwide. We combine daily information on conflict events and government policy responses to limit the spread of coronavirus to study how demonstrations and violent events vary following shutdown policies. We use the staggered implementation of restriction policies across countries to identify the dynamic effects in an event study framework. Our results show that imposing a nationwide shutdown reduces the number of demonstrations, which suggests that public demonstrations are hampered by the rising cost of participation. However, the reduction is short-lived, as the number of demonstrations are back to their pre-restriction levels in two months. In contrast, we observe that the purported increase in mobilization or coordination costs, following the imposition of Covid-19 restrictions, has no impact on violent events that involve organized armed groups. Instead, we find that the number of events, on average, increase slightly following the implementation of the restriction policies. The rise in violent events is most prominent in poorer countries, with higher levels of polarization, and in authoritarian countries. We discuss the potential channels that can explain this heterogeneity.
Mots clés Violence, Conflict, Coronavirus, COVID-19
Télécharger HAL Google Scholar