Publications
The purpose here is to study the behaviour of different types of actors within a heterogeneous population, as well as their interactions, from a pluridisciplinary point of view. Through a cross analysis of the fields of economics, sociology and philosophy, we try to establish the dimensions of the notion of social complexity, particularly that which concerns the architecture of knowledge, the co-construction of representations and the complex mediation processes which the interacting agents require. Therefore, this study concerns a world where the actor is plural in the sense described by Bernard Lahire; the latter takes us to Jon Elster’s notion of the multi-self. This plural character is seen here using different coding processes as manipulations of symbols and overcoding processes; as manipulations of codes among themselves.
The basic question confronting us here brings us to the interaction between the notions of social identity, social complexity and complex action, which gives rise to the occurrence of the different forms of engagement - to be taken into account in the sense used by Laurent Thévenot - related to the behaviours of actors participating in the emergence and development of social networks, of forums, like hybrid forms emerging from the modeling of complex systems as described by Herbert Simon.
From a methodological point of view, the paradigms of methodological individualism and holism are abandoned by taking the systemic approach based on the interactionist paradigm. The works of Mark Granovetter and his notion of embeddedness, as well as those of Harrison White on his notion of decoupling, are used in order to develop this analysis and thus to establish the links between codes, overcodes and different types of device Chapter One 2within the meaning of the aesthetics of philosophy. The purpose here is to lend epistemological content to the actor-network notion within the meaning of the sociology of translation as artefact in the sense used by Simon.
The operating character of this type of modelling rests in particular on cognitive shortcuts, whose nature is closely linked with the identity of actors.
At this level, we examine the link existing between the autonomy of actors and the different forms of engagement participating in the emergence of hybrid structures, and we study this emergence in terms of opacity and ambiguity.
We test for non-linear effects of asset prices on the fiscal policy of four major European economies (France, Italy, Spain and UK). We model government spending and revenue as time-varying transition probability Markovian processes (TVPMS), and find that: (i) in France and Italy, the impact of housing prices on government revenue is conditioned by the phase of the stock price cycle; (ii) a similar asymmetric pattern is found for the UK when considering the effect of stock price fluctuations on government revenue and spending vis-à-vis the troughs and peaks of aggregate wealth; and (iii) for Spain, a fall in government revenue is typically associated with a negative performance of the housing market, while government spending does not seem to adjust to the dynamics of financial market. In addition, the magnitude of the contribution of housing prices to changes in government revenue appears to have dominated that of stock prices in France and the UK. As for government spending, changes in this policy instrument are correlated with changes in asset prices, but the effect depends on the magnitude of the price variation and the influence of the output cycle. Therefore, the empirical evidence corroborates the idea that accounting for the dynamics of asset markets provides a more accurate assessment of the fiscal stance.
L’entrepreneur constitue une figure clef de la vie économique dans l’univers du capitalisme en ce qu’il fait vivre les relations socio-économiques dans la Cité. Autant que l’homme d’État, le haut-fonctionnaire ou le savant, l’entrepreneur crée des liens qui tissent le cadre de la vie matérielle des hommes autour de lui, des réalisations qu’il mène à bien (dans le meilleur des cas), des innovations qu’il apporte (et sans lesquelles son entreprise est à terme, et de plus en plus rapidement, condamnée). L’entrepreneur suscite l’orientation du développement de la vie sociale à travers les relations qu’il noue : la relation d’emploi avec ses employés (ouvriers et employés de bureau, blue-collars et white-collars pour employer une terminologie anglo-saxonne), les transactions financières qu’il conclut avec ses créanciers, avec les investisseurs qui croient en lui, et les rapports marchands qu’il passe avec ses fournisseurs, ou encore au travers de la relation d’échange qu’il met en place avec ses clients.
L’entrepreneur doit par conséquent avant tout et par-dessus tout susciter la confiance de la part de ses clients comme de ses investisseurs et de ses subordonnés (employés et fournisseurs) : il doit non seulement convaincre chacun, mais chacun d’entre eux prend sens autour de cette figure centrale qu’est l’entrepreneur. Comprendre la nature et le rôle de la figure de l’entrepreneur dans son environnement économique, c’est saisir cette relation de confiance au plus près des caractéristiques spécifiques de l’entrepreneur comme individu et comme rouage moteur dans l’entreprise qu’il met sur pied et/ou conduit vers la réussite (dans le meilleur des cas).
Contract theory qualifies legal origins theory by focusing on codified default rules, which ease the conclusion of enforceable contracts. We have selected 10 economically important codified contract types containing default rules and 8 countries particularly relevant as mother countries of legal origins, financial centers or newly industrialized economies (France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, the UK and the US). We exclude countries having received their laws as colonial “transplants” and countries in legal transformation. The economic impact of default rules is detectable by econometric analysis based on panel data inference over prolonged periods (1870-2008). Codified default rules favor economic performance, the higher their number the better. The results are controlled for time and country fixed effects, confirmed by counterfactual simulations and robust. We also test whether the presence of all ten contract types can compensate the absence of financial center advantage, and find that they do so in the civil law mother countries and the two newly industrialized countries of our sample. The Swiss case shows that the cumulation of default rule advantage and financial center advantage results in superior economic performance. While qualifying legal origins theory, our results strongly confirm institutional economics in its core of contract theory.
We consider a framework à la Wirl (1994) where political liberalization is the outcome of a lobbying differential game between a conservative elite and a reformist group, the former player pushing against political liberalization in opposition to the latter. In contrast to the benchmark model, we introduce uncertainty. We consider the typical case of an Arab oil exporter country where oil rents are fiercely controlled by the conservative elite. We assume that the higher the oil rents, the more reluctant to political liberalization the elite is. Two states of nature are considered (high vs low resource rents). We then compute the Market-perfect equilibria of the corresponding piecewise deterministic differential game. It is shown that introducing uncertainty in this manner increases the set of strategies compared to Wirl's original setting. In particular, it is shown that the cost of lobbying might be significantly increased under uncertainty with respect to the benchmark. This ultimately highlights some specificities of the political liberalization at stake in Arab countries and the associated risks.
Menger a renouvelé la théorie de la connaissance autant que la théorie économique. Schmoller a vu dans ce renouvellement une tentative de réhabilitation de l’école classique d’économie politique qu’il avait lui-même combattue. Les deux auteurs préconisaient des approches gnoséologiques alternatives et leurs œuvres intéressent à ce titre tant les philosophes que les économistes. Elles peuvent également utilement contribuer à l’étude des « robinsonnades » et des présuppositions anthropologiques des économistes.
L’examen qui suit devrait notamment corriger la perspective (trop) souvent prise afin de critiquer l’individualisme en économie. C’est en particulier la nature méthodologique que donne Menger à cet individualisme qui est le véritable enjeu, car elle porte en vérité autant contre ces « robinsonnades » que Schmoller, à l’instar de Karl Marx, critiquait dans les œuvres des classiques britanniques, que contre les « concepts collectifs » (Kollektivbegriffe) de l’historicisme économique allemand.
Les pages qui suivent montreront que, loin de reconduire un modèle de raisonnement « abstrait » au sens incriminé par Schmoller, le Viennois Menger proposait une version qui rendit caduque l’opposition propre à la période antérieure, à savoir celle qui avait vu s’affronter l’économie classique qualifiée de « bourgeoise » et vulgaire par Marx et l’approche « collective » (ou « holiste ») adverse : cette dernière venait soit de l’économie nationale (Nationalökonomie) historiciste allemande, qui louait la fameuse « voie spéciale » germanique (Sonderweg), soit de l’analyse de « classe » marxiste. À l’occasion de la « révolution marginaliste » que Menger porta avec le Français Léon Walras et l’Anglais Stanley Jevons, un renversement de paradigme rendit désuète la contradiction que désignait l’expression de « robinsonnades ».
This paper provides evidence that forecasts in macroeconomic fundamentals can drive the changes observed in the sovereign bond spreads in a nonlinear fashion. More specifically, the impact of the anticipated macroeconomic variables on sovereign spreads depends upon the global conditions prevailing in the financial markets (appetite for risk, market liquidity, health of the banking sector). We use a nonlinear model of sovereign spreads, namely a time-varying probability Markov-switching model. The paper adds to the empirical literature by documenting that the strength with which changes in market expectations of economic fundamentals are factored in the determination of the Euro area bond market spreads is regime-dependent. Such dependence implies multiple “equilibrium relationships” between spreads and macroeconomic variables, and switches between the equilibria. We contribute to the literature by first proposing a simple analytical model in which some sources of regime switches are described. In particular, spreads are affected by the investors’ perceived probability of default on debt servicing by governments and this probability varies across time because investors anticipate the future outcome of macroeconomic fundamentals influencing sovereign debts. We then consider a reduced-form of the analytical model to illustrate the empirical performance of time-varying Markov-switching model in describing the experience of the euro area spread between 2003 and 2009.
This paper attempts to provide evidence of “shift-volatility” transmission in the East Asian equity markets. By “shift-volatility”, we mean the volatility shifts from a low level to a high level corresponding respectively to tranquil and crisis periods. We examine the interdependence of equity volatilities between Hong-Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and the United States. Our main issue is whether shift-volatility needs to be considered as a regional phenomenon, or from a more global perspective. We propose several indicators that are be useful to guide the investors in their arbitrage behavior in the different regimes: the duration of each state, the sensitivity of the volatility in a market following a change in the volatility in another market. Finally, we are able to identify which market can be considered as leading markets in terms of volatility.
