Publications
We provide a Bayesian inference for a mixture of two Pareto distributions which is then used to approximate the upper tail of a wage distribution. The model is applied to the data from the CPS Outgoing Rotation Group to analyze the recent structure of top wages in U.S. from 1992 through 2009. We found enormous earnings inequality between the very highest wage earners (“the superstars”), and the other high wage earners. These findings are largely in accordance with the alternative explanations combining the model of super-stars and the model of tournaments in hierarchical organization structure. The approach can be used to analyze the recent pay gaps among top executives in large firms so as to exhibit the “superstar” effect.
I begin this research by taking a sociological point of view in order to study the behaviour of agents, the actors belonging to the heterogeneous populations, basing it on a cognitivist and social approach of identity and on the hypothesis according to which the logics of action have their legitimacy in an infinite fragmentation of « me » as in Elster[1] and Lahire [2]. The basic idea is to generalise this approach by going beyond the collective-individual duality in order to consider the changes of scale (very much as envisaged by Grossetti [3] and the resulting opacity in the context of globalisation and the « dynamic relation to the world » (by alluding to Thévenot [4]) which underpins these logics of action and characterises the behaviour of different actors. The complexity of the universe thus described requires that we should return to the notion of incomplete representations in the sense of Simon [5] and to the contextualization of actions in the sense of White [ 6]. The paradigm on which this work is based, that is to say interactionism, enables us to take note
of the fittings or embeddedness, in the sense of Granovetter [7] of structures, of networks to which the actors belong. At the level of the social game in which these actors participate, the goal is to explain how the different forms of engagement, in the sense of Thèvenot , are rendered explicit through the devices in the sense of Déotte [8], the networks, as artefacts and the cognitive shortcuts set in place at level of the genesis and of the evolution of these structures. This shows the embeddedness of engagements of different actors resulting from the language games in the sense of Lyotard [9] and characterises the complex mediation processes. The phenomena of globalisation and self-organisation are here characteristics of the « indetermination of the translation » (defined by Quine [10] from which we shall try to measure the consequences involved in the interactive governance.
While market is very studied by economists, its definition has not been so much studied, as [HOG 88] or [AUE 90] can stress. The main contributions in the development or economic theory are about existence, viability and efficiency of those markets, but are not related to the processes, which hence makes agents unables to grab the dynamic role of competition [PET 96]. This limitation is linked to technical poblems: mathematical problems cannot rake interaction into account in details., as it is impossible to solve too complex models. That's why many economists turned to simulation when it started appearing [TES 97][KIR 10]. In this chapter we study different framework that enable to address the question of the understanding of markets - in particular we are interested in the positive descriptions of exchanges, which can be used to build agent models. Then we present diverse elements that characterize the elements that compose a market, and give examples. Eventually we present some precise models and their UML Translation.
This timely book deploys new tools and measures to understand how global production networks change the nature of global economic interdependence, and how that in turn changes our understanding of which policies are appropriate in this new environment. Bringing to bear an array of the latest methods and data to study global value chains, this unique book assesses the evolution of global value chains at the firm level, and how this affects competitiveness in Asia.
This chapter looks at the determinants of productivity growth, based on the following two questions. First, how can we enhance productivity growth in advanced versus emerging market economies? Second, is there something to learn from observing the big technological waves and their diffusion patterns across different countries? We first present a simple framework to think about the sources of productivity growth. We then look at the sources of productivity growth
in advanced countries, and we then turn our attention to the sources of productivity growth in emerging market economies. We finally analyze the technological waves and draw a few lessons from comparing the differences in their diffusion patterns across countries.
Our paper attempts to enhance the understanding of China’s monetary policy rule, which may help explain the country’s remarkable inflation performance over the past decade, in spite of the absence of explicit inflation targeting. In particular, we aim to shed light on the role of inflation in the conduct of monetary policy by the People’s Bank of China (PBC) in the New Millennium, when both the underlying economy and its monetary policy framework were transformed. We develop a new monetary policy index (MPI) in China by combining quantity, price and administrative instruments and estimate a hybrid (backward- and forward-looking), dynamic, discrete-choice model for the period 2002–13. Three main results arise from the paper. First, the Chinese monetary policy changes under PBC Governor Zhou from 2002 onwards have been relatively hawkish and smoothed. Second, the PBC appears to have built up a monetary policy framework similar to implicit flexible inflation targeting, with a hybrid reaction function, seemingly taking into account the forward-looking aspect of inflation. Third, the PBC’s behaviour post-2002 resembles that of the post-1979 anti-inflation policy of the G3 central banks, albeit with a high output weight typical of emerging economies.<br><small>(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)</small>
The following sections are included:
•Introduction
•Microfinance and Economic Development
•Indian Microfinance and the Impact of Commercialization
•Minsky's “Financial Instability” Hypothesis
•Data and Econometric Methodology
•Results and Policy Implications
•Conclusions
•References
We compare two approaches to measuring inequity in the health distribution. The first is the concentration index. The second is the calculation of the inequality in an overall measure of individual well-being, capturing both the income and health dimensions. We introduce the concept of equivalent income as a measure of well-being that respects preferences with respect to the trade-off between income and health, but is not subjectively welfarist since it does not rely on the direct measurement of happiness. Using data from a representative survey in France, we show that equivalent incomes can be measured using a contingent valuation method. We present counterfactual simulations to illustrate the different perspectives of the approaches with respect to distributive justice.
This chapter aims to quantify and compare inequalities of opportunity in health across European countries considering two alternative normative ways of treating the correlation between effort, as measured by lifestyles, and circumstances, as measured by parental and childhood characteristics, championed by Brian Barry and John Roemer. This study relies on regression analysis and proposes several measures of inequality of opportunity. Data from the Retrospective Survey of SHARELIFE, which focuses on life histories of European people aged 50 and over, are used.
In Europe at the whole, inequalities of opportunity stand for almost 50% of the health inequality due to circumstances and efforts in Barry scenario and 57.5% in Roemer scenario. The comparison of the magnitude of inequalities of opportunity in health across European countries shows considerable inequalities in Austria, France, Spain and Germany, whereas Sweden, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland present the lowest inequalities of opportunity. The normative principle on the way to treat the correlation between circumstances and efforts makes little difference in Spain, Austria, Greece, France, Czech Republic, Sweden and Switzerland, whereas it would matter the most in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Poland and Denmark.
In most countries, inequalities of opportunity in health are mainly driven by social background affecting adult health directly, and so would require policies compensating for poorer initial conditions. On the other hand, our results suggest a strong social and family determinism of lifestyles in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Poland and Denmark, which emphasises the importance of inequalities of opportunity in health within those countries and calls for targeted prevention policies.
