Publications
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.
This paper develops a search and matching framework in which workers are characterised by asymmetric reference-dependent reciprocity, and firms set wages by considering the effect that these can have on workers’ effort, and therefore on output. The cyclical response of effort to wage changes can considerably amplify shocks, independently of the cyclicality of the hiring wage, which becomes irrelevant for unemployment volatility; and firms’ expectations of downward wage rigidity in existing jobs increases the volatility of job creation. The model is consistent with evidence on hiring and incumbents’ wage cyclicality, and provides novel predictions on the dynamics of effort.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The impact of US allocation of family planning aid on other donors is studied in order to gain new insights into donor interactions. Within this context, the dominant player in the sector is the United States, whose policies on family planning undergo changes influenced by domestic debates surrounding abortion. By utilizing the Mexico City Policy and considering exposure to this particular policy as an instrumental factor, it has been observed that other donors do not immediately react to policy changes made by the United States, either contemporaneously or within one year. However, a noticeable shift occurs after a two-year period, indicating that these donors eventually align their allocation strategies with those of the United States. Further analysis of this phenomenon reveals varying patterns among different types of donors. While smaller donors exhibit a clear intention to compensate for US policy changes, larger donors display a mix of competitive tendencies and herding behavior, thereby reinforcing the impact of the Mexico City Policy after the two-year time frame.
