Portail HAL Paris School of Economics (PSE)
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The Low-Hanging Fruit of the Single European Market: New Methods and Measures
No full textWe propose and construct novel measures of the effectiveness and potential of trade blocs, combining estimation with granular data and simulation with a New Quantitative Trade Model. We deploy our methods and new indexes to quantify the potential benefits from (i) further integration within the largest and most successful trade liberalization effort in the world -the Single European Market -and (ii) a possible enlargement. Three main results and implications stand out from our analysis. First, European integration has been very effective in promoting trade among its members, with heterogeneous effects across industries and member states. Second, and most novel and important, our estimates reveal that only half of the potential benefits from EU membership have been realized to date. Third, EU accession will generate very large gains from trade for the new joiners and moderate gains for existing members, with larger benefits for some small and peripheral EU members. Importantly, our methods enable us to construct confidence bounds for the effects of EU enlargement
Collusion in Bidding Markets: The Case of the French Public Transport Industry
No full textWe explore empirically the impact of the market sharing collusive practices that were implemented in the French public transportation industry between 1994 and 1999. We build a structural model of bidding markets where innovating firms compete for the market and have the ability to spread the benefits of their innovation through all markets on which they are active. Each local competitive environment shapes the distribution of the prices (the bids) paid by public authorities to transport operators. We recover empirically the distribution of prices and innovation shocks and we show that collusive practices had overall a limited impact on prices. Firms were in reality more interested in avoiding significant financial risks inherent to the activity, as well as the high cost of preparing a tender proposal. As a by-product, we perform a counterfactual analysis that allows us to simulate how an increase in firms' innovation reduces prices significantly
Pollution, public debt, and growth: the question of sustainability
No full textInternational audienceThis paper examines an endogenous growth model that allows us to consider the dynamics and sustainability of debt, pollution, and growth. Debt evolves according to the financing adaptation and mitigation efforts and to the damages caused by pollution. Three types of features are important for our analysis: the technology through the negative effect of pollution on TFP; the fiscal policy; the initial level of pollution and debt with respect to capital. Indeed, if the initial level of pollution is too high, the economy is relegated to an endogenous tipping zone where pollution perpetually increases relatively to capital. If the effect of pollution on TFP is too strong, the economy cannot converge to a stable and sustainable long-run balanced growth path. If the income tax rates are high enough, we can converge to a stable balanced growth path with low pollution and high debt relative to capital. This sustainable equilibrium can even be characterized by higher growth and welfare. This last result underlines the role that tax policy can play in reconciling debt and environmental sustainability
French Market Design in Practice: Some Lessons from the 2022 Energy Crisis
No full textBetween 2005 and 2021, France has generated more electricity from fossil-free resources (491 TWh/year on average) than its gross domestic consumption (481 TWh/year). Therefore, in terms of total surplus, the French electricity sector should have been barely hit, if at all, by the surge in fossil fuel prices during the 2022 energy crisis. In practice, however, the French government spent billions of euros in subsidies to electricity consumers, the incumbent utility – who operates the whole nuclear fleet – recorded its worst yearly financial result to date, and total electricity imports exceeded exports for the first time in more than 40 years. Although these outcomes can largely be attributed to bad luck, the extent to which they could have been mitigated through better market design and public policies is an open question. This article argues that existing policies, through their implied incentives to share and manage long-term risks, played a critical role in how France navigated the energy crisis. Consistently, reforming long-term risk-sharing mechanisms has emerged as the most pressing issue to address. Looking forward, however, updating short-term wholesale market design so as to better support a low-cost and reliable energy transition will likely prove increasingly important
The clean development mechanism
No full textInternational audienceThe Clean Development Mechanism is one of three flexible mechanisms included in the Kyoto Protocol. It enables Annex I countries to finance emission reductions in developing (non-Annex I) countries and use the credits thus obtained to meet their quantified emission reduction commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. The CDM had two objectives: to reduce the costs of compliance of the Annex I countries’ emission reduction commitments, and to assist developing countries in achieving sustainable development and in contributing to the ultimate objective of the UNFCCC. The major part of certified emission reductions (CERs) comes from renewable energy investments, reduction of non-CO2 greenhouse gases (HFCs, PFCs and N2O), and energy efficiency projects. The geographical distribution of projects and emission reductions is concentrated in a few countries: China, India, Brazil, and Mexico. A substantial amount of CERs was created under the CDM, but the uneven geographical distribution of projects and the lack of consistent control of projects’ contribution to sustainable development have been arguments to contend that the CDM did not fulfil its initial objectives. The restriction by the EU in 2013 to use CERs in the EU-ETS brought down prices and the market for CERs has not recovered since. The CDM was discontinued as of 30 June 2022 and requests for exemptions were considered on a case-specific basis. Nevertheless, the CDM has continued to function while parties are waiting for the flexible mechanisms created in the Paris Agreement of 2015 to become operational, in particular the Sustainable Development Mechanism of Article 6.4 which is similar to the CDM in its objectives
Information campaigns and ecolabels by environmental NGOs: Effective strategies to eliminate environmentally harmful components?
No full textInternational audienceEnvironmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are increasingly using strategies to encourage firms to eliminate product components (e.g., palm oil) that are harmful to the environment (e.g., rainforests) or to replace them with NGO‐certified sustainable components. Under what conditions do NGOs' information and ecolabeling strategies succeed in eliminating certain harmful components when these components contribute to the intrinsic quality of a product? The paper addresses these questions using a model of two‐dimensional vertical product differentiation in a market with consumers either informed or uninformed about the environmental quality of products and two firms that initially offer a product with the harmful component and a harmful component‐free product. We show that the information campaign plays a crucial and effective role in improving environmental quality, although the optimal share of informed consumers for the NGO is large but not always 100%. Ecolabeling cannot replace the information campaign. It is only a complementary tool to an intensive information campaign. Used together, they can succeed in triggering the substitution of the certified sustainable component for the harmful one
Impact de la réforme des retraites de 2010 sur l’équilibre financier de l’assurance chômage
No full textCette étude analyse les effets de la hausse de l’âge minimal légal de départ en retraite de 60 à 62 ans, induits par la réforme de 2010, sur les trajectoires professionnelles et les équilibres budgétaires de l’assurance chômage et du système de retraite. Ce type de réforme a pour objectif de prolonger la carrière des seniors pour diminuer les dépenses de retraite et accroître les cotisations sociales, mais la réforme peut augmenter le recours à d’autres dispositifs comme l’assurance chômage. Nous appliquons une méthode des doubles différences sur données administratives, comparant les générations 1950 et 1954. Les résultats montrent une hausse du chômage indemnisé entre 60 et 62 ans, due principalement à un allongement de la durée d’indemnisation des chômeurs, augmentant les dépenses. Simultanément, la réforme a accru l’emploi entre 60 et 62 ans, augmentant les cotisations sociales. Des effets positifs sur l’emploi avant 60 ans sont observés, notamment pour les salariés en fin de carrière stable dans de grandes entreprises. L’impact global sur le solde financier annuel de l’assurance chômage est négatif mais très faible: au maximum 36 millions d’euros, les hausses de recettes compensant le surcoût dû à la hausse du nombre de personnes indemnisées par l’Assurance chômage
L'Analyse Coût-Bénéfice appliquée aux transports
No full textL'Analyse Coût-Bénéfice, ou ACB, est une technique d'évaluation de l'intérêt collectif des actions publiques, plus connue en France sous le nom d'Evaluation Socio-Economique (ESE) lorsqu'elle s'applique aux choix des investissements, et qui a connu ses plus amples développements dans le secteur des transports. Le texte qui suit en rappelle les principes, expose les particularités de sa mise en oeuvre dans les transports et conclut sur la manière dont elle est utilisée pour l'aide à la décision
Pricing in markets without money: Theory and evidence from home exchanges
No full textA growing number of markets use token money instead of real money to allocate resources such as class seats, food donations or holiday homes. Agents earn token money by supplying and can only spend tokens by consuming within the system. A platform decides how to set goods’ token prices. Should it i) clear the market, as assumed in canonical competitive equilibrium frameworks, or ii) compress prices and ration excess demand? I characterize in a two-type, two-period model under which conditions compressing prices increases supply and utilitarian welfare. Intuitively, this is possible when income effects are strong—because agents are easily satiated with tokens—and participation effects are weak. I confirm the model’s predictions on a large home exchange platform, combining proprietary data on the universe of transactions with natural experiments. I find that income effects are large empirically and that a reform that reduced the price of attractive homes increased their supply and did not reduce participation. I show that many users have a strong preference against for-money platforms, allowing the exchange platform to set non-market-clearing prices. Broader insights are that lessons from traditional markets may not easily extend to token economies and that market designs without real money can have advantages even in settings where money is common
In Search of Working Time? Hours Constraints, Firms and Mobility
No full textCan workers reach their ideal working hours over time? This paper provides novel empirical evidence on hours constraints-barriers for workers to work their desired hours at a given wage rate-by linking self-reported hour preferences from large-scale survey data with administrative employer-employee data between 2003 and 2023. Twenty percent of French salaried workers report wanting to increase their hours at their given wage. Leveraging the panel dimension of my data, I show that constrained workers switch employers more frequently and experience increases in hours and earnings through mobility. However, most constrained workers remain unable to adjust their hours to their desired level within 3 years after their report. Next, I develop a revealed preference method to quantify welfare effects associated with constraints and find that workers would on average accept a 10.2% reduction in hourly wages to work in a job offering their desired number of hours. These findings highlight the important role of hours worked as a job amenity in shaping labor market sorting