Portail HAL Paris School of Economics (PSE)
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Looking for the Bright Side of the China Syndrome: Rising Export Opportunities and Life Satisfaction in China
No full textInternational audienceLooking for the Bright Side of the China Syndrome: Rising Export Opportunities and Life Satisfaction in Chin
Trade and diplomacy Economic determinants of international cooperation agreements and its effect on international trade in the post World War II era: 1945-2022
No full textWe study the determinants of international cooperation and its effect on trade. We rely on a unique database of 31,982 International Cooperation Agreements (ICAs) signed between 1945-2022 by 193 countries. Estimating bilateral gravity equations, we find that trade follows the flag: ICAs increase bilateral exports by around 1-3%, with stronger effects for South-South relations.We address potential endogeneity through panel approach and an instrumental variable that exploits the network structure of international relations. Further, using LPM we find that gravity forces explain country pairs entering an ICA. Importantly, we find that ICAs serve as stepping stones towards Regional Trade Agreements, confirming a previous step in Balassa (1961) theory ofeconomic integration. Our results shed new light on the international relations-trade nexus and contribute to the current debate on friendshoring
Diffusion of Gender Norms: Evidence from Stalin’s Ethnic Deportations
No full textInternational audienceWe study horizontal between-group cultural transmission using Stalin’s ethnic deportations as a historical experiment. Over 2 million Soviet citizens, mostly Germans and Chechens, were forcibly relocated from the western to eastern parts of the USSR during WWII solely based on ethnicity. As a result, the native population of the deportation destinations was exogenously exposed to groups with drastically different gender norms and behavior. We combine historical and contemporary data to document that present-day gender equality in labor force participation, business leadership, and fertility as well as pro-gender-equality attitudes are higher among local native population of deportation destinations with a larger presence of Protestant compared to Muslim deportees. The effects are stronger for culturally closer groups and when adopting deportee norms is less costly. The results cannot be explained by selection, vertical cultural transmission, or deportee impact on the local economy. The evidence strongly suggests that gender norms diffused horizontally from deportees to the local population through imitation and learning
Take the Highway? Paved roads and well-being in Africa
No full textInternational audiencePublic Goods aim to improve individual welfare. We investigate the causal consequences of roads on well-being in 24 African countries, instrumenting paved roads by 19th Century hypothetical lines between major ports and cities. We have data on over 32000 individuals, and consider both their objective and subjective well-being, via access to four basic needs and the subjective evaluation of living conditions respectively. Our instrumental-variable analysis suggests that roads reduce material deprivation, by improving access to basic needs, but that there is no causal relation between the distance to a road and subjective living conditions. The benefit of roads in providing basic needs then seems to be offset by worse outcomes in other domains
Droughts, Migration and Population in Kenya
No full textSince 2000, Kenya has experienced an increase in the frequency of droughts, significantly affecting agriculture and driving labor force migration. This paper investigates strategic migration patterns among farmers and pastoralists in response to repetitive droughts. I use fine-grained data that enables the capture of shortdistance migration and heterogeneity, combining satellite-based data on daily rainfalls (CHIRPS) with exhaustive censuses from 1989,1999, and 2009. I use a two-way fixed-effect model to exploit the spatial variation in drought frequency across 2,518 sub-locations, comparing their demographic growth according to the number of dryrainy seasons over each decade. First, I show that increased drought frequency triggers out-migration, as one additional drought decreases demographic growth by 1.7 p.p, equivalent to a 1% population decline. This result is consistent within the [15; 65] age group, excluding other demographic effects and confirming migration as the driving factor. The main contribution of this paper is the identification of different migration strategies across livelihoods. Rural areas dominated by pastoral activities experience significant out-migration, leading to a rural-rural shift from pastoral to agriculture-oriented regions. Herders' migration displays little heterogeneity, suggesting the migration of entire households and consistent with migration as a last resort. Agricultural rural areas are less vulnerable to drought and display significant heterogeneity. The results show the migration of the most educated individuals in the working age, while uneducated individuals are trapped in affected areas. This paper highlights the importance of using detailed data to understand diverse migration strategies, thereby facilitating the implementation of effective policies
Follow the money! Why dividends overreact to flat-tax reforms
No full textWe estimate behavioral responses to dividend taxation using recent French reforms: a rate hike followed, five years later, by a cut. Exploiting household and firm tax data as well as data linking firms and shareholders, we find very large dividend tax elasticities to both reforms. Individuals who control firms adjust dividend receipts instantaneously, accounting for most of the aggregate dividend reaction. Investment is insensitive to dividend taxation. Dividend adjustments are instead driven by corporate saving, as owner-managers treat firms as low-tax saving vehicles. Our results fit the ‘new view’ of dividend taxation, provided an additional low-tax yet costly payout option is available that offers a tax arbitrage opportunity to entrepreneurs in control of their firms
Staff Resources in Public and Private Hospitals and Their Implication for Medical Practice: A French Study of Caesareans
No full textInternational audienceThis study aimed to investigate the effect of hospital staffing resources on medical practice in public versus private hospitals. We used exhaustive delivery data from a French district of 11 hospitals over an 11-year period, from 2008 to 2018, including 168,120 observations. We performed multilevel logistic regression models with hospital fixed or random effects, while controlling for factors known to influence obstetric practice. We found that hospital staff ratios of obstetricians and that of midwives affected caesarean rates, but with different effects depending on the hospital sector. In public hospitals, the higher the ratio of obstetricians and that of midwives, the lower the probability of planned caesareans. In private hospitals, the higher the ratio of obstetricians, the greater the probability of planned caesareans. Indeed, in public hospitals, obstetricians and midwives, both salaried employees, do not have financial or organizational incentives to perform more caesareans. In private hospitals, obstetricians, who are independent doctors, may have such incentives. Our results underline the importance of having an adequate supply of health professionals in healthcare facilities to ensure appropriate care, with specific regard to the different characteristics of the public and private sectors
Past and Future: Backward and Forward Discounting
No full textInternational audienceWe study a model of time preference in which both current consumption and the memory of past consumption enter “experienced utility”—or the felicity—of an individual. An individual derives overall utility from her own felicity and the anticipated felicities of future selves. These postulates permit an agent to anticipate future regret in current decisions, and generate a set of novel testable implications in line with empirical evidence. The model can be applied to disparate phenomena, including present bias, equilibrium savings behavior, anticipation of regret, and career concerns
Contrôler l’épidémie de VIH/Sida et les exilés gays : quelles incompatibilités ?
No full textNational audienceLes exilés gays sont statistiquement parmi les plus exposés au VIH et suscitent l’attention des acteurs de santé publique. Or, leurs conditions immédiates de survie pendant la demande d’asile compliquent un usage rationnel des dispositifs de prévention
Employment Effects of a Weakening in European Anti-Tax Avoidance Rules: evidence from France
No full textThis paper provides causal evidence on how multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) presence in tax havens translates into job cuts in France following the 2006 European Court of Justice (ECJ) judgement on the Cadbury-Schweppes case, which weakened member States’controlled foreign company rules (CFC). Using French firm-level data over 2001 and 2014 we show that this weakening in European Anti-tax avoidance rules generates a sharp decline in employment in France in European MNEs having a pre-judgement presence in a European tax haven. We show that treated MNEs lose about 6% of their local employment after the ECJ decision. The effects are mainly concentrated in highly qualified workers and white collars (5% decline for each category). An event-study design shows that no effects are found for MNEs without a pre-judgement presence in a European tax haven, suggestingthat it is the weakening in the CFC rules that fosters job cuts at home. Two plausible explanations for these findings are linked to: i) a decline in the cost of opacity allowing firms to restructure and carry out otherwise expensive mass layoffs in France and ii) more stringent rules specifically affecting ”wholly artificial arrangements” (i.e. pure letter boxes), which increase the need to comply with substance rules and justify a presence in a European tax haven