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Le droit à l'information sur la retraite introduit par la réforme de 2003 rend-il les Français mieux informés et moins inquiets quant à leur future retraite ?
No full textInternational audienceWe study the impact of the policy of sending policyholders personalised information regarding their pension, which was introduced by the 2003 reform (the right to information, Droit à l’information – DAI), on improving their knowledge of their pension entitlements and on the changes in their level of concern regarding their future pension amount. By using data from the 2012 and 2020 waves of the PAT€R survey, we show that knowledge of pension entitlements improved and that concern regarding pension amounts fell between 2012 and 2020. The impact of sending information as part of the DAI is difficult to isolate from the impact of the change in the general context between 2012 and 2020. However, the results obtained suggest that the first documents sent under the DAI policy have a slight positive effect on knowledge and an indirect impact on reducing concern by improving knowledge.Nous étudions l'impact de la politique d'envoi aux assurés d'une information personnalisée sur leur retraite, introduite par la réforme de 2003 (le droit à l'information, DAI), sur l'amélioration de la connaissance qu'ont ces derniers de leurs droits à retraite et sur l'évolution de leur inquiétude concernant le montant de leur pension future. En mobilisant les données des vagues 2012 et 2020 de l'enquête Pat€r, nous montrons que la connaissance des droits à la retraite s'est améliorée et que l'inquiétude sur le montant des pensions s'est réduite entre 2012 et 2020. L'impact des envois d'information dans le cadre du DAI est difficile à isoler de celui de l'évolution du contexte général entre 2012 et 2020. Les résultats obtenus suggérent toutefois un léger effet positif de la politique du DAI sur la connaissance avec le premier envoi de documents et un effet indirect sur la réduction de l'inquiétude via l'amélioration de la connaissance
The educated class and the fragility of consumer society
No full textWe analyze the importance of the educated class for the persistence of mass consumption societies in an economy with a hierarchy of needs.Through the demand for managerial talent (which is needed to operate advanced industrial technologies), the latter generate their own demand for skills. In turn, high wages for skilled labor raise the demand for a broad range of industrial products. Thus, mass consumption society is self-sustaining but may also collapse. An increase in the managerial labor requirement, while a form of technical regress, may sustain a high skilled wage, high industrialization, equilibrium. In the dynamic analysis, a collapse of mass consumption society may be triggered after the economy has accumulated a critically high level of human capital. Following a collapse, the educated class disappears but gradually recovers as its own scarcity ignites a positive feedback loop between the demand for skills and the income of skilled workers. But collapses may happen again, and the economy may experience cycles
Human capital and welfare
No full textInternational audienceWe introduce the Human Development Index (HDI) in a growth model to show that if households cared about human capital, even if infinitesimally, then human capital would increase forever protecting economies indirectly. Here, human capital will have an additional positive effect on social welfare through the quality of individual health and education. In a simple economy with a Cobb–Douglas technology and logarithmic preferences, we provide the explicit trajectories for human capital, consumption, and the HDI, which correspond to the balanced growth path (BGP). Using a two-step maximization strategy, we compute the optimal initial value of the control variable, in this case, the initial optimal labour supply. In other words, we prove the optimality of the BGP. We highlight a HDI crossing property: the propensity to consume has a positive effect on the HDI in the short run, but negative in the long run
Impact of small farmers' access to improved seeds and deforestation in DR Congo
No full textInternational audienceSince the 1960s, the increased availability of modern seed varieties in developing countries has had large positive effects on households’ well-being. However, the effect of related land use changes on deforestation and biodiversity is ambiguous. This study examines this question through a randomized control trial in a remote area in the Congo Basin rainforest with weak input and output markets. Using plot-level data on land conversion combined with remote sensing data, we find that promotion of modern seed varieties did not lead to an increase in overall deforestation by small farmers. However, farmers cleared more primary forest and less secondary forest. We attribute this to the increased demand for nitrogen required by the use of some modern seed varieties, and to the lack of alternative sources of soil nutrients, which induced farmers to shift towards cultivation of land cleared in primary forest. Unless combined with interventions to maintain soil fertility, policies to promote modern seed varieties may come at the cost of important losses in biodiversity
Feedback Design in Strategic-Form Games with Ambiguity Averse Players
No full textWe use a notion of maxmin self-confirming equilibrium (MSCE) to study the optimal design of players' feedbacks about others' behavior in games with ambiguity averse players. Coarse feedbacks shape strategic uncertainty and can therefore modify players' equilibrium strategies in an advantageous way. We characterize MSCE and study the equilibrium implications of coarse feedbacks in various classes of games. We show how feedbacks should be optimally designed to improve contributions in generalized volunteer dilemmas and public good games with strategic substitutes, strategic complements, or more general production functions. We also study games with negative externalities and strategic substitutes such as Cournot oligopolies. In general, perfect and no feedbacks are suboptimal. Some results are extended to α-maxmin preferences
Do individuals adapt to all types of housing transitions?
No full textInternational audienceThis paper provides one of the first tests of adaptation to the complete set of residential transitions. We use long-run SOEP panel data and consider the impact of all housing transitions, whether or not they involve a change in housing tenure or geographical movement, on both life satisfaction and housing satisfaction. Controlling for individual characteristics, some residential transitions affect life satisfaction only little, while all transitions have a significant effect on housing satisfaction. This latter is particularly large for renters who become homeowners and move geographically, and for renters who move without changing tenure status. Regarding housing satisfaction, we only uncover evidence of some adaptation for renter-renter moves. Losing homeowner status is the only transition that produces lower housing satisfaction, and here the effect seems to become even more negative over time
Attack and interception in networks
No full textInternational audienceThis paper studies a game of attack and interception in a network, where a single attacker chooses a target and a path, and each node chooses a level of protection. We show that the Nash equilibrium of the game exists and is unique. We characterize equilibrium attack paths and attack distributions as a function of the underlying network and target values. We show that adding a link or increasing the value of a target may harm the attacker - a comparative statics effect which is reminiscent of Braess’s paradox in transportation economics. Finally, we contrast the Nash equilibrium with the equilibrium of a variant of the model: one where all nodes cooperate in interception
Universalization and altruism
No full textEarly Access SEP 2022International audienceThe kappa-universalization of a symmetric game is the game in which each player considers that any other player chooses with probability kappa the same stategy as she. To any normal form game, we associate the symmetric two-stage game in which, in a first stage, the roles to be played in the base game are randomly assigned. We show that any pure strategy equilibrium of the kappa-universalization of this extended game is an equilibrium of the base game played by altruistic players ("ex ante Homo Moralis equilibrium is altruistic"), and that the converse is false. The paper presents the implications of this remark for the philosophical nature of ethical behavior (Kantianism behind the veil of ignorance implies but is stronger than altruism) and for its evolutionary foundations
On the uniqueness of the optimal path in a discrete-time model à la Lucas (1988)
No full textIn a simple discrete-time version of the Lucas (1988) model, we prove, first, that the Balanced Growth Path (BGP) is optimal and, second, that the optimal solution is unique. After briefly discussing the results obtained in some of the continuous-time versions of the Lucas model, we address the issues of existence and uniqueness of the optimal solution in discrete time. Making use of the supermodularity of the value function, we prove that the optimal solution must be monotonically increasing. This feature does indeed suit the BGP, although nothing can ensure yet its optimality. After providing the exact expression of the BGP, we do prove both its optimality and its uniqueness
Student loans: Credit constraints and higher education in South Africa
No full textInternational audienceThe empirical evidence that enrollment in higher education is constrained by access to credit is limited and usually indirect. We use a regression discontinuity design based on the fact that student loans are granted according to a score threshold at a South African credit institution (Eduloan) providing short-term loans at market conditions: we find that the credit constraint is substantial, as it reduces enrollment by more than 40 percentage points in a population of mostly middle-class applicants. However, this effect is entirely concentrated on women, and women granted a loan catch up with men's enrollment levels. This heterogeneity is not explained by lower incomes in the sample of women. It implies that women have lower access to credit, or that their options for managing without a credit are more limited than men's