1,720,975 research outputs found
Essays in international trade
Get PDFDefence date: 17 June 2016Examining Board: Professor Piero Gottardi, EUI, Supervisor; Professor Paola Conconi, Université Libre de Bruxelles; Professor Bernard Hoekman, RSCAS; Professor Thierry Verdier, Paris School of Economics.This thesis tackles three topics in international trade: (i) the motives behind restrictions on Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) and the role of investment agreements, (ii) the determinants of services trade policies, and (iii) the role of domestic institutions in affecting trade flows and the gains from trade. Tariffs have almost completely disappeared but various barriers that restrict FDI still remain. Many trade agreements and Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) have been signed to lower tariffs and reduce the risks of expropriation whereas few agreements have been signed to lower entry barriers. The first chapter looks at the interaction between political and economic motives for protectionism. Lobbies give contributions to the governments to affect the policies. The repatriation of profits by foreign affiliates leads governments to restrict the entry of multinationals. Given these two motives, the cooperative outcome, which differs from the chosen policy, can be implemented through an agreement. However I highlight two reasons that can explain why such agreements might be unnecessary. First foreign lobbying counteracts domestic lobbying and, under certain conditions, can push the government to choose the cooperative outcome without signing an agreement. Second the presence of tax havens where firms shift their profits removes the gains from cooperation and makes an agreement unnecessary. The second chapter focuses on the determinants of services trade agreements. Most of the literature on trade policy and agreements has focused on goods, tariffs and trade agreements whereas, in this paper, we study services, foreign direct investment and services agreements. We provide a rationale for governments to commit to liberalize. The third chapter contributes to the debate on the role of various institutions in affecting economic exchanges. We focus here on the role of contract enforcement in shaping the optimal organization of firms and the allocation of entrepreneurs across sectors. Different institutional qualities are a source of comparative advantage and export specialization. We find that liberalization leads to asymmetric gains of trade in terms of productivity and reallocation of resources. The country with the poorest institutions benefits less from trade than the country with the best institutions
Media Report on the Indian community in France
Get PDFDEMO: India-EU MaP - Developing Evidence based Management and Operations in India-EU Migration and PartnershipFrance has, in Indian terms, a relatively small Indian community. This paper analyses the French media coverage of this community in recent years. Compared to other French communities, the Indian community is seen as discrete and it is not widely covered in the media: few articles having been written. These articles can be broken down into two sets: articles covering local events, with a focus on the community; and articles covering broader events that define relations between France and India. Several topics are detailed in the paper: higher education, business and investment, crime, culture, integration and religion. The two main themes in media coverage are: business opportunities between the two countries and religious tensions. Indian culture is little covered in the French press. This might be explained by historical factors, the small size and the relative (economic and integration) success of this community
Rising Incomes, Transport Demand, and Sector Decarbonization
No full textAs income increases, people become
more mobile and spend more on carbon-intensive transport
goods and services. This paper estimates income elasticities
of transport consumption using household survey data for 18
countries, which are then used to simulate transport carbon
footprint and carbon inequality by 2035. It first shows that
in low- and middle-income countries (i) many households
mostly walk and do not use transport services, (ii) income
elasticity of private transport expenditure is high, and
(iii) many households do not own a car. Both results suggest
a future steep growth of emissions as incomes expand. Using
estimates of income elasticities of vehicle ownership and
vehicle use, the paper shows that carbon footprint will
increase on average by 52 percent for these countries as
incomes reach their 2035 levels. Finally, it decomposes
carbon dioxide emissions along the within-country income
distribution. Car ownership and carbon dioxide emissions are
highly concentrated at the top. By 2035, carbon inequality
will increase in some countries but decrease in others. Such
results can be used for modeling future distributional
implications of climate and energy policies
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Profit Shifting and FDI Restrictions
Get PDFTariffs have almost completely disappeared but various restrictions on foreign entry remain for multinationals. Many trade agreements and Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) have been signed to lower tariffs and reduce the risks of expropriation. Why do we see so few agreements removing FDI entry barriers? Could the contemporary rise of tax havens where multinationals can shift their profits explain the absence of FDI agreements? In this paper I develop a model in which governments can restrict the entry of foreign affiliates and multinationals can shift their profits across countries. I first demonstrate that the possibility for multinationals to repatriate their profits is a determinant of FDI restrictions. An agreement can solve for the resulting inefficiency. However, I show that an agreement is made unnecessary when (i) there is foreign lobbying that pushes for more entry, or when (ii) firms can shift profits to tax havens. Tax treaties that reduce profit shifting would be a first step towards more agreements that reduce FDI restrictions. I conclude by providing empirical evidence that profit shifting affects the choice of FDI restrictions
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
The belt and road initiative: reshaping economic geography in Central Asia?*
Get PDFThis paper develops a computable spatial equilibrium model of Central Asia and uses it to analyze the possible effects of the Belt and Road Initiative on the economy of the region. The model captures international and subnational economic units and their connectivity to each other and the rest of the world. Aggregate real income gains from the Belt Road Initiative range from less than 2 percent of regional income if adjustment mechanisms take the form of conventional Armington and monopolistic competition, to around 3 percent if there are localization economies of scale and labor mobility. In the latter case, there are sizeable geographical variations in impact, with some areas developing clusters of economic activity with income increases of as much as 12 percent and a doubling of local populations, while other areas stagnate or even decline
Infrastructure and Structural Change in the Lake Chad Region
No full textAccess to infrastructure supports
economic development through structural transformation. This
paper investigates the links between investments in
electricity, Internet, and transport infrastructure, in
isolation and bundled, and economic development in the Lake
Chad Region. Using data on the expansion of the paved road,
electricity, and Internet networks over the past two decades
and two instruments, it provides reduced-form estimates of
the impacts of infrastructure investments on the sectoral
composition of employment. Bundled infrastructure
investments cause different patterns of structural
transformation than isolated infrastructure investments.
Bundled paved road and electricity investments is found to
have reduced the agricultural employment share by 22
percentage points and increased the share of employment
mostly in services. The paper then uses a spatial general
equilibrium model to quantify the impacts of future regional
transport investments, bundled with a large rural
electrification program and trade facilitation measures to
reduce border delays, on economic development in Nigeria,
Cameroon, and Chad
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