Contenu du sommaire : Information et formation économiques et financières

Statistical Information Revisited : Six Big Changes. Led by a growing demand, benefiting from its major role in the public debate, supported by technological progress, statistical information experiences big changes. Improved governance enables to consolidate the independence of production and dissemination of statistics from political and other external interference. International normalization is spreading, particularly in Europe. The traditional trade-off between surveys and administrative sources is shifting to the advantage of the latter ones. The internet modifies the conditions of dissemination and renews invoicing strategies. At the same time, the credibility of statistics is being questioned, in particular for inflation and real income measures, and the search for improved relevance pushes into going beyond present concepts of national accounts. By coping with these challenges, the professionals of statistical information will deserve the trust of users. Classification JEL : C10, C80

Financial Statistics in France : Recent Changes and Future Prospects. Financial statistics which are a main instrument for the conduct of monetary policy have registered big changes in the last decades. Due to financial innovations and capital market expansion, new players (investment funds, securitization firms) and new financial instruments (namely derivatives) have taken a growing importance, becoming essential elements to be taken into account in the analysis of financing and investment flows. The creation of the euro has also represented a key factor of change in the statistical framework, triggering a progressive extension in the coverage of financial statistics together with a high degree of harmonization in the euro zone countries, to fulfill the needs of the euro zone monetary policy. In spite of the significant progress registered in the coverage of financial statistics, their explanatory power tends to be limited by the financial globalization and the increasing sophistication of the operations. This situation calls for a strengthening of international cooperation, with the aim of further harmonizing financial statistics and improving the analysis of the relationship between finance and the real economy. Classification JEL : C82, E58, G15.

The Lack of Financial Forecasts at the Macroeconomic Level : a Disastrous Situation which Is Fortunately in Ongoing Development. In all countries, macroeconomic forecasts are only referring to “ real” flows such as production, income, consumption, investment and so on. Financial flows and stock variables -credits, financial investment, financial and non financial wealth -are missing in the public macroeconomic forecasts. This lack is probably one of the numerous causes of the “ great recession” 2008-2009. Fortunately, this disastrous situation is about changing : the ECB and several national central banks are drawing up models for the projection of households and business credit outstanding, bank deposits, shares and obligations issuing, insurance reserves and so on. It is surely not an easy task. In the coming years, the question is : will these forecasts become a “ public good” or shall they be reserved to the use of their producers ? Classification JEL : E17, E27, E37, E47, E58, G17, H68.

The Financial Sector's Size and Impact on Growth : Some Lessons of the Crisis. The financial crisis has triggered intense debates on the financial sector's excessive role in the economy, and on its role in the economic and financial crisis. Recent studies realised in the framework of France's National Council on Statistical Information (CNIS) have shown that, until the crisis, there was a growing gap between banks' contribution to the GDP, which was very stable in recent times, and the rapid growth of their Net Banking Income (NBI). This evolution mainly results from the growing proportion of dividends received and fair value adjustments in banks' results, which can be interpreted as particularly linked to the growing impact of their internationalisation and of their capital markets activities. The crisis has resulted in a decline of the gap between these data that largely stems from the reduction of the market value of some financial instruments. Nevertheless this does not enable to give a well-argued answer to the critical question of the mechanisms through which the financial crisis impacted the economy, an issue on which very substantial research is still to be done. Classification JEL : C81, E32, M41.

Financial Information : in Search of the Long Term. At the beginning of 2009, Institut de l'entreprise, a French think tank, tried to identify how to reach a better consideration of long term issues by companies. In this perspective, investor relations naturally seemed essential, as criticism of «short-termism » has been mainly directed at the financial markets. In order to guide investors' behavior towards long-termism, companies should strive to renew the terms of the dialogue they establish with their shareholders. This renewal can be propped up by an evolution in the nature of the information the latter are given : existing financial indicators, forwardlooking indicators, data relative to the intangibles and more generally indicators on the health of the companies. Moreover, this renewal should enable the companies to mean clearly that they pursue, beyond their short-term performance goals, a long-term strategic project, the follow-up of which is based on reliable indicators, and that the management and the board of directors are concerned by its success. Classification JEL : M14, M41, G24.

Economic and Financial Information and the Crisis. Media and economists have been widely criticized for not having stigmatized enough some financial practices and alerted about the rising risks during the gestation period of the crisis initiated after the burst of the Internet bubble in 2000. More emphasis should be given to the observations and opinions that disturb or do not conform to the existing consensus Information has also played a major part in the brutality of the transmission of financial crisis to the real economy. In a world where information travels faster and reach broader audience, perhaps to the detriment of thorough thinking and critical approach, it plays a major role in the speed of onset of crises and their rapid spread. Public and private decision makers will have to take this into account in the future. Classification JEL : E66, G14, G17.

Strategies and Practices of Large Companies in Terms of Economic and Financial Information and Formation. Economic agents today must operate in an increasingly uncertain environment. As a result, economic and financial education (EFE) has become a major concern : citizens need tools to make sound economic and financial decisions under risk. Public actors typically enjoy the highest legitimacy in the public's eye to carry out educational initiatives. However, they lack the financial resources to assume that responsibility alone. Large companies have a key role to play in improving economic and financial literacy among their employees and should also take part in a nationwide effort to teach every citizen about economics and personal finance. France lags well behind other countries -especially the Anglo-Saxon countries and some of the European countries -in terms of EFE. Up until now, most private educational initiatives have received limited media coverage. This article provides some insight on what could be done to allow a greater implication of the private sector, providing that governments act as catalysts to promote EFE. Classification JEL : G18, M14.

The Role of the CNIS in Determining what Statistical Information Is Needed. The main task of the National Council of Statistical Information (CNIS) is to encourage a dialogue between those who produce public statistics and those who use them. It forecasts and brings to light new needs, thus helping to establish a program of statistical studies and surveys each year that meets the needs of the protagonists in the social, economic, and financial sphere and makes an annual evaluation. Within this framework, the commission responsible for the financial sector and the financing of the economy organizes a dialogue between the Banque de France and the INSEE, the main producers of statistics, on one side, and those who use them on the other side. The context of the financial crisis has spotlighted certain deficiencies in the system of observation and the need to better describe the existing relations between the financial sector and the rest of the economy. By organizing the definition of the demand from the various social forces, as well as a constructive discussion on the answers found, the CNIS produces recommendations on how the statistical information system should evolve. These are generally followed through on within a reasonable amount of time. In this way the CNIS helps in setting up a statistical information standard for social questions. Classification JEL : C82, G18.

Financial Reporting for Employees. The article screens financial reporting available for employees and considers that it remains inadequate. The current practices neglect employees' needs (not only company's revenues and profit but also its sustainability) and underestimate the difficulty for employees to assimilate the financial metrics. Indeed, the financial reporting suffers from the predominance of the shareholder value and from a short-term standpoint, in contrast with broader stakeholder value and with value creation in the long run. IFRS framework exacerbates this situation by neglecting useful metrics for the employees, like the value added and its sharing out among different stakeholders. The article advocates a broader scope of financial reporting and proposes a new lever to set up better corporate governance, i. e. the appointment of employees in the boards of all public companies and in those of companies with more than 1 000 employees. Classification JEL : G34, J50, M12.

Economic News : the Great Change. Journalists, as economists, are faced with the same paradox : the need and appetite for economic and financial information have rarely been so strong ; to make it intelligible has rarely been so difficult. Like many experts, journalists have to explain new phenomena and the fact that some economic theories are now questioned. Media are also confronted by a “crisis in the crises” with the fall of advertisement resources, a more serious challenge in France than in other developed countries, because of under-capitalized media groups. At a time when nobody can measure all the consequences of the digital revolution. Classification JEL : L82.

Economic and Financial Education : a Matter of General Interest more than a Matter of Politics, Consumer Protection or Market Efficiency. The French view of world events, strongly tinged with humanism and a belief in the primacy of politics, has long been an obstacle to the development of a financial and economic culture and priority has been given information rather than on education. But in a globalized world with increasingly more complex issues, economic and financial education is becoming more and more obvious as the key to providing everyone with the means to not only understand their environment, but also to enable them to make decisions and plan for their future. Economic and financial education does indeed have the look of a matter of general interest, with both an individual as well as collective dimension. Raising the level of the financial and economic education in France should translate into a strong implication of our citizens in this debate but on a rational rather than emotional base. Classification JEL : A10, A20.

Economics in the French Secondary School : Scientific Intention and Secularism's Requirement. As can be induced from the analysis of textbooks, the way economics are taught in the French secondary school is featured both by a very wide scope and by a general tendency to use macroeconomic explanations. Therefore, its main goals -knowing and thinking the world -cannot be achieved. Selecting just a few subjects of analysis and a few analytical concepts would be a far better way to reach them. Classification JEL : A11, A12, A20, A21.

Finance in the Higher Education Programs in 2010. The author questions the fate of the higher education programs specially devoted to finance. After 40 years of growth fueled by the revolution in business finance and the tremendous increase in student enrolment, Universities and business schools will have to enter a stage of maturity. In a field characterized by the high uniformity of content at the international level, strategies to allow the courses offered to evolve must rely on relevant segmentation, greater importance placed on quality and the strength of brand images. In France it is high time to overhaul the process allowing education programs to splinter up. The essential point for universities and “ grandes écoles” is to work together, by means of alliances and networks of cooperation, in order to reach a critical size in the global education market. Classification JEL : I20.

Is There a Consensus among French Economists ? This paper provides a summary of the results of a survey on French professional economists on 82 general economic questions. This survey is a replication and an extension of a similar one by Whaples (2006). The most striking results are that respondents have on average a moderate to large aversion to market forces, except for full professors and senior researchers who are on average more pro-market. Working abroad also leads to more confidence in market forces. The lessons of this survey don't claim to stand for the opinion of French economists as a whole. Classification JEL : A10, A11, B40, B41.

What Is SFAF's Vision on Economical Training in France ? The financial crisis has at least had the merit of making analysts and companies revise their fundamentals. One can assess that companies resisted fairly well and also contributed to saving the system as a whole. This article recalls the positions of SFAF (French Society of financial analysts) on this subject. Professional knowledge goes through better understanding of the corporate world, which shouldn't be seen first and foremost under the angle of the risks it causes to the environment or to society as a whole. Finance is constantly changing and renewing itself which implies a permanent need to update one's knowledge base. Faced with an increasingly vast offer of academic and professional training and the growing number of stakeholders, the emergence of highly marketed offers from business schools and universities, SFAF has thought ahead and now has the unequalled advantage of offering internationally recognized training courses (by 31 countries for ACIIA) as well as respecting the accounting and linguistic specifics from the main financial centers in the world. The society now uses this framework to enrich its training offer and accompany not only its members, but also a wider audience of economic policy-makers, throughout their careers. Classification JEL : A20, A29, G29.

Frenchmen and the Firm : What Do They Think of It ? What Do They Know of It ? Opinion polls state that Frenchmen mistrust firms and think that their employees' interests come at the end of their goals. A new inquiry sponsored by the Fnege (Fédération nationale pour l'enseignement de la gestion) has studied the actual knowledge of French people regarding the way

Headways and Delays of the French Economic Debate in Economy. The way French people understand the economy depends on their beliefs. They are fed by the intellectual fads of the moment. A tiny part of the population benefits from an initial training in economics to support its choices : this possibility should be opened to all high school students, with an aim to discuss the big contemporary economic debates. French people indicate a concern to understand better these debates. They are helped by an economic press which does not have to blush any more in front of its Anglo-Saxon colleagues. But it is a handicap to them that just a small number of economists worry of maintaining permanently a democratic debate on economic issues. It is the objective of the magazine Alternatives Economiques. After 30 years of existence, it is now the second monthly economic magazine in terms of reception, reflecting the strong demand in economic educational methods from the French society. Classification JEL : A10, L82.

Promoting Financial Education for the General Public. The few surveys conducted to measure financial literacy of the French show that their knowledge is generally poor. It is no surprise. These subjects are still hardly taught at school, even if some progress could be made in the near future. Media mainly address people who are already informed and contents are quite technical. In relation to other countries, France is neither ahead nor behind. But little progress is being made. There is neither a national strategy nor the political will to deal with the issue yet. But the good news is the creation of the Institute for Public Financial Education (IEFP) with its initiatives and programs. Classification JEL : A10, A20.

Long-term Investors : Long Story, New Paradigms. Long-term investors, and in particular sovereign funds are one of the main topics of discussion in this period of crisis. To put this phenomenon into perspective, one needs to start by retracing the history of long-term investors. One then needs to define the new paradigms that are likely to shape the behaviour of long-term investors in the future. Long-term investors have always existed. What has changed over the decades is the origin of the funds invested for the long term. The importance of long-term investors is growing and likely to grow more over the timeframe of the coming decade. There are four levels at which cooperation between long-term investors is both possible and desirable : information, investment, financing and regulation. Classification JEL : G23, G28.

Portfolio Management Delegation of Institutional Funds : Description and Evolution of Practices. The aim of this study is to examine the way institutional investors delegate the management of their funds to asset managers. This delegation of management raises different problems because institutional

Stock Market Information as a Public Good. Stakes and Outlooks of the Review of the European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). The organization of securities markets has not benefited from the feigned attempts of reform presented by the governments since the outbreak of the current crisis. However, both speculative opportunities and the resulting risks depend on the markets on which one operates. The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive of the European Union, effective since 2007, reflects an excessive faith in the self-organizing virtues of the market. It unleashed a noxious competition on the market for financial markets that led to liquidity fragmentation and the privatization of market information. Drawing from financial history, we argue that regulated markets should be entrusted, at the European level, with a general interest mission, similar to the one they have long observed on a national level with no harm on economic development : they should centralize, consolidate and publicize post-as well as pre-trade information that are public goods. Classification JEL : E44, F36, G18, G28, H41, K23, L33, N23, N24, N43, N44.

Under Which Conditions Is Finance Useful ? Does France Want a Powerful Financial Market in Paris ? When transparent and regulated, finance is mostly an activity of data processing and risk management. Finance has five key functions which must be correctly understood in order to regulate them in the collective interest. In spite of declarations of principle, Governments have not built an efficient regulatory environment. The stakes of the development of a powerful financial centre in Paris are huge but today the necessary conditions are not assembled. Classification JEL : G10, G18, E61, F30.

Non Standard Monetary Policy Measures and Crisis Exit Strategies. Main developed countries Central Banks have committed to non standard monetary policy measures in order to avoid bank defaults and to find a solution to the international financial crisis. This paper studies the implementation of such measures in each currency zone according to specific environments (refinancing vehicles or collaterals, more flexible conditions) and assesses the direct and secondary outcomes of these monetary policies (impact on Central Bank balance sheet). It also highlights all the difficulties to enter in exit strategies so as to put an end to the transitory policies measures and to stop the zero interest rate policy ; namely, expectations of inflation, return of financial markets to a spontaneous equilibrium, conflicts with the fiscal policy. Classification JEL : E43, E51, E52, E58.

Speculation and Oil Derivatives Markets. This article provides economic and statistical tools to analyze oil derivatives markets, and more especially the “ peak” in prices recorded in July-August 2008. The main explanations of the literature are summarized, by emphasizing current trends. Overall, this article highlights a new articulation between “ physical” fundamentals of oil markets which have prevailed until the early 2000s, and the emergence of new “ financial” fundamentals following the reforms of derivatives markets in the U. S. in 2003 and the rise of “ non-commercial” agents on this market. Finally, some lessons of this recent experience are suggested through public policy recommendations in terms of regulating oil derivatives markets. Classification JEL : G13, L71, Q3.