Contenu du sommaire
| Revue |
Economie et prévision  |
|---|---|
| Numéro | no 135, 1998/4 |
| Texte intégral en ligne | Accessible sur l'internet |
- La nature des transferts inter vivos en France : investissements humains, aides financières et transmission du patrimoine - François-Charles Wolff, Luc Arrondel p. 1-27
The Nature of Transfers Inter Vivos in France: Human Investment, Financial Aid and Assets Transmission by Luc Arrondel et François-Charles Wolff Two basic hypotheses are put forward to explain descendant transfer inter vivos behaviour: altruism, whereby the parents' welfare depends on their children's welfare, and exchange, whereby both generations are involved in reciprocal relations. These two types of behaviour form the basis for our study of the determinants of the different types of assistance (housing, money, loans and guarantees) and donations observed in INSEE's 1992 Financial Assets survey of a sample of 9,530 households. This analysis makes a number of original findings. Housing and cash assistance are often tantamount to investments in the children's human capital. Conversely, loans and guarantees are more akin to transfers explicable by the fact that the children often have liquidity constraints. Contrary to the predictions of the altruist model, donation amounts increase with recipients' incomes. This practice consequently looks like an anticompensatory transfer. Our findings also confirm certain important conclusions by previous French studies, i.e. the complementarity and transmissibility of transmission practices. Assistance often appears to be complementary, at least for some of the types. For example, supporting households often give cash in addition to housing aid or loans. We also find highly transmissible donation and assistance practices: people give more often if they have been given to and help more often and more readily in the same way if they have been helped. - L'évolution de la structure des prix et les inégalités de niveau de vie en France de 1974 à 1995 - Denis Cogneau, Marceline Bodier p. 29-42 Price Structure Trends and Standard-of-Living Inequalities in France from 1974 to 1995 by Marceline Bodier and Denis Cogneau French consumer prices fluctuated sharply from 1974 to 1995. However, these fluctuations had only a modest effect on the redistribution of household standards of living compared with income redistribution. Although minor, the redistributive effect of prices can be deemed positive since 1984 and more especially from 1984 to 1989 when income inequalities and poverty rose sharply. A number of studies have forecast that changes in the VAT rate structure due to European harmonisation would have a substantial antidistributive effect. The effect seems to be smaller than expected and has been offset by other prodistributive relative price changes. Lastly, the recent change in relative prices has also favoured the older age brackets.International Trade and Market Structures: An Empirical Test
- Coût dans le secteur de la distribution d'électricité : économies d'échelle, économies de densité et formes institutionnelles - Bernard Lejeune, Olivier Evrard p. 43-56 Electricity Distribution Costs: Economies of Scale, Economies of Density and Institutional Forms by Olivier Evrard and Bernard Lejeune The purpose of this paper is to empirically evaluate the economic pertinence (in terms of cost effectiveness) of the policy of delegating local electricity distribution to non-local organisations or companies. We evaluate the sector's possibilities for economies of scale and density and the running costs of the different existing institutional forms based on the estimation of a short-term hedonic cost function.
- Une approche empirique de la structure du marché du travail : salaires, formes de mobilité et formation professionnelle continue - Xavier Joutard, Saïd Hanchane p. 57-75 An Empirical Approach to the Labour Market Structure: Wages, Forms of Mobility and In-Service Vocational Training by Said Hanchane and Xavier Joutard In our study of the French labour market structure, we propose a multisectoral approach combining two criteria: forms of mobility and in-service training courses financed by the company. An estimation of gains functions finds distinct wage relations between the systems and confirms the transformation of French internal markets. To avoid one of the criticisms of segmentation tests, we modify the hypothesis of the independence of non-pertinent alternatives. We use the Vuong test to discriminate between nested Logit models (1989) to identify the best fit for the data. The findings show that the existence or absence of in-service training indicates the presence of a segmentation.
- Pertes de bien-être et pouvoir de marché dans l'agro-alimentaire français - Michel Simioni, Vincent Réquilllart, Pascal Lavergne p. 77-86 Losses of Welfare and Market Power in the French Food Industry by Pascal Lavergne, Vincent Réquillart and Michel Simioni We study the practical problems of estimating losses of welfare resulting from market power. Particular attention is paid to the specification of demand functions, the evaluation of deviations between marginal costs and prices and the calculation of Hicksian losses of welfare. We evaluate the losses of welfare for 31 French food sectors and show that the Marshallian consumers' surplus measurement is a good approximation of the Hicksian surplus measurement. However, the Marshallian loss of welfare measurement does not provide a good approximation of the corresponding Hicksian measurement. Lastly, the different approximations of the marginal cost-price deviation produce considerably different sector rankings by extent of losses of welfare.
L'empirique en économie industrielle
- Présentation générale - Bernard Franck p. 87-93
- Structures productives de l'industrie du transport urbain et effets des schémas réglementaires - Philippe Gagnepain p. 95-107 Productive Structures in Urban Transport and Effects of Regulatory Arrangements by Philippe Gagnepain French urban transport is a highly regulated industry. Different contractual systems create contrasting cost-cutting incentives. The purpose of this paper is to study the industry's productive structures and evaluate the impact of regulations on costs. We use the maximum likelihood method to fit a translog cost function to panel data on the different urban transport networks.
- Étude empirique de l'influence sociale dans les phénomènes de diffusion : l'exemple du câble et du fax en France - Jean-Benoît Zimmermann, Alexandre Steyer p. 109-119 Empirical Study of Social Influence in Diffusion Phenomena - Cable and Fax in France by Alexandre Steyer and Jean-Benoît Zimmermann Over the last ten years, diffusion models have been improved by including network externalities. We briefly outline the main approaches developed to date and describe the basis of an approach to take account of different interindividual influences in a population. We then present an empirical validation based on two contemporary examples in France. The first is cable television, which is expected to present social utility via mimetic effects. The second example is the fax, which presents strong interindividual externalities. Its utility stems from the possibility for players to use it to communicate with their contacts.
- Productivité de la recherche et rendements d'échelle dans le secteur pharmaceutique français - Frédéric Rupprecht, Nicolas Iung p. 121-136 Research Productivity and Returns to Scale in the French Pharmaceutical Sector by Nicolas lung and Frederic Rupprecht This paper studies research productivity in French pharmaceutical laboratories. We measure the elasticities of the number of new products launched and the sales made by these products to the size of the laboratory launching them. Our study suggests that the development of new pharmaceutical products is subject to constant or decreasing returns and economies of scope. These economies could make it profitable for firms working in separate therapeutic fields to merge. Constant or decreasing returns also prevail in the discovery of blockbusters, but without economies of scope. However, this type of pharmaceutical product might be expected to show increasing returns due to the greater impact of researcher specialisation and the fixed costs associated with purchasing sophisticated equipment.
- La durée des contrats interentreprises : une analyse empirique - Stéphane Saussier p. 137-146 The Length of Intercorporate Contracts: An Empirical Analysis by Stéphane Saussier This paper studies the length of intercorporate contracts based on transaction cost theory. We first describe the trade-off in the choice of contract length and then put forward a set of proposals. We make an econometric test on a complete data base representing the full range of a large French corporation's contractual relations with its suppliers over the 1980-1995 period. Our findings are in line with transaction cost theory.
- Commerce international et structures de marché : une vérification empirique - Nicolas Péridy, Michael Frudenberg, Lionel Fontagné p. 147-167 International Trade and Market Structure: An Empirical Assesment par Lionel Fontagné, Michael Freudenberg and Nicolas Péridy A prominent share of international trade is of an intra-industry nature (cross hauling of trade flows within industries), in contrast with the classical view of international trade. However, new developments allow for a synthesis between imperfect competition and the classical framework of comparative advantage. Using this synthesis, two sets of hypotheses are tested here, concerning the value and the nature of bilateral trade flows. Gravity type equations are estimated for EU12 countries over the period 1980-94. First, new thinking about specialisation, as an outcome of increasing returns, is validated. Second, even if comparative advantages are identified as a determinant of the specialisation along quality ladders within industries, they do no longer impulse a traditional inter-industry specialisation within our sample. Finally, product differentiation is validated as a determinant of intra-industry-trade, whereas the classical link between economies of scale and IIT is validated in the case of horizontally differentiated products only.
- Présentation générale - Bernard Franck p. 87-93
- Résumés - Summaries - p. 170-173
