Contenu du sommaire

Économie Publique Appliquée

• Présentation générale - Lise Rochaix-Ranson, Denis Phan p. 97-105
• Information et économie publique - Jean-Jacques Laffont p. 107-115
  Information and public economics by Jean- Jacques Laffont Taking into account operators' strategic behaviour in response to their private information and the inefficiencies in public decision-making due to the operations of interest groups leads to a more realistic vision of State intervention. Taking four examples - the regulation of natural monopolies, public purchasing policies, the production of public goods and the economics of the environment, the author illustrates the main stages of this new methodology in the field of public economics.
• Diversité exogène des entreprises et justification économique d'une politique d'incitation à la coopération en R&D - Mireille Matt p. 117-130
  Exogenous corporate diversity and economic justification for an incentive policy in favour of R&D co-operation by Mireille Matt The main aim of this article is to put forward, using a strategic investment model, an economic justification for the introduction of an incentive policy for co-operation in Research and Development (R&D), of the type implemented by the European Community. This economic justification is based mainly on the introduction of a "spillover parameter" that is different for each of the duopolists, thus making it possible to consider firms to be heterogeneous both in terms of the nature of the research they carry out and in terms of their absorptive capacity. On this assumption of heterogeneity, firms do not spontaneously co-operate in all "spillover" configurations and we show that a policy of incentive to co-operation becomes relevant. Our formalisation makes it possible, in particular, to maintain that it is socially desirable to provide incentives for cooperation between firms that are complementary from a technological point of view, a conclusion which corresponds, in particular, to the aims of the European R&D programmes.
• Modes de négociation dans le secteur agro-alimentaire : efficacité des réformes réglementaires. Une application au cas des légumes transformés - Gaëlle Garnier p. 131-143
  Negotiation modes in the agri-food sector: efficiency of regulatory reforms by Gaëlle Garnier France, several forms of organisation of relations between industrialists and fanners have been declared unlawful by the of Justice of the European Communities. This paper attempts to assess the justification for European Community in the processed vegetables sector. The article shows that, in welfare terms, the form of negotiation imposed by the Communities is preferable to that introduced by French regulation at the beginning of the 1960s. It turns out that a form of negotiation applied to prices and functioning at the level of the region of production is, overall, more than a centralised form of negotiation at national level, of the inter-professional type. However, it also shows that negotiation is not sufficient and that providing subsidies to agricultural production would make it possible to the first-order optimum.
• Choix de mécanismes incitatifs dans les contrats agri-environnementaux - Michel Trommetter, Alban Richard p. 145-155
  The choice of incentive mechanisms in agri-environmental contracts by Alban Richard and Michel Trommetter In the light of economic and environmental objectives, agri-environmental measures seek the incentive mechanism best suited to reduce the level of negative externalities or to generate positive externalities in farms. The objective of this paper is to build a model of the interaction between public authorities and farmers. This model of the sequential-behaviour type (possibility of revising some decisions), indispensable for tackling dynamic interactions between governmental decisions and farmers, by making allowance for unforeseen events and for a learning process in the course of the contract. The simulations show the respective influence of the variables, in the model, on the optimal level of incentive for heterogeneous farmers.
• Les pays d'Europe peuvent-ils reproduire la réforme électrique de l'Angleterre ? Une analyse institutionnelle comparative - Jean-Michel Glachant p. 157-168
  Can continental European countries replicate the English electricity reform? A comparative institutional analysis by Jean-Michel Glachant The new English electricity system launched in April 1990 was not reproduced by other European reforming countries. Institutions have played a major role, since reforms in the electricity industry involve two particular sets of institution: institutions internal to the industry and others in the national institutional environment. A comparative study of England, Germany and Norway shows that the English institutional regime for electricity reform is too specific to be a model for all European countries and for the European Union authorities.
• Coûts de transaction et choix contractuels : un test économétrique sur une entreprise publique - Stéphane Saussier p. 169-180
  Transactions costs and contractual choice: an econometric test taking a public-sector enterprise by Stéphane Saussier This paper examines the form taken by inter-firm contracts in the light of transactions-costs theory. We maintain that agents' contractual choice is explained by a desire to reduce transactions costs. In order to test the conclusions deduced from the theory, we built up a database of contracts representing the totality of the contractual relationships between Electricité de France and its coal transporters over the period 1977-1997. In a first stage, we explore the factors that may explain the form of contracts in the framework of transactions-cost theory (first part). Refutable propositions are put forward and tested (second part), together with a description of the contractual relations between EDF and its suppliers (third part). The conclusions derived from transactions-cost theory are confirmed by our study.