Publications
We solve the nonlinear income tax program for rank-dependent social welfare functions, expressing the trade-off between size and inequality using the Gini and related families of positional indices. Absent bunching, ranks in the actual and optimal allocations are invariant. Exploiting this feature, we provide new, simple, and intuitive tax formulas for both the quasilinear and additive cases and new comparative static results. Our approach makes insights from optimal taxation more widely accessible. In some of our simulations the actual US tax policy is close to being optimal—except at the top, where optimal rates are much higher than in actuality.
L'équilibre entre la vie professionnelle et la vie privée, le bien-être subjectif et la satisfaction au travail sont autant d'éléments susceptibles d'avoir un impact sur la vie des collaborateurs dans l'entreprise. L'employeur a donc tout intérêt à traiter avec soin ces sujets pour maintenir ou construire un lien avec les employés. L'article propose d'étudier ces rapports dans le contexte particulier de collaborateurs suivant un parcours santé d'AMP qui exacerbe encore un peu plus ces liens de causes à effets. C'est toute la problématique de l'accompagnement par l'employeur des collaborateurs en vulnérabilité qui est explorée ici. De la qualité de cet accompagnement par la GRH notamment, dépend donc la force du lien entre l'employeur et le collaborateur.
Efficiency within the health system is well recognised as key for achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). However, achieving equity and efficiency simultaneously is often seen as a conflicting effort. Using 12 years of data (2003–2014) from the selection of a number of low- and lower middle-income countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Indonesia, Mongolia, Mozambique, Tajikistan, Togo, Uzbekistan and Yemen Republic), we compute an index of Universal health coverage (UHC), measure the health system’s performance (HSp) and, finally, investigate the cross-dynamics of the resulting HSp and the UHC previously obtained. We find that, with the few exceptions over the statistical sample, the causality between performances of the national health system and the universal health coverage is typically bidirectional. From an empirical standpoint, our findings challenge the idea from economic orthodoxy that efficiency must precede equity in healthcare services. Rather, our findings support the view of simultaneous efforts to improve expansion of the coverage and efficiency of the health system, directing attention towards the importance of organisation of the health system in the country context.
This paper addresses the question of the effectiveness and permanence of temporary incentives to contribute to a public good. Using a common experimental framework, we investigate the effects of a recommendation that takes the form of an exhortative message to contribute, a monetary punishment and a non-monetary reward to sustain high levels of contributions. In particular, we shed light on the differential impact these mechanisms have on heterogeneous types of agents. The results show that all three incentives increase contributions compared to a pre-phase where there is no incentive. Monetary sanctions lead to the highest contributions, but a sudden drop in contributions is observed once the incentive to punish is removed. On the contrary, Recommendation leads to the lowest contributions but maintains a long-lasting impact in the Post-policy phase. In particular, it makes free-riders increase their contribution over time in the post-incentive phase. Finally, non-monetary reward backfires against those who are weakly conditional cooperators. Our findings emphasize the importance of designing and maintaining incentives not only for free-riders, but for strong and weak conditional cooperators as well, depending on characteristics of the incentives.
This paper provides a long-run cycle perspective to explain the behavior of the annual flow of inheritance. Based on the low- and medium frequency properties of long time bequests series in Sweden, France, UK, and Germany, we explore the extent to which a two-sector Barro-type OLG model is consistent with such empirical regularities. As long as agents are sufficiently impatient and preferences are non-separable, we show that endogenous fluctuations are likely to occur through two mechanisms, which can generate independently or together either period-2 cycles or Hopf bifurcations. The first mechanism relies on the elasticity of intertemporal substitution or equivalently the sign of the cross-derivative of the utility function whereas the second rests on sectoral technologies through the sign of the capital intensity difference across two sectors. Furthermore, building on the quasi-palindromic nature of the degree-4 characteristic equation, we derive some meaningful sufficient conditions associated to the occurrence of complex roots and a Hopf bifurcation in a two-sector OLG model.
This paper examines the adaptation policy of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) facing climate change. We consider a dynamic economy with the following ingredients: (i) natural capital is an input in local production that is degraded as a result of climate change; (ii) the government has two instruments to cope with climate-related damages: it can adjust the population size thanks to migration policies and/or it can undertake adaptation measures in order to slow the degradation of natural assets; (iii) expatriates send remittances back home. We identify two critical conditions on the fundamentals of the economy that helps understand the features of the optimal policy. We especially show that in most situations, the migration policy is a valuable instrument. Calibrating the model for Caribbean SIDS, we find that the optimal policy of the Caribbean region displays heterogeneity, that is explained by the different degradation rate, population size, and endowment in natural capital. We also highlight that the higher the climate damages, the higher the incentives to conduct an active adaptation policy, combining conventional adaptation actions and migration.
We first give a pre-order principle whose form is very general. Combining the pre-order principle and generalized Gerstewitz functions, we establish a general equilibrium version of set-valued Ekeland variational principle (denoted by EVP), where the objective function is a set-valued bimap defined on the product of quasi-metric spaces and taking values in a quasi-ordered linear space, and the perturbation consists of a subset of the ordering cone multiplied by the quasi-metric. From this, we obtain a number of new results which essentially improve the related results. Particularly, the earlier lower boundedness condition has been weakened. Finally, we apply the new EVPs to Psychology.
Combining seven years of household data from an original field experiment in villages of Jharkand, East India, with meteorological data, this paper investigates how Indian Self-Help Groups (SHGs) enable households to withstand rainfall shocks. I show that SHGs operate remarkably well under large covariate shocks. While credit access dries up in control villages one year after a bad monsoon, reflecting strong credit rationing from informal lenders, credit flows are counter-cyclical in treated villages. Treated households experience substantially higher food security during the lean season following a drought and increase their seasonal migration to mitigate expected income shocks. Credit access plays an important role, together with other SHG aspects such as peer networks. These findings indicate that local self-help and financial associations can help poor farmers to cope with climatic shocks and to implement risk management strategies.
Souvent appréhendés à l’échelle internationale, ces acteurs sont ici étudiés dans leurs relations situées avec l’État, à partir d’une approche empirique et localisée. Parce qu’ils s’engagent dans les politiques de développement, ils deviennent des partenaires tolérés par le pouvoir selon différentes logiques de « décharge ». Tandis que leur périmètre d’action est soigneusement négocié avec les autorités publiques pour des raisons matérielles, statutaires et sécuritaires, la pérennité de leurs actions est due, entre autres, à leur capacité à négocier des combinaisons d’imaginaires politico-religieuses, ce qui ne les empêche pas de participer aux rapports de domination existants.
Souvent appréhendés à l’échelle internationale, ces acteurs sont ici étudiés dans leurs relations situées avec l’État, à partir d’une approche empirique et localisée. Parce qu’ils s’engagent dans les politiques de développement, ils deviennent des partenaires tolérés par le pouvoir selon différentes logiques de « décharge ». Tandis que leur périmètre d’action est soigneusement négocié avec les autorités publiques pour des raisons matérielles, statutaires et sécuritaires, la pérennité de leurs actions est due, entre autres, à leur capacité à négocier des combinaisons d’imaginaires politico-religieuses, ce qui ne les empêche pas de participer aux rapports de domination existants.
