Les publications de la Chaire

Disentangling what Drives Global Urea Price: Short-Run and Long-Run Effects

2026
Auteurs :
Emma Skalski, Marilyne Huchet, Marie-Hélène Hubert

The concurrent surge in fuel, food, and fertilizer prices underscores the broad vulnerability of agrifood system in an interconnected global economy, where supply chain disruptions can propagate rapidly. It also highlights the urgent need for a deeper understanding of the short-and long-term drivers of the price of the world's most widely used nitrogen fertilizer:...

Public Banks and the Ecological Transition: Towards a Paradigm Shift in European Financial Policy

2026
Auteurs :
Sandra Rigot, Dominique Plihon, Robert Guttmann,

Since 2015 the European Union has positioned itself as global leader in the ecological transition, placing the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 at the heart of its economic and financial agenda. This article examines the role of public banks, particularly the European Investment Bank (EIB), in structuring the financing of the green transition.

Subsidising Electric Cooking to Protect the Environment: Evidence from a Randomized Trial in the D.R. Congo

2025
Auteurs :
Sébastien Desbureaux, Lara Collart, Nik Stoop, Raphael Soubeyran, Marijke Verpoorten, Mathieu Couttenier, Christine Cikesa, Jean de la Croix Kembere Mulwahili,Natsuno Shinagawa

This randomized controlled trial investigates how to accelerate the transition to the cleanest cooking fuel, electricity, and quantifies the benefits for people and the environment. 

Historical Carbon Debts and Credits – 1750-2023

2025
Auteurs :
Tobias Angel, Alain Naef

Historical contributions of carbon emissions differ widely between nations, constraining climate change negotiations. Cumulative country estimates ignore historical populations, overstating the role of large-population countries. In this paper, we present a global accounting framework. Adding CO2 emissions from land use change radically reshapes the map, moving Brazil from the world’s 8th largest creditor to...

How the nature of inequality reduction matters for CO2 emissions

2024
Auteurs :
Tobias Angel, Alexandre Berthe, Valeria Costantini, Mariagrazia D’Angeli,

This study investigates the relationship between distinct types of inequality and CO2 emissions using panel data on 156 countries from 1995 to 2020. These findings call for international cooperation, structural changes and social protection policies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of joint inequality and carbon emission reduction.

The Environmental Consequences of Economic Inequalities: A Systematic Empirical Literature Review

2025
Auteurs :
Luc Elie, Tobias Angel, Alexandre Berthe

Greater economic inequalities increase environmental degradation in most cases. Building on evidence from 136 studies and 406 empirical tests between 1998 and 2022, we construct a database enabling an in-depth analysis of the literature. Our main findings are threefold. 

Climate-Conscious Bank Customers

2025
Auteurs :
Jean-Stéphane Mésonnier and Clément Mazet-Sonhilac

We exploit new data on NGO campaigns that target banks financing fossil fuels ("brown'' banks) to build a measure of French banks' environmental reputation, which we merge with granular data on bank deposits and loans of households in France over 2010-2020. We find that banks receive relatively fewer household deposits when they are perceived...

Land Sparing and Land Sharing in a Heterogeneous Landscape

2026
Auteurs :
Guy Meunier

Through this paper, Guy Meunier characterizes how biodiversity concerns reshape the efficient allocation of land exploitation as a function of damage curvature and food-demand elasticity. Overall, the analysis highlights the role of indirect production reallocation and market-mediated feedbacks in biodiversity-oriented agricultural policy.

The deforestation effect of climate aid

2025
Auteurs :
Bertille Daran, Clément Nedoncelle

This study examines the impact of climate aid on deforestation in Africa from 2001 to 2021, using a novel dataset of geocoded aid projects. The effects are heterogeneous and vary by initial forest cover: aid increases deforestation in densely forested areas, while it appears to reduce deforestation where forest cover was initially sparse. 

The Cultural Roots of Deforestation in Africa

2025
Auteurs :
Nicolas Berman, Mathieu Couttenier, Raphael Soubeyran,

We study the relationship between culture and environmental conservation through the lens of deforestation. Focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa over the period 2001-2021, we show that changes of national leaders affect deforestation in a way that depends on the environmental culture of their ethnic group’s. Our results suggest that culture is an important lever for environmental conservation...