Publications of the Chair

Agricultural Productivity Growth and Deforestation in the Tropics

2024
Authors :
Mathieu Couttenier, Sebastien Desbureaux, Raphael Soubeyran

We analyze the impact of agricultural productivity growth on tropical deforestation. Our dynamic model of forest-to-farmland, addressing the Jevons’ paradox and Borlaug hypothesis, predicts that rising agricultural productivity, reflected by declining fertilizer price growth, has an ambiguous effect on deforestation. Using tropical forest loss data (2000-2022) and fertilizer price variations, we find a negative...

Economic policy efficiency and recovery in an open economy

2024
Authors :
Jacques Mazier, Luis Reyes, Chin Yuan Chong

How the increased trade openness and correspondingly higher marginal propensity to
import explains the lower efficiency of economic policy in the context of economic openness. Using an empirical stock-flow consistent model for the French economy (SFC FR), we analyze the macroeconomic impacts of these policies through a series of macroeconomic shocks.

Economic rationality, ecological rationality and the orientation issue

2023
Authors :
Hadrien Lantremange

The economic agent was previously assumed to be distinct from its environment and that nothing was forcing him to act on it. With the ecological crisis, every agent appears to be inserted into an environment, which he modifies in an irreversible way without even having decided to do so. This changes in depth the...

Pricing Congestion to Increase Traffic: The Case of Bogotá

2024
Authors :
Juan-Pablo Montero, Felipe Sepúlveda, Leonardo J. Basso

In September 2020, the city of Bogotá introduced a major market-based reform to its odd-even driving restriction. The big winners of the reform are middle-income individuals who now use their cars more often, whereas the big losers are high-income individuals who now spend more time in traffic.

Cost-Benefit Analysis for Green Demonstrators: Application to the Container Glass Industry in France

2024
Authors :
Maryam Sadighi, Jean-Pierre Ponssard, Maria Eugenia Sanin, Murès Zarea, Elodie Le Cadre Loret

Adopting disruptive technologies for decarbonizing hard-to-abate industrial sectors requires experimentation through demonstration (pilot) projects. However, from an economic perspective, the potential long-term benefits and the difficulties in designing relevant public policies are not addressed in the standard valuations of those projects.

Do French firms follow a transparent or climate-friendly path?

2021
Authors :
Jeanne Amar, Samira Demaria, Sandra Rigot

Our analysis of the Climate Risks and Opportunities Index (CRORI) and the CDP climate score reveal a parallel improvement of these indices with different sectoral disparities over the 2015–2019 period. While our results are encouraging, they need to be put into perspective because these firms are still far from being carbon neutral.

Mineral Resources and the Salience of Ethnic Identities

2023
Authors :
Nicolas Berman, Mathieu Couttenier, Victoire Girard

Our findings suggest a new dimension of the natural resource curse: the fragmentation of identities, between ethnic groups and nations.

The design flaw in Sustainability-Linked Bonds

2023
Authors :
Julien Lefournier

We examine in this paper sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) whose issuance now totals more than USD 200 bn. There is a structural design flaw in the SLB mechanism: setting a significant coupon step-up does not suit the issuer’s nor the investors’ interests, considering conditionality. This creates a no win situation for the issuer and investors alike and explains the “benign”...

Extending the limits of the abatement cost

2021
Authors :
Guy Meunier, Jean-Pierre Ponssard

The paper examines the relevant cost benefit framework for state agencies investigating the potential of local projects to mitigate climate change. We propose a new metric that incorporates into the analytical framework the dynamic interactions between the project and its continuation.

There’s no price signal !

2023
Authors :
Ivar Ekeland, Wolfram Schlenker, Peter Tankov, Brian Wright

We address the long-standing challenge of adding optimal exploration to the classic Hotelling model of a non-renewable resource. We prove that a frontier of critical levels of proven reserves exists, above which exploration ceases, and below which it proceeds at infinite speed.