Publications des institutions partenaires

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A note on the economics of philanthropy

This note starts with a short review of the economic literature on philanthropy. Next, it provides some estimates of philanthropic giving in advanced and middle-income economies and discusses how innovative financial instruments can leverage charitable giving. The note concludes with a discussion of the controversial aspects of philanthropic activities.

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Français, English / 09/10/2017

Does Greece need more official debt relief? If so, how much?

Creditor countries and international organizations continue to disagree whether Greece should receive additional official debt relief, and if so how much. This paper first shows that these disagreements can be attributed to competing assumptions about Greece's future capacity to repay, particularly about economic growth and the fiscal primary balance. It next evaluates the…

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English / 09/10/2017

Public good provision in Indian rural areas: the returns to collective action by microfinance groups

Self-help groups (SHGs) are the most common form of microfinance in India. We provide evidence that SHGs, composed of women only, undertake collective actions for the provision of public goods. Using a theoretical model, we show that an elected official, whose aim is to maximise re-election chances, would exert higher effort in providing public goods when private citizens undertake…

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Français, English / 06/10/2017

Identities and public policies: unintended effects of political reservations for women in India

Identity is an important determinant of economic behavior. A limitation of the existing literature is the focus on one identity dimension at a time. We show that the multiplicity of identity dimensions matters for economic behavior and that neglecting it may lead policy makers to overlook important, unintended effects of economic policies. We exploit the randomized nature of…

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/ 03/10/2017

The cyclicality of international public sector borrowing in developing countries: does the lender matter?

The paper shows that international government borrowing from multilateral development banks is countercyclical while international government borrowing form private sector lenders is procyclical. The countercyclicality of official lending is mostly driven by the behavior of the World Bank (borrowing from regional development banks tends to be acyclical). The paper also shows that…

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/ 03/10/2017

Exchange rate elasticity of exports and the role of institutions

The impact of institutional quality on the exchange rate-export relation is assessed in a panel of 33 countries and quarterly time period of 1991Q1 - 2016Q3. Empirical estimation is conducted in 2 steps. As a first step, using panel DOLS, FMOLS and PMG estimation techniques, it is confirmed that a negative and significant relation between exchange rates and exports exists. The…

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/ 03/10/2017

The changing international linkages of Switzerland: an overview

Over the last decade, the economic linkages between Switzerland and the rest of the world have been transformed. First, merchanting and the chemical industry account for an increasing share of international trade, with chemicals exports expanding robustly in recent years despite the European crisis and the strong Swiss franc. Second, the nature of international financial integration…

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English / 03/10/2017

Why is there so little litigation under free trade agreements?: retaliation and adjudication in international dispute settlement

Over the past decade, the WTO dispute settlement system has continued to be used extensively, contrasting with the very few disputes taken to inter-state adjudication under FTAs. This paper discusses the causes of this discrepancy, arguing that, besides specific procedural difficulties, it may be explained by a more structural difference between adjudication in a multilateral and in…

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/ 03/10/2017

A reappraisal of state-owned banks

We revisit the public banks debate, survey the theoretical arguments and test the robustness (and expand) the existing empirical evidence. While we find some support for the view that public banks do not allocate credit optimally, we also report indicative evidence that they exert a positive influence on private bank efficiency, and may contribute to reduce credit procyclicality.…

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Français, English / 03/10/2017

Career dynamics and gender gaps among employees in the microfinance sector

While microfinance institutions (MFIs) are increasingly important as employers in the developing world, there is little micro-level evidence on gender differences among MFI employees and MFIs' relation to economic development. We use a unique panel dataset of employees from Latin America's largest MFI to show that gender gaps favouring men for promotion exist primarily in…

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/ 18/08/2017

Conditional FAVAR and scenario analysis for a large data: case of Tunisia

The aim of this paper is to compute the conditional forecasts of a set of variables of interest on future paths of some variables in dynamic systems. We build a large dynamic factor models for a quarterly data set of 30 macroeconomic and financial indicators. Results of forecasting suggest that conditional FAVAR models which incorporate more economic information outperform the…

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/ 18/08/2017

Text-as-data analysis of preferential trade agreements: mapping the PTA landscape

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) form an intricate web that connects countries across the globe. In this article, we introduce a PTA text corpus and research tools for its finegrained, automated analysis. Recent computational advances allow for efficient and effective content analysis by treating text as data. We digitize PTA texts and use textual similarity tools to assess PTA…

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/ 14/08/2017

Factor models for non-stationary series: estimates of monthly U.S. GDP

This paper presents a novel dynamic factor model for non-stationary data. We begin by constructing a simple dynamic stochastic general equi- librium growth model and show that we can represent and estimate the model using a simple linear-Gaussian (Kalman) filter. Crucially, consistent estimation does not require differencing the data despite it being cointe- grated of order 1. We…

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/ 06/07/2017

Scotland and Northern Ireland caught between Brexit, international and EU law: why a custom barrier within the British Isles might be unavoidable

The aim of the paper is to foresee the constitutional and international status of Scotland and Northern Ireland following the triggering of the art. 50 Treaty of the European Union's (TEU) mechanism by the British Government, with a special focus on the possible termination of the free movement of goods within the British Isles.

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/ 26/06/2017

Domestic value chains as stepping stones to global value chain integration

We analyze the role of Domestic Value Chains (DVCs) for Global Value Chain (GVC) integration. In the presence of industry specific fixed costs of fragmenting production and of switching across input suppliers, DVCs can either be stepping stones or stumbling blocks for GVCs. Focusing on backward linkages, that is the sourcing of intermediates, we provide robust empirical evidence in…

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/ 26/06/2017

Free-riding on enforcement in the WTO

Countries can challenge potential trade violations using the WTO's dispute settlement system, yet many policies that appear to violate WTO rules remain unchallenged, even when they have a significant economic impact. Why is this? We argue that the likelihood that a country challenges a protectionist policy is linked to how concentrated or diffuse the policy is. When a policy is…

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/ 26/06/2017

Non-linearities in the relationship between finance and growth

This paper reviews the empirical literature on the links between finance and growth with a special focus on the empirical literature that has shown that the marginal contribution of financial depth to economic growth becomes negative in countries with large financial sectors (the "too much finance result"). It then assesses the empirical and theoretical validity of recent…

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/ 08/06/2017

The determinants of excess liquidity in the banking sector of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The aim of this research is to identify the determinants of excess liquidity defined as excess reserves in the banking sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H). The empirical analysis is carried out through the use of the dynamic panel analysis based on the generalized method of moments (GMM) methodology on a dataset of 19 commercial banks operating in B&H in the period from…

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/ 08/06/2017

Micro, macro, and strategic forces in international trade invoicing

The use of different currencies in the invoicing of international trade transactions plays a major role in the international transmission of economic fluctuations. Existing studies argue that an exporter's invoicing choice reflects structural aspects of her industry, such as market share and the price-sensitivity of demand, the hedging of marginal costs, due for instance to the…

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/ 30/05/2017

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