This paper analyzes the impact of increasing international competition on the evolution of export prices in the last three decades. We investigate both the sensitivity of export prices to exchange rate movements, and the dynamics of profit margins for a large number of manufacturing products...

In a recent work (Hairault et al., 2006), we claim that the short distance to retirement constitutes one of the main economic mechanisms behind the low employment rate of older workers. As a result, delaying the retirement age could boost employment at the end of the working life. Our view has...

The article discusses two recent reform proposals of the French pension system. Piketty and Bozio suggest the introduction of a unified system of individual notional accounts. This system would be automatically in balance, although at the cost of a dramatic fall in pensions? levels, which would...

This article presents a survey of some contemporary questions at the crossroads of environmental and social issues. It starts by exploring the case of developing countries, where poverty and environmental degradations are closely related and fuelled by bad governance. The article then considers...

Tunisia makes 70% of its trade with euro zone. So, pegging to euro seems to be a suitable exchange rate policy. Giving that its external debt is denominated at the rate of 45% in US dollar, 30% in euros and 10% in Japanese yen, this policy may be painful if the dollar appreciates, because debt...

In 2009, in France, nearly 3 of 4 of the people receiving benefits from the general pension system retired at (or before) 60, which is the legal minimum age required. We discuss, in this paper, the arguments in favour of an increase of this age. We also put forward that increase of the legal age...

The French new budgetary architecture includes, for Social security as for government spending, a set of objectives and indicators, whose purpose is to assess performance of public policies. This paper looks through the indicators issued in 2009 in the fields of social and health policies....

The Phillips curve is fifty years old. Since Phillips (1958)?s original contribution this econometric relationship has undergone many criticisms and evolutions. The Phillips curve yet remains a fundamental tool for inflation forecasting and monetary policy analysis. This paper reviews the...

This paper deals with the particular fiscal incidence induced by an unfunded pension scheme. That consists to understand how the financing and the calculus of pensions modify the transitory and long run macroeconomic dynamics. We develop a simple OLG model with endogenous labour supply in an...

The past 120 years have been characterised by: (i) rapid economic growth and large productivity gains in the four countries; (ii) a decline in productivity in the United Kingdom relative to the United States, and to a lesser extent also relative to France and Japan until the second world war...