This paper analyzes empirically a public policy promoting industrial clusters in France. Cluster policies have become popular in many countries but have not been extensively evaluated empirically. We use data on production and employment for firms that benefited from the policy and on firms that...

This paper analyzes empirically a public policy promoting industrial clusters in France. Cluster policies have become popular in many countries but have not been extensively evaluated. We propose in this paper the first quantitative evaluation of a cluster policy exploiting firm-level data. We...

This paper analyzes empirically the effect of spatial agglomeration of activities on plant-level productivity, using French firm and plant-level data from 1996 to 2004. We exploit short-run variations of variables by making use of GMM estimation. This allows us to control for endogeneity biases...

Le 12 juillet 2005, le gouvernement a labellisé 67 « pôles de compétitivité » ou clusters. Ils sont aujourd'hui au nombre de 71. La politique d'aménagement du territoire est passée d'une intervention publique destinée à aider les régions en difficulté à une politique visant à...

This paper analyzes the reaction of exporters to exchange rate changes. We present a model where, in the presence of distribution costs in the export market, high and low productivity firms react differently to a depreciation. Whereas high productivity firms optimally raise their markup rather...

We analyze the interaction of economic and political determinants of free trade agreements (FTA). In addition to standard trade gains, FTAs can promote peaceful relations by offering a political forum and by increasing the opportunity cost of conflicts that disrupt trade. If policy makers...

We show that the negative impact of financial crises on trade is magnified for destinations with longer time-to-ship. A simple model where exporters react to an increase in the probability of default of importers by increasing their export price and decreasing their export volumes to...

This paper analyzes empirically the relationship between civil wars and international trade. We first show that trade destruction due to civil wars is very large and persistent and increases with the severity of the conflict. We then identify two effects that trade can have on the risk of civil...

We provide a first comprehensive account of the dynamics of Eurozone countries from the creation of the Euro to the Great recession. We model each country as an open economy within a monetary union and analyze the dynamics of private leverage, fiscal policy and spreads. Our parsimonious model...

Dans un contexte de renchérissement prévisible de l’énergie au cours des vingt prochaines années, orienter l’effort d’innovation industrielle et l’offre de biens et services vers des technologies économes en énergie est une nécessité. Toutefois, une hausse des prix de...