In A Mathematical Theory of Saving (1928), Frank Ramsey not only laid the foundations of the fruitful optimal growth literature, but also launched a major moral debate: should we discount future generations’ well-being? While Ramsey regarded such “pure” discounting as “ethically...

Actuellement les personnes âgées vivent un véritable âge d’or relativement à un passé récent. Leurs revenus moyens sont à peine plus bas que ceux d’autres classes d’âge. Dans ce groupe d’âge, les inégalités de revenus sont faibles. C’est aux systèmes de retraite que l’on...

Alors que les statistiques ordinaires de consommation suggèrent que la France a perdu du terrain vis-à-vis de ses partenaires économiques – en particulier vis-à-vis des Etats-Unis – lors des 30 dernières années, cet article réexamine la thèse du décrochage français à la lumière...

The present paper aims at analyzing the sources of labor productivity in Europe at regional level. We study the productivity performance in a sample of twenty European regions belonging to four countries (France, Germany, Italy and Spain). Exploiting the increasing availability of disaggregated...

This paper analyses the effect of population ageing on consumptions aggregates in Belgium. Since consumption expenditures change markedly over the life-cycle, the structure of aggregate consumption is likely to change in the course of population ageing. First, we estimate the effect of age on...

Most European countries have legal institutions regarding gifts and bequests that are more constraining than the United States. The purpose of this paper is to see whether those institutional differences generate differences in behavior. The paper focuses on the comparison between the United...

Postal markets have been open to competition for a long time. But, with a few exceptions, the competitors of the incumbent postal operator are active on the upstream segments of the market -preparation, collection, outward sorting and transport of mail products. With the further steps planned in...

This article studies the behavior of the …rm when it is searching to …ll a vacancy. The principal hypothesis is that the …rm can o¤er two kinds of contracts to the workers, short-term or long-term contracts. The short-term contract is like a probationary stage in which the …rm can learn...

Cet article explore le rôle de la demande de travail des personnes âgées dans l’analyse des politiques de retraite et de préretraite. Plus précisément, nous utilisons les travaux de Lazear(1979) pour étudier le profil des salaires optimal au cours d’une carrière et l’âge de la...

Amazingly, one is used to hearing harsh statements about inefficient public services. Nor is it surprising to see public sector performance questioned. What is surprising is that what is meant by performance, and how it is measured, does not seem to matter to either the critics or the advocates...