Voici les éléments 1 - 10 sur 44
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    A Global Compass for the Great Divergence: Emissions vs. Production Centers of Gravity 1820‐2008
    We construct the world's centers of gravity for human population, GDP and CO2 emissions by taking the best out of five recognized data sources covering the last two centuries. On the basis of a novel distorsion‐free representation of these centers of gravity, we find a radical Western shift of GDP and CO2 emissions centers in the 19th century, in sharp contrast with the stability of the demographic center of gravity. Both GDP and emissions trends are reversed in the first half of the 20th century, after World War I for CO2 emissions, after World War II for GDP. Since then, both centers are moving eastward at an accelerating speed. These patterns are perfectly consistent with the lead of Western countries starting the industrial revolution, the gradual replacement of coal by oil and gas as alternative sources of energy, and the progressive catch up of Asian countries in the recent past.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Four empirical essays on agglomeration economies and firm-level productivity performance in Switzerland
    Cette thèse explore empiriquement le paysage économique suisse de trois perspectives. Premièrement, en appliquant des techniques d’imputation multiple et en combinant des sources de données existantes, elle décrit la création de nouvelles bases de données représentatives de la valeur ajoutée au niveau de la firme. Ces bases de données désagrégées sont utilisées pour explorer la distribution de la productivité des régions suisses à l’aide d’une nouvelle méthode de décomposition inspirée de la littérature “shift-share”. Cette analyse “zoome” progressivement dans le paysage industriel et géographique suisse dévoilant les effets structuraux et compétitifs qui sous-tendent la très faible croissance des dernières décennies de la productivité en Suisse. Deuxièmement, en se basant sur des données portant sur la création de nouvelles firmes, cette thèse estime la magnitude des différentes forces d’agglomération en Suisse. Troisièmement, comme les régions suisses les plus productives ne sont pas forcément celles qui comptabilisent le plus de revenu, cette thèse examine l’inadéquation spatiale entre revenu et production. Les résultats obtenus par ces trois perspectives complémentaires sont d’intérêt pour le développement des politiques industrielles et d’aménagement du territoire suisses, ainsi que pour nourrir les débats sur la péréquation financière et l’équité spatiale entre communes suisses.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Three empirical essays on globalization and growth
    (2018-06-29)
    Sabina Kummer-Noormamode
    ;
    Cette thèse étudie empiriquement trois thèmes liés à la croissance : l’impact des investissements directs étrangers (IDE) sur la croissance économique, l’impact du commerce avec la Chine sur la croissance économique africaine et la relation entre la dette publique et la croissance économique. Les résultats de ces trois études aident à mieux comprendre le processus de croissance économique et fournissent des indications sur la façon de la promouvoir et de la soutenir. Le chapitre 1 comprend une étude de la causalité entre les IDE et la croissance du produit intérieur brut (PIB). Elle démontre que la causalité tend à aller des IDE vers la croissance du PIB et à être positive et que les conditions sociales et économiques du pays receveur peuvent avoir un impact sur le PIB par habitant et les flux entrants d’IDE . Le Chapitre 2 analyse le commerce de pays africains avec la Chine. Les résultats montrent que ce commerce a une influence globale positive sur la croissance économique en Afrique mais seulement depuis le début de ce siècle. Ils indiquent également que durant cette période, le commerce avec la Chine a eu plus d’influence sur la croissance économique africaine que n’en a eu le commerce avec l’UE . L’étude de la relation entre la dette publique et la croissance au niveau d’un pays en particulier est présentée dans le dernier chapitre. Elle met en évidence l’importance de la spécificité de chaque pays. En effet, les résultats concernant la coïntegration, la non-linéarité, la valeur du seuil de la dette et l’impact de la dette publique sur la croissance économique sont différents selon le pays considéré.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Geographical spread of global emissions: Within-country inequalities are large and increasing
    In spite of the extensive literature on greenhouse gas emission inequalities at the world-wide level, most of the evidence so far has been based on country-level data. However, the within-country dimension matters for both the implementation and the policy formation of climate policies. As a preliminary step towards a better understanding of within-country inequalities, this paper measures their extent for the two major greenhouse gases, CO2 and CH4, over the 1970–2008 period. Using Theil-index decompositions, we show that within-country inequalities account for the bulk of global inequality, and tend to increase over the sample period, in contrast with diminishing between-country inequalities. Including differences across sectors reveals that between-sector inequalities matter more than between-country inequalities, and between-sector inequalities become the dominant source of global inequality at the end of the sample period in the CO2 case. Finally, estimated social tensions arising from the disconnection between emissions and future damages turn out to be increasing as soon as within-country disparities are taken into account. These orders of magnitude should be kept in mind while discussing the efficiency and fairness of alternative paths in combating global warming.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Industrial Location in Chinese Provinces: Does Energy Abundance Matter?
    (2014-7-1) ; ;
    Hotz, Irina
    We identify the driving factors of manufacturing activity across Chinese provinces with a particular focus on energy endowments. A model of production location is estimated, including both comparative advantage and economic geography determinants. The data set used consists of a panel of 28 Chinese provinces and 12 manufacturing industries over the period 1999-2009. Results confirm the relative importance of energy endowments. We find that larger energy endowments are significantly correlated with larger production of energy-intensive sectors. Disaggregating across energy carriers shows that coal exhibits the strongest impact. These results are robust across alternative specifications.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    La montée en puissance du régionalisme et l'avenir de l'OMC. Essais en mémoire de Peter Tschopp rassemblés par Beat Bürgenmeier
    (Genève: Slatkine, 2014) ;
    de Melo, Jaime
    Ce chapitre retrace les principales étapes de la marginalisation du multilatéralisme par le régionalisme, en analyse les causes et les conséquences, et propose quelques pistes de réflexion sur l'avenir de l'OMC en guise de conclusion
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    The pollution terms of trade and its five components
    Based on two extensions, this paper proposes a re-appraisal of the concept of the pollution terms of trade (PTT) introduced by Antweiler (1996). First, detailed data allows capturing the effect of differences in emission intensities across countries and over time. Second, relying on Johnson and Noguera (2012), the revised PTT index controls for trade in intermediate goods and is based on value-added rather than gross output figures. Applied to a database for SO2 emission intensities for 62 developed and developing countries over the 1990?2000 period, it turns out that the first extension has a larger empirical importance than the second one. The global pattern is one in which the major rich economies exhibit a PTT index below one (higher pollution intensity in imports than in exports). Trade imbalances tend to exacerbate this asymmetry, allowing rich economies to further offshore their pollution through trade.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Trade and Climate Policies: Do Emissions from International Transport Matter?
    (2013-12-17)
    Vöhringer, Frank
    ;
    ;
    No abstract is available for this item.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Antipoverty programs : impact evaluation, externalities and limitations
    This doctoral thesis utilizes different microeconometric methods to estimate the direct impact, the generated externalities, and the limitations of two antipoverty programs implemented in Latin America in the form of Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT). I focus on CCT programs for two reasons. First, due to the important positive effects shown, many governments have rapidly adopted this tool as their main initiative to fight poverty. And second, CCTs are one of the very few initiatives that were actually generated in the developing world and later imported in developed economies. The thesis is comprised of three separate, but closely related chapters. I perform empirical analyses using data from two programs in Mexico and Colombia, employing program evaluation techniques, as well as parametric regression modelling. The main contribution of this thesis is to show that social interventions, besides having important effects on the targeted population, have also a great impact on people not part of the program. In fact, individuals respond to incentives, pushing a change in their decisions, either through monetary transfers, or by a change in the observed behavior of their peers. Thus, CCT programs can be expected to have an effect beyond the targeted group. The externalities shown by CCT are mainly positive, specially when analyzing health, nutrition and educational outcomes. The results are less clear when analyzing labor outcomes. Nevertheless, as any policy, these programs are perfectible. It is important to identify these limitations, as well as the changes to the designs for future work.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Unravelling the World-Wide Pollution-Haven Effect
    (2012-12-17) ; ;
    de Melo, Jaime
    This paper tackles the ?pollution haven? argument by estimating the pollution content of imports (PCI). The PCI is then decomposed into three components: (i) a ?deep? component (i.e. traditional variables unrelated to the environmental debate); (ii) a factor endowment component and (iii) a ?pollution haven? component reflecting the impact of differences in environmental policies. The estimation is carried out for 1987 for an extensive data set covering 10 pollutants, 48 countries and 79 ISIC four-digit sectors. Decompositions based on cross-section econometric estimates suggest a significant pollution haven effect, which increases the PCI of the North because of stricter environmental regulations in the North. At the same time, the factor endowment effect lowers the PCI of the North, as the North is relatively well-endowed in capital and pollution-intensive activities are capital intensive. On a global scale, because the bulk of trade is intra-regional with a high North-North share, these effects are small relative to the ?deep? determinants of the worldwide PCI. Robustness checks performed on a more recent dataset, but limited to sulphur dioxide, confirm these results. In sum, differences in factor endowments and environmental policies only marginally affected the PCI of world trade at the end of the 1980s.