We introduce a new way to model the Bismarckian social insuance system, stressing its corporatist dimension. Comparing the Beveridgean, Bismarckian and Liberal systems according to the majority voting rule, we show that for a given distribution of risks inside society, the Liberal system wins if...

This paper examines the influence of political ideology on economic growth in the French democracy since 1871. It does so by addressing three main issues : the property and the reliability of a political ideology index in the long-run, the robustness of the relationship between ideology and...

The common practice consists in using a unique value of the discount rate for all public investments. Endorsing a social welfare approach to discounting, we show how different public investments should be discounted depending on: the risk on the return of the investment, the systematic risk on...

We model virtue as an asset on the marriage market : since men value virginity in prospective mates, preserving their virtue increases girls' chances of getting a "good" husband, and therefore allows for upward social mobility. Consistent with some historical and anthropological evidence, we...

I offer a critical reading of Thomas Piketty's book, Le Capital au XXIème siècle, Seuil, 2013.

A vast recent literature has stressed social fragmentation's negative impact on the provision of public goods. It has been established theoretically that social fragmentation engenders discord and thereby undermines public goods provision. Empirical research has produced mixed results about this...

A vast recent literature has stressed social fragmentation's negative impact on the provision of public goods. This is a key issue, given that public goods availability has been reckoned as crucial to economic development, while developing countries' societies often exhibit high degrees of...

This paper discusses the thesis put forward by Piketty (2014a) stressing the risk of an explosion of wealth inequality because capital accumulates faster than labor income in several countries, especially in the U.US. Although the overall empirical conclusion on the rise of inequalities is...

This paper, on the one hand, goes a step closer to demonstrate the causality of social capital on economic performance. On the other hand, we confirm a continued role of social capital effects on economic performance in this paper by using a much larger sample, spanning three decades and...

This paper defends the idea that Western modernity can be characterized by the rivalry of two institutions, the state and the market, competing for the charge of maintaining security against social violence while both are major sources of violence. It is so because the possibility of violence...