In this paper, we estimate the determinants of the spreads between the 10-year sovereign bond yields and the (interest rate) swap rate for a sample of 22 OECD countries over the January 1999-December 2013 period, using various models. Our main, fixed-effect, model highlights the crucial role of...

Based on a unique database consisting of hundreds of thousands of non-alcoholic beverage price records collected in about 800 supermarkets in France, we evaluate the impact on prices of the soda tax, an excise on drinks with added sugar or sweetener, introduced in January 2012 in France. We...

Welfare economics shows how innovation and cost control are necessary to correct the negative externalities of production and consumption patterns to ensure a path of sustainable growth. When welfare economics describes the fundamentals of green growth, with innovation as a cornerstone for the...

Can the evolution of public debt be predicted from its determinants? While the recovery programs undertaken during the 2008 crisis have led to a big takeoff in public debt ratios, the factors likely to curb its upward spiraling dynamic are subject to considerable uncertainty and fuel debate...

Motivated by the Chinese experience, we analyze a semi-open economy where the central bank has access to international capital markets, but the private sector has not. This enables the central bank to choose an interest rate different from the international rate. We examine the optimal policy of...

A stable net external position requires that the trade balance responds negatively to changes in the net external position. If financial integration makes financing external imbalances less costly, we expect slower external adjustment in more integrated economies. The study estimates...

We study the effect of financial shocks in labor market dynamics. We build a model with two types of labor, two types of capital and both search and financial frictions. We find that financial shocks, modeled as exogenous disturbances to the borrowing constraint of firms, can generate realistic...

We study the role of monetary policy when asset-price bubbles may form due to herd behavior in investment in an asset whose return is uncertain. To that aim, we build a simple general-equilibrium model whose agents are households, entrepreneurs, and a central bank. Entrepreneurs receive private...

How do firms' sales interact across markets? Are foreign and domestic sales complements or substitutes? Using a large French firm-level database that combines balance-sheet and product-destination-specific export information over the period 1995-2001, we study the interconnections between...

This paper examines the sensitivity of non-financial corporate lending to banks' capital ratio and their supervisory capital requirements. We use a unique database for the French banking sector between 2003 and 2011 combining confidential bank-level Bank Lending Survey answers with the...