Publications des chercheurs de PSE

This paper makes a first attempt to estimate the evolution of income inequality in Africa from 1990 to 2017 by combining surveys, tax data and national accounts in a systematic manner. The low quality of the raw data calls for a lot of caution. Results suggest that income inequality in Africa is very high, and stands at par with Latin America or India in that respect. Southern and Central Africa are particularly unequal. The bulk of continent-wide income inequality comes from the within country component, and the between country component was even slightly reduced in the two last decades, due to higher growth in poorer countries. Inequality was rather stable over the period, with the exception of Southern Africa. Dualism between agriculture and other sectors and mining rents seem to be important determinants of inequality.

Socially disadvantaged students are less likely to aspire to the top educational pathways than their advantaged classmates who have the same test scores. We identify two behavioural biases that explain most of this gap: socially disadvantaged students are less aware of the top educational pathways and underestimate their academic ability relative to their advantaged peers. We also find that lower educational aspirations at a point in time are associated with poorer school outcomes later on, after controlling for many important factors. Debiasing aspirations through information campaigns and self-esteem building programmes could thus help reduce social inequality in educational attainment.

The practices of abusive revaluation of balance sheets were pointed out in the United States during the interwar period. These practices were seen as potentially exacerbating fraudulent practices by distorting shareholder information (Zeff, 2007). Based on the data of Fabricant (1936), a consensus emerged between the 1930s and 1970s to forbid revaluations, as they were suspected of having precipitated the financial crisis of 1929 (Walker, 1992). Benston's (1973) reinterpretation challenges this view by relativising the importance of revaluations and their consequences on the stability of the American financial system. A consensus then emerged on the lack of links between revaluation practices and the 1929 crisis (Dillon, 1979, Zeff, 2007). Less well known and less documented, re-evaluation practices have existed in countries other than the United States, such as Belgium (De Beelde, 2000) and France (Camfferman and Detzen, 2018) in the wake of post-World War One inflation. Camfferman and Detzen (2018) recalled the relative neglect of these practices in the literature. While in the United States the revaluation of balance sheets went from a free regime to a prohibitive one, in European countries it was subject to rules that left companies the choice of whether or not to implement it. This paper examines the financial effects of balance sheet revaluation practices in France following the tax administration's circular of 25 January 1930. We cross two different sources: on the one hand, the detailed balance sheets and discussions published in "Les Assemblées Générales", a collection of the minutes of the meetings of the main French public companies, over the period 1930-1938 (the date of validity of the circular); on the other hand, stock market data collected in the “Data for FInancial History Database”. Our work on balance sheets highlights a double result. On the one hand, French companies make little use of the opportunity to revalue their balance sheets that is granted by the government (2 to 3% each year), despite the fact that this measure had been requested by the business community. On the other hand, for those companies having implemented it, the impact of revaluations on the balance sheet was substantial and significantly increased the total assets. Our work makes it possible to quantify the extent of revaluations by comparing them to the American case and to measure their effects (or lack thereof) on shares' total returns. We can therefore discuss the specific impact of revaluations on the returns on shares of companies listed on the Paris stock exchange, in a regulatory framework that is very different from that of the United States. The significant changes in the balance sheets of the companies revealed 'hidden treasures'.

The practices of abusive revaluation of balance sheets were pointed out in the United States during the interwar period. These practices were seen as potentially exacerbating fraudulent practices by distorting shareholder information (Zeff, 2007). Based on the data of Fabricant (1936), a consensus emerged between the 1930s and 1970s to forbid revaluations, as they were suspected of having precipitated the financial crisis of 1929 (Walker, 1992). Benston's (1973) reinterpretation challenges this view by relativising the importance of revaluations and their consequences on the stability of the American financial system. A consensus then emerged on the lack of links between revaluation practices and the 1929 crisis (Dillon, 1979, Zeff, 2007). Less well known and less documented, re-evaluation practices have existed in countries other than the United States, such as Belgium (De Beelde, 2000) and France (Camfferman and Detzen, 2018) in the wake of post-World War One inflation. Camfferman and Detzen (2018) recalled the relative neglect of these practices in the literature. While in the United States the revaluation of balance sheets went from a free regime to a prohibitive one, in European countries it was subject to rules that left companies the choice of whether or not to implement it. This paper examines the financial effects of balance sheet revaluation practices in France following the tax administration's circular of 25 January 1930. We cross two different sources: on the one hand, the detailed balance sheets and discussions published in "Les Assemblées Générales", a collection of the minutes of the meetings of the main French public companies, over the period 1930-1938 (the date of validity of the circular); on the other hand, stock market data collected in the “Data for FInancial History Database”. Our work on balance sheets highlights a double result. On the one hand, French companies make little use of the opportunity to revalue their balance sheets that is granted by the government (2 to 3% each year), despite the fact that this measure had been requested by the business community. On the other hand, for those companies having implemented it, the impact of revaluations on the balance sheet was substantial and significantly increased the total assets. Our work makes it possible to quantify the extent of revaluations by comparing them to the American case and to measure their effects (or lack thereof) on shares' total returns. We can therefore discuss the specific impact of revaluations on the returns on shares of companies listed on the Paris stock exchange, in a regulatory framework that is very different from that of the United States. The significant changes in the balance sheets of the companies revealed 'hidden treasures'.

International tax rules are commonly viewed as obsolete as multinational corporations exploit loopholes to move their profits to tax havens. This paper uncovers how international tax reforms can curb profit shifting and impact real income and welfare across nations. We introduce profit shifting and corporate taxation in a quantitative model of multinational production. The model delivers “triangle identities” through which we recover bilateral profit-shifting flows. Our estimates of both tax-base and profitshifting elasticities, together with profit-shifting frictions, govern how taxes shape the geography of production and profits. Our model accommodates a rich set of corporate taxation scenarios. A global minimum tax would be beneficial for welfare since it would increase the public good provision and encourage countries to raise their statutory corporate tax rates. Instead, a border-adjustment tax that eliminates profit shifting could result in welfare losses.

Stock prices declined abruptly in the wake of the Covid-19, reflecting both the deterioration of investors’ expectations of profitability as well as the surge in risk aversion. In the following months however, economic activity remained sluggish while equity markets bounced back. This disconnect between equity values and macro-variables can be partially explained by other factors, namely the decline in risk-free interest rates, and -for the US- the strong earnings of the IT sector. As a result, an econometrician forecasting economic activity with aggregate stock market variables during the Covid-crisis is likely to get poor results. Our main contribution is thus to rely on sectorally disaggregated equity variables within a factor model in order to predict US economic activity. We find, first, that the factor model better predicts future economic activity compared to aggregate equity variables, or to conventional benchmarks used in the literature, both in-sample and out-of-sample. Second, we show that the strong performance of the factor model comes from the fact that it filters out the “expected returns” component of the sectoral equity variables as well as the foreign component of aggregate future cash flows. The constructed factor overweights upstream and “value” sectors that are found to be closely linked to the future state of the business cycle.

We test the usefulness of machine learning (ML) for the valuation and pricing of sovereign risk in the Euro area along two important dimensions: i) its predictive accuracy compared with traditional econometric methods, and ii) its assessment of the main economic factors underlying market perceptions of sovereign risk.We find that ML techniques can capture the dynamics inherent in the market valuation of country risk far more efficiently than traditional econometric models, both in the cross‐section and in the time series. Moreover, we show that public sentiment about financial news, redenomination fears and the degree of hawkishness/dovishness expressed in the ECB president's speeches are major contributors to sovereign bond spreads. We also confirm that macroeconomic and global financial factors affect sovereign risk assessment and the corresponding formation of sovereign spreads.

This paper investigates the influence of corporate tax avoidance (CTA) on firm-level sales, and its aggregate implications. CTA gives a competitive advantage to avoiding firms, which affects the distribution of sales in the economy. We find a causal impact of CTA on sales in US firm-level data. CTA increased more among the largest firms, which has reinforced their dominant position. A quantitative exercise reveals that the strength of CTA in shaping changes in the distribution of sales varies across industries. In industries like computers or chemicals, CTA can explain up to 10%-30% of the increase in concentration from 1994 to 2017. Further analysis shows the impact.

Introduction: Biomedical HIV prevention tools are available in France to prevent new infections. However, evidence suggests a lack of knowledge of these tools among sub-Saharan African immigrants, who are particularly affected by HIV due to social hardship, an indirect factor of HIV acquisition. We analysed the impact of an empowerment-based intervention on the knowledge of treatment as prevention (TasP), pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) in a population of precarious sub-Saharan African immigrants. Methods: Data were collected throughout the MAKASI project. Following an outreach approach, participants were recruited in public places based on their precarious situations and followed for six months (0, 3, 6 months) between 2018 and 2021. Participants were randomized into two groups and received an empowerment intervention sequentially (stepped wedge design). We used random-effects logistic regression models to evaluate the intervention effect on the knowledge of biomedical HIV prevention tools. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04468724. Results: The majority of the participants were men (77.5%), and almost half of them had arrived in France within 2 years prior to inclusion (49.3%). At baseline, 56% of participants knew about TasP, 6% knew about PEP and 4% knew about PrEP. Receiving the intervention increased the odds of knowing about PEP (aOR = 2.02 [1.09-3.75]; p < 0.026). Intervention effects were observed for TasP and PrEP only after 6 months. We found significant time effects for PEP (at 3 months, aOR = 4.26 [2.33-7.80]; p < 0.001; at 6 months, aOR = 18.28 [7.39-45.24]; p < 0.001) and PrEP (at 3 months, aOR = 4.02 [2.10-7.72]; p < 0.001; at 6 months, aOR = 28.33 [11.16-71.91]; p < 0.001). Conclusions: We showed that the intervention increased the knowledge of biomedical HIV prevention tools. The effect of the intervention was coupled with an important time effect. This suggested that exposure to the intervention together with other sources of information contributed to increased knowledge of biomedical HIV prevention tools among precarious sub-Saharan African immigrants.

Présentation La mise en place de cours optionnels, tels que les sections bilangues ou européennes, a-t-elle des conséquences sur la ségrégation sociale qui prévaut entre les classes d’un même établissement scolaire ? La question se pose alors que l’implantation d’options dans certains collèges défavorisés constitue l’un des leviers mobilisés par le ministère de l’Éducation nationale en cette rentrée pour rendre ces établissements plus attractifs auprès des familles socialement favorisées et ainsi renforcer la mixité sociale. Afin de donner des éléments de réponse, cette note évalue l’impact de la suppression des sections bilangues et des sections européennes à la rentrée 2016 sur le niveau de ségrégation entre les classes des collèges concernés par cette réforme. Résultats clés En France, le niveau de ségrégation sociale entre les classes de sixième d’un même collège dépasse de 29 % la valeur qui serait observée si les élèves étaient répartis de manière aléatoire entre les classes. À la rentrée 2016, la suppression des sections bilangues a entraîné une diminution de 53 % (classes de sixième) de ce surplus de ségrégation dans les établissements concernés par cette réforme. La suppression des sections européennes a entraîné une diminution de 33 % (classes de quatrième) du surplus de ségrégation. Dans une grande partie des établissements proposant des sections bilangues et européennes, les écarts de composition sociale entre classes sont du même ordre que ceux observés dans les collèges qui ne proposent pas ces sections. Cela suggère qu’il est possible de proposer des cours optionnels attractifs tout en limitant la ségrégation intra-établissement.

Grand commis de l’État, réformateur, caïd, plusieurs fois ministre, Grand vizir de Lamine Bey, déporté par les Français, prisonnier de Bourguiba, Mohamed-Salah Mzali (1896-1984) est un homme de pouvoir. Il est aussi le premier Tunisien à soutenir une thèse de doctorat en économie après une brillante scolarité à Sadiki et à Carnot. Historien, érudit, sauveur des archives de Khérédine Pacha, il contribuera à inscrire ce dernier dans l’historiographie nationale.La première partie de cet ouvrage reproduit Au fil de ma vie, les mémoires de l’écrivain méconnu, imprégné de culture classique et plume singulière de la littérature tunisienne. Elle retrace les étapes d’un parcours d’exception, de l’enfance jusqu’à une retraite tourmentée après une fulgurante carrière. Le ton, mesuré et tranchant, est à l’image de l’homme : habile séducteur, mais réservé face aux ors du sérail et sensible aux dérives de l’hybris. S’il finit écarté des centres du nouveau pouvoir, il n’en livre pas moins un témoignage « de bonne foi » au lecteur soucieux de saisir les soubresauts d’un siècle qu’il traverse tantôt en fin politique, tantôt en promeneur méditatif.Dans L’intellectuel et l’homme d’État, en deuxième partie, Elyès Jouini poursuit le travail entamé dans le premier volet largement enrichi de notes explicatives, et nous propose une deuxième œuvre qui procède à un rare décryptage et à une mise en contexte historique de l’homme et de l’œuvre.Il restitue fidèlement un personnage de grande envergure à l’histoire politique, sociale et culturelle de son siècle, tout en laissant entrevoir les paradoxes et les mutations d’une élite sur le point de céder la place, emportée par le flot de la décolonisation.Une riche iconographie, souvent inédite, offre un nouvel éclairage.Le livre est coédité par Cérès éditions- Beït al-Hikma et l’Institut de recherche sur le Maghreb contemporain (IRMC) Elyès Jouini est l’administrateur de l’Institut universitaire de France et professeur à l’Université Paris Dauphine-PSL où il est titulaire de la chaire Dauphine-UNESCO. Ancien élève de l’École normale supérieure de Paris, ses travaux sont à l’interface des sciences formelles et des sciences humaines et sociales. E. Jouini est membre correspondant de l’Académie tunisienne des sciences, des lettres et des arts. Préface de Kmar Bendana, professeure émérite d'histoire contemporaine à l'Université de La Manouba, chercheure associée à l'Institut de recherche sur le Maghreb contemporain.