5 papers...in 5 minutes ! | February 2022
Do no-interest loans help lower-class households?
Laurent Gobillon*, Anne Lambert, and Sandra Pellet
No-interest loans (NILs) were introduced in 1995 in France to promote access to home ownership for first-time home buyers and to stimulate construction. To be eligible for these loans, households must meet income conditions that depend on family structure and location. Nevertheless, NIL is not well targeted since many households are eligible. It has also been criticised because of unintended consequences: it has encouraged the construction of low-cost housing estates in distant suburbs of large cities where real estate prices are lower. These neighbourhoods intended for low- and medium-income households...
- Short link to this article : https://bit.ly/3JH0IML
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On the design of public debate in social networks
Michel Grabisch*, Antoine Mandel* and Agnieszka Rusinowska*
In this article, Michel Grabisch, Antoine Mandel and Agnieszka Rusinowska provide a model of the co-evolution of opinions and social relations that allow to frame this problem in a formal setting. They highlight that the social planner faces a trade-off between fostering the convergence of opinions in society and increasing the risk of polarization and instability. They show that to resolve this trade-off, the social planner must account for both structural and behavioral characteristics : how fragile is the social network and to which extent individuals tolerate disagreement with their peers. The authors thus provide a theory of the efficient design of public debate...
- Short link to this article : https://bit.ly/3LBItdu
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How do consumers value gene-edited food?
Stéphan Marette, Anne-Celia Disdier* and John C. Beghin
In a recent article, Stéphan Marette, Anne-Celia Disdier and John Beghin contribute to this GE acceptance debate by focusing on a specific new quality attribute linked to apples and by directly comparing consumers’ acceptance in two different countries (France and the United States - US), in which GMO controversies were vivid. France serves as a radical example of European behavior. The beneficial improvement refers to inhibited browning and bruising of cut apples. The authors elicit willingness to pay for these new apples, relative to conventional apples. This innovation is interesting and relevant, particularly with the Arctic® apples that are non-browning apples created with cisgenesis and near commercialization in the US...
- Short link to this article : https://bit.ly/34ZN3Sb
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Can additional information help improving inference?
Philipp Ketz* and Adam McCloskey
Confidence intervals, taking into account the uncertainty inherent in the use of sample data, provide a range of plausible values for unknown (population) quantities such as partial effects. We may, for example, be interested in the effect of experience on wages, holding other factors such as education constant. Standard confidence intervals do not make any assumptions about the directions of the (partial) effects of the “other” factors. In some cases, however, a researcher may have a priori knowledge about the directions of some of the “other” factors’ effects. For example, a researcher may know, or be willing to assume, that the partial effect of education is nonnegative...
- Short link to this article : https://bit.ly/3sPLJtd
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20-year Experimental Impacts of Childhood Exposure to Social Transfers: Which lessons?
Maria Caridad Araujo and Karen Macours*
The system of access to health care in France is one of the most particular and complex systems in the world. The reimbursement of expenditure on a given medical service links together a social security system based on deductions that are made independent of the state of health, risk factors and co-morbidities of the individual involved and a complementary insurance system based on the state of health of its subscribers. At the end of 2021, the High Council for the Future of Health Insurance (HCAAM) was asked by the health minister to study the ways in which the system could be made more equally accessible while also making it more transparent...
- Short link to this article : https://bit.ly/3LFCYue
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* PSE Professors
** PSE Doctoral Students
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