Publications des chercheurs de PSE

This paper presents an experiment performed to test the properties of an innovative bargaining mechanism (called automated negotiation) used to resolve disputes arising from Internet-based transactions. The main result shows that the settlement rule tends to chill bargaining as it creates incentives for individuals to misrepresent their true valuations, which implies that automated negotiation is not able to promote agreements. However, this perverse effect depends strongly on the conflict situation. When the threat that a disagreement occurs is more credible, the strategic effect is reduced since defendants are more interested in maximizing the efficiency of a settlement than their own expected profit. The implications of these results are then used to discuss the potential role of public regulation and reputation mechanisms in Cyberspace.

This paper aims at giving an explanation of the changes in the number of bankruptcies during the second part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. We wonder in particular whether changes in bankruptcy law, which are substantial during the period, suffice to explain the rise in the proportion of bankrupted firms. We first describe the main features and changes of French insolvency law and show that they contradict the evolution observed at the aggregate level. We then show that existing statistics, which include a regional dimension, allow for a better test of the impact of legal changes. We show that some legal changes had a significant impact, but not all. We also observe that regional variations in bankruptcies are huge and do not correspond to French economic geography, but may rather be understood as a diffusion process from the Paris Court towards the provinces. The major differences among regions also suggest that, even in a civil law country, the letter the law is much less important than local practices.

Cet article propose une méthode pour évaluer l'impact des changements du droit des faillites sur l'économie en se concentrant sur le comportement des agents utilisant les dispositifs juridiques disponibles pour régler au mieux leurs difficultés. Les débiteurs utilisent le droit des faillites pour minimiser leur niveau de dette lorsqu'ils font face à des difficultés de paiement, mais doivent convaincre les créanciers et les tribunaux de leur bonne foi et anticipent les effets négatifs de la faillite sur leur réputation et sur la survie de leur entreprise. Les créanciers utilisent si nécessaire le droit pour forcer les débiteurs à payer, sachant que le recours aux tribunaux a des coûts. La première partie rappelle les grands traits de l'évolution du droit des faillites français au 19ème siècle dans son contexte ; la seconde partie propose un modèle théorique simple d'analyse des choix. La troisième propose de lire à la lumière de ce modèle et des changements législatifs quelques grands traits stylisés de l'évolution des faillites telle qu'elle est mesurée par les statistiques du Compte général de la Justice.

Cet article étudie l'application de la législation sur les faillites en France au XIXème siècle. Il utilise deux sources : la statistique annuelle des faillites mise en place à partir de 1840 par le Ministère de la Justice et les dossiers individuels de faillite conservés par les archives du Tribunal de commerce de Paris. Il montre que l'évolution de la législation ne peut pas suffire à expliquer les comportements en matière de faillite, qui reflètent aussi des transformations économiques. Surtout, il démontre à partir de l'exemple parisien que les tribunaux ne traitent pas toujours à l'identique toutes les entreprises, accordant un traitement de faveur aux plus grandes d'entre elles. Ce travail donne ainsi de nouveaux arguments contre une vision légaliste et rétrospective de l'impact de la législation des faillites sur l'activité économique et en faveur d'une étude empirique de son application concrète.

Can changing the rules of the game affect government performance? We study the impact of a simple procedural reform on efficiency and quality of adjudication in Senegal. The reform gave judges the duty and powers to conclude pre-trial proceedings within a four-month deadline. We combine a staggered rollout across the six civil and commercial chambers of the court of Dakar and three years of high-frequency caseload data to construct an event study. We find a reduction in procedural formalism, as the length of the pre-trial stage decreases by 42.9 days (0.29 SD) and the number of case-level pre-trial hearings is reduced, while judges are more likely to impose deadlines. The effect is similar for small and large cases, while fast and slow judges are equally likely to apply the reform. The evidence suggests that these efficiency gains have no adverse impact on quality, while we document positive firm-level effects.

In this paper, we investigate the Investor-State Dispute Resolution Settlement (ISDS) framework, which governs dispute resolution between foreign investors and host states in many bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. We show that ISDS delivers fair justice in a one-shot setting. In a repeated-interaction setting however, it is prone to collusion to the benefit of all parties except the host states. Three factors are determinant: First, the investors are the sole parties able to file cases; Second, arbitrators' earning prospects depend on the investors' filing cases; And finally, treaties leave substantial discretion to arbitration courts in their interpretation of treaties' provisions. We give conditions for pro-business collusion between investors and arbitrators to develop and we show how it makes it profitable for foreign investors to file high-stake claims against states in response to new environmental, social or health regulations. Further, we address regulatory chill and show how the fear of ISDS attacks can hold back welfare improving regulation in the host country. Finally, we extend the model to show how regulatory chill affect policy-making in other countries in which the investor operates with similar activities.