Relative Productivity and Search Unemployment in an Open Economy

in Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (2020), 117

Using a panel of eighteen OECD countries, we find empirically that the long-run effects of higher productivity of tradables relative to non-tradables vary across time, space and stages of the business ... [more ▼]

Using a panel of eighteen OECD countries, we find empirically that the long-run effects of higher productivity of tradables relative to non-tradables vary across time, space and stages of the business cycle. More specifically, our evidence reveals that elasticities of the relative wage and relative price of non-tradables with respect to relative productivity of tradables increase over time. Our estimates also show that the fall in the relative wage is more pronounced whilst the appreciation in the relative price is less in countries where labor markets are more regulated and during periods of recession. To rationalize the evidence, we differentiate between labor mobility costs caused by job search efforts and hiring costs resulting from search frictions in the labor market in a two-sector open economy model. While time-declining labor mobility costs can account for the time-increasing effects of a productivity differential, international differences in labor market regulation and variations of hiring costs across the business cycle, respectively, can rationalize the cross-country and state-dependent effects we estimate empirically. Finally, labor market frictions have important implications for sectoral unemployment since labor mobility and hiring costs bias labor demand toward the traded sector which results in a greater decline in unemployment in tradables relative to unemployment in non-tradables following higher relative productivity. [less ▲]

The War of Rare Earth Elements: A Dynamic Game Approach

E-print/Working paper (2019)

Rare earth elements govern today’s high-tech world and are deemed to be essential for the attainment of sustainable development goals. Since the 1990s, these elements have been predominantly supplied by ... [more ▼]

Rare earth elements govern today’s high-tech world and are deemed to be essential for the attainment of sustainable development goals. Since the 1990s, these elements have been predominantly supplied by one single actor, China. However, due to the increasing global relevance of their availability, other countries are now encouraged to enter the market. The objective of this paper is to analyze the strategic interactions among (potential) suppliers. In particular, we are interested in (1) the optimal timing for a newcomer (e.g. the U.S.) to enter the market, (2) the incumbent’s (i.e. China’s) optimal behavior, and (3) the cost-efficiency of cooperative vs. competitive market relations. By setting up a continuous-time dynamic game model, we show that (1) the newcomer should postpone the production launch until its rare earth reserves coincide with those of the incumbent, (2) the incumbent should strive for a late market entry and therefore keep its monopolistic resource extraction at the lowest possible level, (3) compared to the payoffs under competition, cooperation leads to a Pareto improvement when started at an early stage. The findings of our model are particularly relevant for the rational strategic positioning of the two great powers, America and China. [less ▲]

The Impact of Unilateral Commitment on Transboundary Pollution

in Environmental Modeling & Assessment (2017)

To reach a common target of environmental quality, countries can choose to commit to a stream of pollution abatement right from the beginning of the game or decide upon abatement at each moment of time ... [more ▼]

To reach a common target of environmental quality, countries can choose to commit to a stream of pollution abatement right from the beginning of the game or decide upon abatement at each moment of time. Though most of the previous literature studies homogeneous strategies where no country or all countries commit to a (same) predefined policy, reality goes along a different way: some countries make more efforts than others to reduce pollutant emission. The main novelty of this paper resides in the introduction of this kind of heterogeneous strategic behavior currently observed among large pollution nations. We find that the pollution level can be lower under heterogeneous than under homogeneous strategies. A stringent environmental quality target will induce the committed player to produce an abatement effort that more than compensates the free-riding attitude of the non-committed player. [less ▲]

Réformes fiscales et du droit des affaires en Afrique subsaharienne. Quel impact sur la mobilisation des recettes fiscales ?

in Hiez, David; Menetrey, Séverine (Eds.) L'effectivité du droit économique dans l'espace OHADA (2016)

Hurricane Damage Risk Assessment in the Caribbean: An Analysis using Synthetic Hurricane Events and Nightlight Imagery

Scientific Conference (2014, July 13)

Pollution and child mortality: the case of tropospheric ozone in sub-Saharan Africa

Presentation (2014, May 13)

Carbon capture and storage and transboundary pollution: A differential game approach

in European Journal of Operational Research (2014)

We study the strategic behavior of two countries facing transboundary CO2 pollution under a differential game setting. In our model, the reduction of CO2 concentration occurs through the carbon capture ... [more ▼]

We study the strategic behavior of two countries facing transboundary CO2 pollution under a differential game setting. In our model, the reduction of CO2 concentration occurs through the carbon capture and storage process, rather than through the adoption of cleaner technologies. Furthermore, we first provide the explicit short-run dynamics for this dynamic game with symmetric open-loop and a special Markovian Nash strategy. Then, we compare these strategies at the games’ steady states and along some balanced growth paths. Our results show that if the initial level of CO2 is relatively high, state dependent emissions reductions can lead to higher overall environmental quality, hence, feedback strategy leads to less social waste. [less ▲]

Pollution and child mortality: the case of tropospheric ozone in sub-Saharan Africa

Scientific Conference (2013, July)

Deregulation shock in product market and unemployment

in Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (2013), 37(4), 711-734

In a dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous markups and labor market frictions, we investigate the effects of increased product market competition. Unlike most macroeconomic models of search ... [more ▼]

In a dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous markups and labor market frictions, we investigate the effects of increased product market competition. Unlike most macroeconomic models of search, we endogenize the labor supply along the extensive margin. We find numerically that a model with endogenous labor force participation decision produces a decline in the unemployment rate which is almost three times larger than that in a model with fixed labor force. For a calibration capturing alternatively the European and the US labor markets, a deregulation episode, which lowers the markup by 3 percentage points, results in a fall in the unemployment rate by 0.17 and 0.05 percentage point, respectively, while the labor share is almost unaffected in the long-run. The sensitivity analysis reveals that product market deregulation is more effective in countries where product and labor market regulations are high, unemployment benefits are small and labor force is more responsive. [less ▲]

Sustainable economic development and the environment: Theory and evidence

in Energy Economics (2012), 34(4), 1105-1114

The relationship between growth and pollution is studied through a vintage capital model, where new technologies are more environmentally friendly. We find that once the optimal scrapping age of ... [more ▼]

The relationship between growth and pollution is studied through a vintage capital model, where new technologies are more environmentally friendly. We find that once the optimal scrapping age of technologies is reached, an economy may achieve two possible cases of sustainable development, one in which pollution falls and another in which it stabilizes, or a catastrophic outcome, where environmental quality reaches its lower bound. The outcome will depend on countries’ investment path and their propensity to innovate in environmentally clean technologies, both of which are likely to differ across economies. Empirical results using long time series for a number of developed and developing countries indeed confirm heterogenous experiences in the pollution-output relationship. [less ▲]