The U.S.–China Supply Competition for Rare Earth Elements: A Dynamic Game View

in Environmental Modeling and Assessment (2022)

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 relevance of their availability, the United States, who imports 80% of its rare earths from China, recently announced its plan to (re-)enter the rare earths supply market. This paper analyzes the strategic interactions among these two countries in open-loop and Markovian strategy spaces. Particular interest is devoted to the impact of heterogeneous supply concepts on (1) the theoretical optimal timing for the U.S. to enter the non-renewable resource market, (2) China’s optimal supply reaction to the U.S.’ entry announcement, (3) the central planner outcome, and (4) the profitability of the suppliers’ extraction behavior. By setting up a continuous-time differential game model, we show that in the absence of arbitrage opportunity, (1) the U.S. should always postpone the production launch until its rare earths reserves coincide with those of China, (2) China’s monopolistic supply is not shaped by the selected strategy, (3) while the duopolistic Markovian behavior is initially more lucrative than open-loop commitment, the opposite situation emerges as the competition proceeds, and (4) on balance, both countries are financially better off when committing to an open-loop supply path. [less ▲]

Labor Market Effects of Technology Shocks biased Toward the Traded Sector

E-print/Working paper (2021)

Motivated by recent evidence pointing at an increasing contribution of asymmetric shocks across sectors to economic fluctuations, we explore the labor market effects of technology shocks biased toward the ... [more ▼]

Motivated by recent evidence pointing at an increasing contribution of asymmetric shocks across sectors to economic fluctuations, we explore the labor market effects of technology shocks biased toward the traded sector. Our VAR evidence for seventeen OECD countries reveals that the non-traded sector alone drives the increase in total hours worked following a technology shock that increases permanently traded relative to non-traded TFP. The shock generates a reallocation of labor toward the non-traded sector which contributes to 35% on average of the rise in non-traded hours worked. Both labor reallocation and variations in labor income shares are found empirically connected with factor-biased technological change. Our quantitative analysis shows that a two-sector open economy model with flexible prices can reproduce the labor market effects we document empirically once we allow for imperfect mobility of labor, gross substitutability between home- and foreign-produced traded goods, and factor-biased technological change. When calibrating the model to country-specific data, its ability to account for the cross-country reallocation and redistributive effects we estimate increases once we let factor-biased technological change vary between sectors and across countries. [less ▲]

Contribution fiscale des entreprises au Mali : étude sur données individuelles

in Mondes en Développement (2021), 195(3), 75-94

This paper analyzes the tax burden borne by a large number of Malian companies (3,474) representing the totality of the formal sector of this country. By exploiting individual firm data collected from ... [more ▼]

This paper analyzes the tax burden borne by a large number of Malian companies (3,474) representing the totality of the formal sector of this country. By exploiting individual firm data collected from financial statements and balance sheets, we highlight the determinants of effective tax rates, such as firms’ size, industry, location, and other corporate attributes. We show that larger firms do benefit from lower effective tax rates, and this result is robust to various proxies of size and is even reinforced for profit-making firms. [less ▲]

Corruption and tax compliance: evidence from small retailers in Bamako, Mali

in Applied Economics Letters (2020), 27(5), 366-370

We investigate the impact of corruption on tax compliance using a sample of 700 small business in Bamako, Mali. The main contribution of this paper is to focus on micro-enterprises (including semi-formal ... [more ▼]

We investigate the impact of corruption on tax compliance using a sample of 700 small business in Bamako, Mali. The main contribution of this paper is to focus on micro-enterprises (including semi-formal and informal ones), while existing works concentrate on large and formal firms. Our results show that (i) even very small firms pay taxes (two-thirds of firms pay taxes in our sample); and, (ii) paying bribes reduces significantly tax compliance. This latter finding is robust (i) to the addition of a set of control variables accounting for other determinants, (ii) to treatment for endogeneity, and (iii) the use of a different proxy for tax compliance. [less ▲]

Profit taxation and royalties: evidence from gold mines in Sub-Saharan Africa

E-print/Working paper (2019)

In this paper, we analyze theoretically and empirically the effects of tax changes on firms’ profits in extractive industries. In the theoretical part, we assume a country that levies a profit tax and a ... [more ▼]

In this paper, we analyze theoretically and empirically the effects of tax changes on firms’ profits in extractive industries. In the theoretical part, we assume a country that levies a profit tax and a royalty on the profits of extractive firms to maximize its tax revenues. The mining companies may reduce their taxable income by cost manipulation. By analyzing the optimal choice of the government and of the firms, we first establish the optimal tax policy and then we investigate the impact of the optimal fiscal policy on firms’ profits. In the empirical part of the paper, we estimate the effect of the profit tax and royalty on the extracting firms’ profit in African countries during the period spanning from 2007 to 2018. We use the Mining Intelligence database to constitute a panel of annual individual data from a database of 363 gold mines located in 21 Sub-Saharan countries. We obtain an inverse relationship between the tax rate change of the two tax instruments and the profit of the firms. [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 ▲]

Corruption and tax compliance: Evidence from small retailers in Bamako, Mali

E-print/Working paper (2018)

We investigate the impact of corruption on tax compliance using a sample of 700 small business in Bamako, Mali. Our results show that paying bribes reduced tax compliance by almost ten percentage points.

Tax Mobilization in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Impact of Tax and Business Law Reforms

in Economics Bulletin (2016), 36(3), 1805-1810

This paper contributes to measuring the influence of business (and tax) law reforms on sub-Saharan African countries tax mobilization ability. Relying on a new business law reform indicator, our results ... [more ▼]

This paper contributes to measuring the influence of business (and tax) law reforms on sub-Saharan African countries tax mobilization ability. Relying on a new business law reform indicator, our results validate the significant impact of corporate law modernization on governmental revenue, and unearth a complementary effect between business and tax law reforms. [less ▲]

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

Scientific Conference (2014, November)

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

Presentation (2014, June 16)