IDEI Newsletter April 2004

La version française de la “newsletter” est disponible auprès de Catherine Portier, cportier@cict.fr.

The news below represent a small sample of the activities of the IDEI researchers. If you like more information, see IDEI Website at http://www.idei.asso.fr.

Dear Friends of IDEI,

The beginning of the year has been eventful for French research. A vast protest movement has developed, focused on a demand for more resources, in particular more jobs for young researchers. As you can imagine, the halls of the Institute have been filled with discussions of the issues raised by this movement. One of the two missions of the IDEI is to develop world-class research in the French academic environment, and, as individuals, its members participate in the debates that affect it. Institutionally, this translates, among other things, into research on the economics of research and higher education area; for instance, on January, the Institute constituted a conference on the Organization and Effectiveness of Research and Higher Education.

Or course, the Institute is totally neutral politically, and has no official position on research policy (or on any other matter). Not only it does not have an official position, but its members, although they share common objectives and generally agree on the diagnosis, have very different opinions about the sequencing of reforms. For instance, they disagree strongly about the way the “Aggrégation” de Sciences Économiques, the competitive exam which is the most prestigious way to become a full professor in economics in France, is currently organized. Some of us have signed the petition “Sauvons la Recherche”; others have not done so.

On the other hand, we are all committed to the idea that fundamental research, applied research, transfer of technology and teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels are activities that enrich each other. Some of the most important contributions to economic theory developed by members of the Institute have been inspired by the problems facing our partners. Our doctoral program, whose graduates are increasingly found on the faculty of the best economic departments, has benefited from our focus on high-quality research. The challenge for the French academic system, as for academic systems, is to find a way to exploit the synergies between these activities. My own personal opinion is that this will require some fundamental structural changes.

Jacques Crémer

Director, Institut D’Économie Industrielle.

IDEI News (January to March)

events

· Bernard Belloc attended a meeting organized by the French Conference of University Presidents, the Conference of Belgian Rectors, and the European Commission in Brussels on January 15. He presented a paper on the role of universities in the building of the European higher education and research area.

· Jean-Paul Azam attended the “Pro-Poor Growth” project coordinated by the World Bank, in Senegal from January 18 to 28.

· Patrick Rey presented “Resale Price Maintenance and Horizontal Cartel” at the Portuguese Regulation Authority in Lisbon on January 26.

· Pierre Dubois presented “Effects on School Enrollment and Performance of a Conditional Transfers Program in Mexico” at Getulio Vargas Foundation in Rio of Janeiro on February 6.

· Philippe de Donder presented “Political Sustainability and the Design of Environmental Taxation” and “Environmental Taxation with Policy-Motivated Parties” at Yale University on February 16 and 18.

· Kathy Bayliss (University of British Columbia), Gordon Rausser and Leo Simon (University of Berkeley) presented their research project on Political Economy of Agri-Environmental Programs in the United States and European Union on February 23.

· Jean Tirole visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from March 1 to 5.

· Jacques Crémer presented “Rental of a Duration Good” (written with Cyril Hariton) at the Economics, Networks and Security Seminar Series in Cambridge on March 8.

· Jacques Crémer presented “Codes in Organizations” (written with Luis Garicano and Andrea Pratt) at Cambridge University on March 9.

· Christian Gollier presented “Economic risks and insurance” at “Science en fête” in Toulouse on March 11.

· Jacques Crémer, Anna Creti, Philippe de Donder, Cyril Hariton and Bertrand Villeneuve participated in the Conference THOR organized at the Stade de France by the “Direction de la Recherche” of Gaz de France on March 19.

Awards

· Jacques Crémer has been named at the Research Scientific Committee of the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Toulouse (Toulouse Business School).

· Marc Ivaldi, Patrick Rey and Paul Seabright are members of the Economic Advisory Group on Competition Policy chaired by Lars-Erik Roeller, Chief Economist at DG Competition of the European Commission.

· Patrick Rey is a member of the Steering Committee of the Association for Competition Economics and will be the programme chairman of the next annual meeting that will be organized over next Fall.

· Jean Tirole received the CNRS Silver Medal in Paris on March 25.

· Patrick Rey has been elected as professor at l’Ecole Polytechnique: he is the vice-chairman of the Economics Department over the academic year.

· Jean-Charles Rochet is a member of the Scientific Committee for the Congress of the European Financial Management Association that will be organized in Basle over next summer.

media

· Guido Friebel, Marc Ivaldi and Catherine Vibes were named in the weekly magazine L’Expansion on January 12 for their studies on railway transport.

· « Il y a plusieurs justes prix », (There are several fair prices), by Jean-Charles Rochet, L’Expansion, n° 682.

· « L’assurance-maladie face au marché », (Health insurance and the market), by Helmuth Cremer and Pierre Pestieau, Les Echos, February 27.

· «La face cachée de la techno», (The hidden side of the techno), by Jacques Crémer, L’Expansion n°683.

· Bernard Belloc attended a roundtable on « The Research at University » at France Culture on March 16.

· «Bruxelles nous veut du bien », (Brussels cares for us), by Marc Ivaldi, L’Expansion n°684.

· Le Monde published an article on the IDEI entitled «La Poste, EDF ou Microsoft font les beaux jours d’un prestigieux Institut d’économie, à Toulouse » (A famous Institute of Economics in Toulouse benefits from The French Post, EDF and Microsoft) on March 10.

Visitors

· Alejandro Manelli, professor at Arizona State University, is visiting IDEI for this academic year.

· Yossi Spiegel, professor at Tel Aviv University, visited the Institute from January 16 to 30.

Conferences organized at the Institute

Three conferences were held at the Institute during the winter; details on all three of them can be found on the Institute’s web site:

· Conference on Competition and Coordination in the Electricity Market, organized by Claude Crampes and Jean Tirole on January 16 and 17.

· Conference on the Economics of Two-Sided Markets, organized by Jean-Charles Rochet and Jean Tirole on January 23 and 24.

· Conference on the Organization and Effectiveness of Research and Higher Education, organized by Guido Friebel, Mathias Dewatripont (Free University of Brussels) and Reinhilde Veugelers (Catholic University of Leuven) on January 30 and 31.

Future Events

· June 1-2 Fifth Toulouse Conference on Environment and Resource Economics: Advances in Economics and Biology.

· June 4-5 Sixth INRA-IDEI Conference on Industrial Organization and the Food-Processing Industry.

· June 7-9 Second Toulouse Lectures in Economics, Eric Maskin, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. The title of these second lectures is “Bargaining, Coalitions and Externalities”.

· September 15-16 Sixth Workshop on Macroeconomics.

· October 1-2 Conference on the Regulation of Media Markets.

Working Papers

Copies of all working papers can be found on the web site of the Institute.

More Applied Papers

· Encroached Entitlements: Corruption and Appropriation of Irrigation Water in Southern Punjab (Pakistan), by Jean-Paul Azam and Jean-Daniel Rinaudo.

· Flexible versus Designated Technologies and Inter-Fuel Substitution, by Alain Bousquet and Norbert Ladoux.

· Plafond de concentration en carbone et substitutions entre ressources énergétiques, (Carbone concentration ceiling and energy resource subsitution), by Bertrand Magné, Ujjayant Chakravorty and Michel Moreaux.

· Why are European Countries Diverging in their Unemployment Experience? , by Gilles Saint-Paul.

· Did European Labor Markets Become More Competitive in the 1990s? Evidence from Estimated Worker Rents, by Gilles Saint-Paul.

· Do Models with Exogenous Money Supply Produce a Taylor Rule like Behavior?, by Stéphane Auray and Patrick Fève.

· Liquidity and the Costs of Funds in the European Treasury Bills Market, by Bruno Biais, Antoine Renucci and Gilles Saint-Paul.

More Technical Papers

· Judgmental Overconfidence, Self-Monitoring and Trading Performance in an Experimental Financial Market, by Bruno Biais, Dennis Hilton, Karine Mazurier and Sébastien Pouget.

· Funding Research and Educating People in a Growth Model with Increasing People, by André Grimaud and Frédéric Tournemaine.

· A Minimum of Rivalry: Evidence from Transition Economies on the Importance of Rivalry for Innovation and Growth, by W. Carlin, M. Schaffer and Paul Seabright.

· Optimal Decision Thinking and Decisions under Risk, by Christian Gollier.

· Continuous Preferences can cause Discontinuous Choices: an Application to the Impact of Incentives on Altruism, by Paul Seabright.

· The Political Economy of Merchants Guilds: Commitment or Collusion?, by Roberta Dessi and Sheilagh Ogilvie.

· Environmental Risk Regulation and Liability under Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard, by Yolande Hiriart and David Martimort.

· Social Value of Innovations, Distortions and R&D Investment: First Best versus Second Best Equilibria in Growth Models, by André Grimaud and Frédéric Tournemaine.

· Signaling and the Delegated Management for Public Utilities, by David Martimort and Wilfried Sand-Zantman.

· Communication by Interest Groups and the Organization of Lobbying, by David Martimort and Aggei Semenov.

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