Publications

How modern agriculture should be more environmental sensitive? This question has raised extensive debate among scholars. Reducing the negative agricultural footprint on the environment has been vital for policy-makers. The European Union (EU), by means of the 2013 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), have introduced a new component called green payment with the objective to improve environmental performance of European farms. Fierce debates have taken place among scholars about its effects on the environment. This study intends to bring some clarity to the matter by analysing the effect of green payments' crop diversity criterion on farms' economic, environmental and land use conditions. Using a difference in discontinuity design with French FADN data, the results show significant negative significant effect on economic condition. Our study goes a step further by showing that potential better environmental and land use results and no detrimental income effect could have been obtained with better targeting.

Keywords: Green Payments, Crop Diversification, Difference in discontinuity, Windfall Effect, France. 

The agricultural detrimental effects on the environment are a source of concerns. Public measures, such as Agri-environmental schemes (AESs), have been designed to incentivize farmers to adopt more sound environmental practices on the farm. In this study, we examine the effects of past initial economic and environmental performances on AESs adoption. Using the Firth’s logistic regression to address small sample bias with French FADN data from 1997 to 2007, we  mainly find that Technical Efficiency have heterogeneous effects on AES adoption, depending on environmental indexes. This result suggest a presence of windfall effects. We also show a trade-off and synergy between economic and environmental performances in adoption decisions, and heterogeneous effect depending on the type of farming (TF).

Keywords: Technical Efficiency, Environmental indexes, Agri-Environmental Schemes, Firth's penalization, Windfall Effects, France. 

This paper proposes a theoretical model of voluntary intermunicipal cooperation and empirically tests its assertions through the French municipalities choices of transferring their competences to the intermunicipal level. Using an original threshold models inference procedure, a probit model is estimated on shared competences. Two main results arise. Contrary to the decentralisation theorem prediction, citizens' preference heterogeneity does not hinder local cooperation, but fiscal potential heterogeneity does. Moreover, a zoo effect is at stake for some competences, for which a significant threshold effect in their transfer probability is identified.

 JEL codes: H1, R5, H4, H73, H77.

Keywords: intermunicipal cooperation, decentralisation theorem, economies of scale, zoo effect, threshold regression model.

Payments for Environmental or Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes have become a popular tool to address environmental degradation and to promote sustainable management of ecosystem services. Our meta-analysis is the first to analyse the impact of the characteristics of PES-schemes on both their effectiveness, in terms of the probability to increase ES provision, and their efficiency, considering the level of additionality. We use meta-regression analysis on a sample of 114 individual studies that investigate the determinants of the performance of about 150 PES-schemes implemented worldwide. We find that increased effectiveness of PES schemes is strongly associated with periodical third-party monitoring, as well as generic reference design and targeted eligibility to a lesser extent. Cash payments and private buyers are associated with higher additionality whereas periodical monitoring is associated with lower additionality. Result-based payments however are found to be associated neither with higher effectiveness nor with higher efficiency. These results are relevant for policy makers seeking for improving the design of PES schemes to promote environmentally-friendly practices. 

Keywords: Payments for Environmental Services (PES), additionality, enrolment, meta-analysis, effectiveness, efficiency, policy design.

Ecological farming, such as organic and low-input farming, is gaining popularity in the public discourse. One question is how this type of farming may impact farm labour from a socio-economic point of view. The article first discusses how low-input farming practices (i.e. with lower reliance on inputs derived from fossil fuels) may affect the economic returns to labour, measured as the farm’s revenue per hour of labour input, on data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) in 2004--2015 for four European countries. Returns to labour appear to be highest at the two extremes – very low-input farms and highly intensive farms. Farms in the low-input end of the spectrum are in the minority, while the overwhelming majority of farms are intensive and have internal economic incentives to intensify further. The article also analyses how working conditions differ between organic and conventional dairy farms in two European countries based on interviews with farmers in 2019. Results show that all dimensions of working conditions are affected by being an organic farm or not, but this is not the only factor. There are many influences on working conditions, such as the production context and workforce composition. 

This paper uses a quasi-experimental approach to test the effect of the french LEADER programme on rural development. Its main contribution is to investigate the contribution of the LEADER programme to the attractiveness of treated municipalities and Its main contribution is to empirically address the role of governance design  on the effectiveness of rural development policies. While our results suggest that the LEADER programme succeeds in playing the role of project activator by fostering the local dynamics and cooperation among local actorsa positive effect of LEADER on residential attractiveness, we do not find any net additional  effect of LEADER compared to non-LEADER approach in terms of economic and residential attractiveness., except a stronger local dynamism.

Keywords:  Place-based policies, LEADER Programme, Rural development, Propensity Score Matching, quasi-experimental design. 

This paper examines empirically the economic relationship between local labour market size and firm returns to training. Anchoring in the literature of micro-foundation of agglomeration economies, we suspect that this relation is driven by two mechanisms: (i) labour pooling which should positively influence the returns to training through matching and learning effects, (ii) the risk of labour poaching, which tends to reduce the returns to training in larger labour markets. Our estimates, based on a large sample of French industrial firms, reveal that returns to training are increasing with the labour market size, suggesting that labour pooling dominate labour poaching effects. On average, returns to training lie between 6.7 and 7.7%, more in line with the microeconomic literature on education than previous studies focusing on training. 

JEL codes: J24; L25; M53, R12. 

Keywords: Training; Local labor markets; Agglomeration economies; Firm productivity; France.

Ecological farming, such as organic and low-input farming, is gaining popularity in the public discourse. One question is how this type of farming may impact farm labour from a socio-economic point of view. The article first discusses how low-input farming practices (i.e. with lower reliance on inputs derived from fossil fuels) may affect the economic returns to labour, measured as the farm’s revenue per hour of labour input, on data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) in 2004--2015 for four European countries. Returns to labour appear to be highest at the two extremes – very low-input farms and highly intensive farms. Farms in the low-input end of the spectrum are in the minority, while the overwhelming majority of farms are intensive and have internal economic incentives to intensify further. The article also analyses how working conditions differ between organic and conventional dairy farms in two European countries based on interviews with farmers in 2019. Results show that all dimensions of working conditions are affected by being an organic farm or not, but this is not the only factor. There are many influences on working conditions, such as the production context and workforce composition. 

De nombreuses politiques économiques visent à réduire les disparités de développement entre zones géographiques. Depuis les années 2000, la politique agricole commune est devenue une des composantes majeures de la politique de développement rural, mais peu de travaux ont été consacrés à l’évaluation de ses effets sur l’attractivité des territoires ruraux. Cette contribution présente les résultats d’une évaluation des effets propres des mesures européennes de développement rural appliquées en France sur la période 2007-2013 sur l’attractivité économique et résidentielle des communes bénéficiaires. Les effets des projets sont estimés à l’aide de la méthode des doubles différences avec appariement sur le score de propension. L’évaluation met en évidence des effets peu marqués l’attractivité résidentielle. En revanche, nous identifions des effets positifs sur les emplois présentiels liés aux services de proximité, avec environ 80 000 emplois créés, pour un coût de 18K€ par emploi, plus faible que celui des politiques comparables.

Code JEL: J11, J68, H11, H42, R12, R53, R58.

Mots clés: Second pilier de la PAC, développement rural, évaluation d’impacts, score de propension.

According to the European Environmental Agency, “European citizens often breathe air that does not meet European standards” (EEA, 2014). Indeed, air pollution is the main environmental risk factor of premature deaths: 430 000 premature deaths in EU-28 in 2011 are attributable to a long-term exposure to excessive levels of fine particulate matter and 16 100 to short term exposure to ozone (EEA, 2014). Besides its impact on health, air pollution also affects cognitive abilities (Ebenstein et al., 2016) and worker productivity (Graff Zivin and Neidell, 2011). Furthermore, it impairs vegetation growth hence agricultural production (Wilkinson et al., 2012) and ecosystem health (Ochoa-Hueso et al., 2017). In this paper, we present a survey of the effects of several public policies which aim to regulate urban traffic related pollution. We rely on references that developed counterfactual estimation method. This note is divided into three parts. We present the different policies aimed at regulating traffic pollution, and discuss policy assessments of speed limit restrictions, driving bans, low emission zones and urban tolls. Finally, we conclude on the limitations of the existing literature for helping public decision-makers and the role that these decision-makers should play in evaluating future policies.

This paper analyzes the relationships between the degree of decentralization of a public policy and the emergence of horizontal strategic interactions. The Structural Fund allocation process is investigated by determining how the governance structure of the Cohesion Policy affects the development of strategic spatial interactions between regional governments. A political agency model was developed. The main proposition is that the appearance of spatial interactions increases with the degree of policy decentralization. From the empirical analysis, this theoretical proposition is confirmed by showing that spatial interactions are more intense when the policy governance is decentralized.

KEYWORDS:  intergovernmental grant allocation, intensity of the yardstick competition, European Union, political agency, information acquisition, spatial econometrics.

JEL: D8, D72, H76, R58

We use the Bosnian Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) survey to show that conflict-induced displacement of agricultural households dramatically affects the adoption of new technologies in agriculture. We exploit the heterogeneity in the level of violence in the pre-war location to account for selection bias. This natural experiment seems to be a source of exogenous variation in our case because violence aims at ethnic cleansing, without economic consideration. We find that the displaced are less likely than stayers to adopt fertiliser and pesticide.

Cet article examine les effets par domaine d’intervention de la politique régionale européenne sur le taux de croissance du Pib et de l’emploi, pour la période 2000-2006. Nous estimons des fonctions de réponse à l’intensité des transferts par domaine d’intervention (environnement productif, infrastructures, ressources humaines) en utilisant une approche par le score de propension généralisé. Nous mettons en évidence que les montants totaux des fonds ont des effets positifs et significatifs sur le taux de croissance annuel moyen du Pib mais non significatifs sur le taux de croissance de l’emploi. Nous montrons un effet significatif et positif des transferts dans le domaine des infrastructures à la fois sur le taux de croissance du Pib et dans une moindre mesure sur celui de l’emploi. Les montants employés pour développer l’environnement productif des entreprises affectent le taux de croissance du Pib mais pas l’emploi, tandis que les montants affectés à l’amélioration du capital humain n’ont pas d’effet significatif.

JEL : C14, C21, R11

Échelon incontournable de la gouvernance territoriale en Europe, l'intercommunalité offre aux communes la possibilité d'exercer et de financer collectivement certaines compétences. En application du théorème de la décentralisation, le choix opéré par les communes de transférer certaines compétences au niveau intercommunal reposerait sur un arbitrage entre économies de taille et coût de l'hétérogénéité spatiale des préférences des citoyens. Afin de tester empiriquement cette assertion, un modèle probit est estimé sur les intercommunalités à fiscalité propre françaises pour 10 compétences différentes. Quatre principaux résultats sont mis en évidence : (i) l'hétérogénéité des préférences des citoyens freine le transfert de compétences depuis les communes vers le niveau intercommunal ; (ii) les économies de taille et le besoin de coordination des choix publics locaux prédestinent certaines compétences à être exercées au niveau intercommunal ; (iii) les intercommunalités composées de petites communes affichent une probabilité plus élevée de se voir confier certaines compétences ; (iv) le choix de transférer une compétence au niveau intercommunal est influencé par celui des intercommunalités voisines. 

JEL: C25, H11, H41

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This paper shows that the interregional hosting policy in the Massif Central (France) does modify the demographic pattern and favors business creation, but only in some parts of the area. The assessment is based on the combination of two impact analyses, one performed at the aggregated departmental level, and the other at the municipality level. The econometric results are built upon using a qualitative approach on a small sample of local territories. ?The combination of analysis methods and scales enables us to minimize biases due to spatial spillovers and shows the relevance of analyzing a local policy that mobilizes several funding schemes on different geographical scales? 

Depuis plusieurs décennies, l’Europe cherche à réduire les disparités de développement de ses régions. Cette politique, dite de cohésion, mobilise une  part  croissante  du  budget  européen.  Elle  repose  sur  un  co-financement  des  Etats Membres des projets qu’elle soutient au niveau régional. De plus, avec les élargissements successifs de l’Europe, les régions qu’elle cible évoluent, suscitant  un  effet  de  redistribution.  Or,  quelles  que  soient  les  méthodes  utilisées  et les  périodes  étudiées,  les  évaluations  successives  ne  mettent  en  évidence,  au mieux, qu’un effet modeste de la politique de cohésion sur le  rattrapage  de croissance des régions les plus pauvres d’Europe.  Dans  cet  article,  nous  nous intéressons  au  programme  dit  « Objectif  1 »  de  la  politique  de  cohésion,  qui aide les régions les plus pauvres, et attribue des co-financements sur un critère de  niveau  de  richesse.  Elle favorise l’investissement et a pour objectif d’accélérer leur  croissance pour permettre  aux régions  les plus pauvres de  rattraper le  niveau  de  richesse  moyen.  Nous  mesurons l’effet de ce programme sur la distribution  des  taux  de  croissance  et  de  l’investissement par habitant des  régions  bénéficiaires.  Nous  montrons  que  les  régions  à  fort  potentiel  de  croissance (celles qui auraient connu la plus forte croissance en l’absence de politique) ont bénéficié d’un gain de croissance de l’ordre de 0.6%. A contrario, les régions à faible potentiel de croissance n’ont pas bénéficié significativement de la politique mise en place. 

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Fostering the development of European regions: a spatial dynamic panel data analysis of the impact of cohesion policy, Regional Studies. This paper uses a conditional–convergence econometric model to investigate whether cohesion policy affects European economies. Its main contribution is to consider both spatial and temporal dynamics in assessing the impact of European cohesion policy. Econometric estimations rely on a dataset of 143 EU-14-NUTS-1/NUTS-2 regions from 1980 to 2005. The results suggest that Objective 1 programmes have a direct effect on regional gross domestic product per capita growth rates, whereas total Structural Funds do not. Moreover, consideration of the spatial dimension of the panel brings to light a still significant, but less important, impact of Structural Funds.

Keywords:Dynamic panels, Generalized method of moments (GMM), Regional convergence, Spatial dependence, Structural Funds

JEL: C21, C23, R11, R15

While estimation methods for dynamic panel data and spatial econometric models are standard in economic literature, there has been a relatively recent development in methods which include spatial considerations in dynamic panel data models. This paper proposes two estimation strategies for spatial dynamic panel data models using the generalized method of moments (GMM). The first is to extend the moment restrictions of Arellano and Bond's estimator to a spatial autoregressive dynamic panel. The second allows for spatial dependence in the error process. The empirical application focuses on European regional growth over a 25-year period. We find empirical evidence of conditional convergence, which is significantly affected by spatial disparities.

Keywords: Spatial econometrics, dynamic panel model, GMM, regional convergence

JEL : C21,C23,O52,R11

We extend the literature on Cohesion Policy effectiveness by considering how the cohesion policy affects both within regional disparities and economic growth. For that purpose, a panel database of 205 NUTS2 regions of the UE-25 for 2000-2014 is used. We estimate panel data regressions with fixed effects and a spatial autoregressive term in order to control for unobservable characteristics and spatial dependence. Our results emphasize a trade-off between within and between regional disparities for EU-25 regions over the 2000-2014 period.

This chapter explores the role of strategic interactions that affect the spatial allocation of structural funds in the European Union. More specifically, this chapter seeks to test if the interactions between government decisions are strategic substitutes or complements in the context of the European structural funds allocation. First, we present a theoretical model which depicts how the strategic interactions could affect the allocation of public grants in a bargaining process. Then, we test the direction of strategic interaction on the allocation of structural funds for the 2000–2006 programming period using spatial econometric techniques. We find a negative spatial interaction between European funds allocated to a region and the funds received by its neighborhood. Our results suggest strategic substitutability in the lobbying effort of regions to attract European funds.

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