Es posible identificar una importante dinámica de crecimiento y diversificación de experiencias de economía solidaria en los últimos diez años, unido a una creciente actuación de organizaciones gubernamentales y no gubernamentales para la promoción y apoyo de las mismas y a una amplia construcción teórica sobre el asunto Esta tesis analiza los procesos de articulación, organización y movilización de la red de actores y organizaciones de la economía solidaria constituidas en el Estado de Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil, buscando entender en qué medida éstas son generadoras de espacios públicos autónomos, capaces de recrear nuevos espacios de relaciones sociales y económicas y de producir transformaciones más amplias, en diferentes esferas (cultural, social, económica, política) y niveles (local, regional, nacional). Se entiende que, en Brasil, las organizaciones y actores de la economía solidaria desarrollan, por un lado, una acción de crítica pautada en un discurso movilizador orientado a la transformación social y, de otro, una acción de legitimación e institucionalización orientada a la participación en los procesos decisorios y de representación política. El análisis retoma las lógicas de acción que se desprenden de esas relacionas y de los discursos construidos por los actores sociales. El trabajo permite identificar un conjunto de contradicciones y desafíos colocados para la economía solidaria hoy, en tanto que espacio de acción colectiva integrada en los procesos de construcción y ampliación de la democracia, en que no es más posible disociar lo social, lo político y lo económico. / Une importante dynamique de croissance et diversification d’expériences d’économie solidaire se développe dans les dix dernières années, en rapport avec l’action d’organisations gouvernementales et non gouvernementales qui les soutiennent et avec une large construction théorique sur le sujet. Cette thèse fait l’analyse des processus d’articulation, organisation et mobilisation du réseau d’acteurs et organisations de l’économie solidaire constituées dans l’État du Rio Grande do Sul, Brésil, tout en cherchant de comprendre dans quelle mesure ceux-ci permettent de développer des espaces publiques autonomes, capables de renouveler des espaces des relations sociales et économiques et de produire transformations plus larges , dans des différents sphères (culturel, social, économique, politique) et niveaux (local, régional, national). Au Brésil, les organisations et acteurs de l’économie solidaire développent, au même temps, une action de critique basée dans un discours mobilisateur orienté vers la transformation sociale et, d’autre, une action de légitimation et institutionnalisation orientée vers la participation aux processus de décision et de représentation politique. L’analyse reprend les logiques d’action et les discours construits par les acteurs sociaux. Le travail permet d’identifier un ensemble de contradictions et défis pour l’économie solidaire aujourd’hui, en tant que espace d’action collective intégrée aux processus de construction et ampliation de la démocratie, dans lequel il n’est plus possible de dissocier le social, le politique et l’économique.

In this thesis, I analyze the impacts of the design and implementation of different environmental policy tools from a theoretical and empirical perspective: certificates providing information on the energy performance of buildings (chapter 1); urban road pricing schemes such as congestion charges (chapter 2); quantity-based policy tools to support production with non-polluting technologies (chapter 3).In chapter 1, co-authored with Luisa Dressler, we study how energy performance certificates (EPCs) impact the residential rental market. These certificates can help solve information asymmetries between landlords and tenants about the thermal quality of dwellings for rent, which, in turn, is expected to facilitate investment aimed at improving dwellings' energy performance. However, disclosure of EPCs is often incomplete, which hampers their effectiveness in relieving such information asymmetries. Moreover, even when a certificate is available, landlords do not always disclose it. This contradicts the so-called information unraveling result, according to which all landlords should disclose quality information unless it is costly to do so: in such a setting, information eventually unravels. Using a cross-sectional dataset of residential rental advertisements from the Belgian region of Brussels, we empirically evaluate incentives to disclose energy performance ratings. We find that two fundamental assumptions underlying the unraveling result are not confirmed in our setting: firstly, tenants value energy performance of rental property only when dwellings are of very high quality; secondly, tenants do not appear to rationally adjust their expectations when faced with dwellings that withhold their energy performance rating. Finally, we formulate specific policy advice for reforming EPC mechanisms to increase disclosure rates.In chapter 2, I study how urban congestion pricing impacts the use of sustainable mobility options such as bike sharing, presenting evidence from the city of Milan, Italy.As concern for air pollution grows in cities across the world, policies such as urban road pricing are rolled out to induce urban residents to opt for greener transport options. While several papers have analyzed the impact of urban road pricing on air pollution and on car use, this is the first analysis of its impact on sustainable travel behaviors, such as the use of bike sharing.I extend a stylized theoretical model of travel behavior to formalize the drivers of bike-sharing demand. Then, I exploit a panel dataset covering all bike-sharing trips carried out over an 8-year period in the city of Milan to estimate the impact of congestion pricing on bike-sharing use. The empirical strategy I employ in this study is based on the sudden suspension and reintroduction of congestion pricing, which generate a quasi-experimental setting. Adopting an event study approach, I find that suspending the congestion charge reduces daily bike-sharing traffic by about 5% in the short run. I show that, in Milan, congestion pricing mainly impacts bike-sharing use through the reduction of road traffic congestion, which makes cycling safer and more pleasant. The direct effect of the increased relative cost of car use is secondary in individual decisions to use bike-sharing. The role of these effects is likely to be context-specific, as they may be affected by the baseline level of urban congestion, the broader policy mix affecting the cost of driving and the specific design of the congestion pricing scheme.In chapter 3, co-authored with Renaud Foucart, we study the impact of different quantity-based tools that governments can use to support the production of homogeneous goods through clean rather than polluting inputs in a setting where production costs are uncertain.In recent years, many sectors have been disrupted by clean innovation, as clean inputs have emerged as close substitutes of polluting ones: for example, in the power sector renewable energy sources are increasingly used for electricity generation instead of fossil fuels. Whenever the negative externalities caused by polluting incumbent technologies are not internalized in production costs, emerging clean technologies are left at a disadvantage. For this reason, governments may want to design policy support schemes for emerging clean technologies.We develop a theoretical framework in which well-established polluting technologies entail known production and pollution costs, while using emerging green technologies requires higher, steeper and uncertain production costs. In this context, a government chooses between a range of quantity-based instruments to support the deployment of clean technologies based on cost estimates, as costs of production with green inputs are uncertain.We show that a cap on production with polluting inputs is the least distortionary among quantity instruments; next is a mandatory share of production with green inputs out of total production. Setting a policy objective in terms of a precise level of green inputs for production is the least efficient policy approach. This ranking results from the so-called “technology effect”, which determines the extent to which the market corrects cost estimation errors after real costs are observed. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Thesis (doctoral)--Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-249).

Traditional economic theory assumes that individuals are self-interested. They only care about their own well-being and disregard the impact of their actions on the others. However, the assumption of selfish individuals is unable to explain a number of important phenomena and puzzles. Individuals frequently engage in actions that are costly to themselves with no<p>apparent reward. Behavioural economics provides plausible explanations for these actions.<p>Individuals can be “boundedly rational" (Simon, 1955, and Kahneman et al. 1982) and/or can be driven by altruistic, equity and reciprocity considerations (see for an overview Fehr<p>and Schmidt, 2006). Over the past decade, researchers have applied behavioural economics<p>models to the study of organisations and how contracts should be designed in the presence<p>of non-standard preferences and asymmetric information or incomplete contracts (see for<p>an overview of the literature Köszegi, 2014).<p>In my current research, I try to be at the forefront of these new behavioural economics<p>applications into traditional industrial organisation and contract theory themes. The usual prescriptions of standard models can be misleading if potential differences in the agents' preferences are overlooked. Behavioural economics can make great progress if it takes into proper accountmarket and organisational features. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Traditionally economics is based on very narrow presumptions about human behavior, namely selfishness. In the last 20 years, however, experimental research has accumulated overwhelming evidence that is at odds with these classical assumptions. It has been shown that people very often care about the distributional consequences of their actions and intentions.<p>Against this background, in this thesis the impact of broader models of human behavior on decision making and human interactions is studied, for example the impact of indirect reciprocity on human relationships. If educational expenditures of parents into children depend on grandparents' investments into the parent’s education, then private educational spending is inefficiently low and should be supported by the state. This finding stands in contrast to earlier results that show that parents might invest optimally into the education of their children out of pure altruism or strategic transfer motives.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The thesis brings together three independent essays on the economics of innovation. I analyse the impact of competition on firm-level innovation (chapter 1) and the impact of different types of innovation on firm performance (chapter 2) looking at the top business R&D spenders of the world. I, then, switch my focus on researchers and analyse the determinants of brain drain in Europe (chapter 3).The first chapter is co-authored by Anabela Santos (European Commission) and Michele Cincera (ULB) and aims at assessing the impact of competition on firm-level innovation. The sample is composed of the world top corporate R&D spenders listed in the EU 2017 industrial R&D Scoreboard, and the analysis covers the years spanning from 2007 to 2016. We use an industry-year indicator, the inverse of the Lerner Index, as the indicator of competition for these firms that are leading in innovation efforts in the industries they are operating at the worldwide. R&D expenditures are used as the proxy for innovation. Model is estimated using two-stage least squares, to control for potential endogeneity of the competition indicator. Results confirm the existence of an inverted-U shaped relationship between competition and innovation. Further analysis is undertaken splitting the overall firm sample into services and manufacturing sectors according to technology and knowledge intensities and into the country of headquarters. We validate the inverted-U shaped relationship between competition and innovation for the firms in medium-high- and high-tech manufacturing sectors whereas we do not observe this impact for the firms operating in medium-low- and low-tech manufacturing sectors nor in services sectors. We also find differences in innovation behaviour of firms headquartered in the EU, US, Japan and China. While the inverted-U shaped relationship is highly pronounced for the Chinese firms, we find the U shaped impact of competition on the innovation of the EU and Japanese firms.The second chapter brings together firm-level R&D spending information with patent information, and aims at investigating the impact of different types of patented inventions on firm output growth performance controlling for R&D spending and other firm financials. The firm sample is sourced from the EU 2014 Industrial R&D Scoreboard that brings together the leading private sector R&D investors of the world. The analysis covers the years from 2005 to 2010. I consider forward-looking patent value indicators of breakthrough and general innovation using 7-year citation window, and backward-looking patent value indicators of originality and radicalness in innovation activities. Firm performance is estimated through a Cobb-Douglas production function. I allow for non-linearity in the relationship between innovation strategy and firm performance, and investigate sectoral heterogeneity looking at the impact in health industries and ICT producers. Models are estimated using two-stage least squares and generalised method of moments to control for potential endogeneity of innovation indicators. The findings confirm certain non-linearities and sectoral heterogeneities in the relationships between the different types of innovation and firm performance. ICT producers are growing with breakthrough innovations, generality and novelty in innovation process supporting the general-purpose technology feature of ICT. I, however, do not find a positive impact of technological breakthroughs nor a specific trend of generality and novelty in innovation process on productivity of pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms in the sample.The third chapter is co-authored by Christophe Colassin (ULB) and Michele Cincera (ULB) and aims at analysing the determinants of brain drain in Europe where there exists unbalances and polarisation between the States in terms of attractiveness for researchers despite the common policies and practices put in place by the European Union. The information about the mobility outflows are sourced from Centre for Science and Technology Studies and concern the year 2019. In order to analyse the macroeconomic determinants of mobility of researchers, the chapter brings together information from various data sources that attribute country-level values to the potential determinants of mobility outflows. We use a gravity model framework to detect quantitatively the pull and push factors of researchers' mobility including the 28 EU Member states in the time of analysis, and 3 additional Schengen countries, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland. In addition to the cultural and geographic proximity, we find that a country’s researcher base, entrepreneurial opportunities, knowledge intensity, public R&D spending and international collaborations increase the mobility of researchers within Europe whereas non-academic placements of researchers and the perception of virtual mobility as an alternative decrease the mobility. Researchers from countries with attractive research systems, more innovative private sector and more female researchers are found to be more mobile, whereas, the ones with higher GDP growth rates are less. We find that satisfaction with the recruitment process and the salary levels are decreasing factors for the mobility outflows. Finally, while fixed-term contracts in academia are found to be a factor that decreases the attractiveness; satisfaction with recruitment process, existence of the top R&D spending enterprises in the economy, and the freedom of academic exchange and dissemination are the factors that increases the attractiveness of a country for mobility inflows. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Les choix de localisation des ménages conduisent à divers problèmes tels que la ségrégation entre ménages riches et ménages pauvres et à des inégalités spatiales entre les régions. Cette thèse étudie ces phénomènes à l'aide de modèles théoriques et d'expériences menées en laboratoire. Pour commencer, une expérience dont l’objectif est d’analyser les conditions sous lesquelles est réalisée pour voir sous quelles conditions différentes structures urbaines peuvent être obtenues. En effet, aux Etats-Unis, les riches sont majoritairement en banlieue et les pauvres en centre-ville alors que l'opposé est observé dans les grandes villes européennes. Il apparait que le ratio « coût d'opportunité du temps/la demande de logements » est un facteur essentiel pour expliquer ces types de structure. Ensuite, une étude théorique est menée pour obtenir des structures de villes plus complexes, où les riches et les pauvres sont beaucoup moins en situation de ségrégation. La théorie montre que les politiques publiques peuvent donner des résultats très différents. Puis, nous étudions la répartition du capital humain entre les régions. Dans les pays où elle est inégale, on observe une croissance trop faible dans les régions pauvres et une augmentation des inégalités spatiales. Pour combattre ces inégalités, il est montré qu'il est possible de faire revenir les travailleurs qualifiés dans les régions pauvres car il existe des complémentarités avec les travailleurs non qualifiés. Des études ont montré que ces derniers augmentent la productivité des travailleurs qualifiés. Enfin, une étude expérimentale est faite pour étudier les choix de consommation. Nous testons l’hypothèse de l'existence d'un consommateur représentatif souvent faite en Nouvelle Economie Géographique. Il en ressort que les modèles existant ne prennent pas assez en compte l’hétérogénéité des goûts des consommateurs. / Several problems such as spatial inequalities between regions and spatial segregation within cities arise from households’ location choices. The purpose of this dissertation is to address these problems with theoretical and experimental studies. To begin, a laboratory experiment has been conducted in order to understand under which conditions different urban structures emerge. Indeed, in the U.S., spatial segregation occurs and the richer households are located in the suburbs while the poor ones are located downtown. The opposite pattern is observed in several major European cities. It appears in our study that the ratio ‘transportation costs/demand for land’ is a key factor for explaining these two types of segregation. Then, a theoretical model is used to reproduce several types of urban structures, where poor and rich households are located in the same neighborhoods. The theory predicts that policy interventions can lead to very different outcome. Then, the spatial distribution of human capital among regions is studied. Because skilled workers are mainly attracted toward wealthier regions, economic growth is lower in the poorer regions and spatial inequalities increase. The theoretical model predicts that it is possible to bring back the skilled workers in poor regions because there exists complementarities between skilled and unskilled workers. Indeed, the presence of unskilled workers enhances skilled workers' productivity, making their return more profitable. To finish, a laboratory experiment has been conducted to study consumers' behavior. Because in New Economic Geography models, the existence of a representative consumer is often assumed. The relevance of this hypothesis is tested. It appears that the existing models do not take enough into account heterogeneity in tastes among the consumers.

Ce manuscrit comporte trois essais qui partagent l’objectif commun d’évaluer l’impact de la confiance en soi sur les décisions des agents économiques à l’aide de la méthode expérimentale. Ce travail se concentre sur trois thèmes relatifs à l’économie comportementale du travail : le travail au noir, la recherche d’emploi et le travail en équipe. Le premier chapitre analyse les biais d’optimisme dans le contexte du travail irrégulier. Ce travail fournit une mesure des biais d’optimisme à travers un processus de décision. Les résultats montrent que les modalités d’annonce du contrôle altèrent la perception du risque : la désignation du nombre d’agents aléatoirement contrôlés tend à encourager l’optimisme des fraudeurs. Le second chapitre étudie comment l’incertitude quant à l’habileté et l’estime que les demandeurs d’emploi ont d’eux-mêmes affectent leurs décisions de recherche. Les résultats montrent qu’en moyenne les agents peu habiles ne modifient pas leur salaire de réserve, alors que les sujets très habiles tendent à diminuer leurs exigences salariales et donc à stopper plus rapidement leur recherche. Cependant, les décisions des agents peu habiles ne sont pas homogènes : les agents peu compétents ont des exigences salariales d’autant plus élevées qu’ils ont une haute estime d’eux-mêmes. Le troisième chapitre vise à évaluer dans quelle mesure l’image que les travailleurs ont d’eux-mêmes conditionne leur choix d’effort lorsqu’ils travaillent en groupe. Les résultats montrent que les agents qui sur évaluent (sous-évaluent) leur habileté exercent plus (moins) d’effort que les sujets qui ont une perception correcte de leurs compétences. Les résultats révèlent également que les individus bénéficient de la sur-confiance de leur partenaire, mais pas de leur propre biais, alors que la sous-confiance détériore le bien-être de tous les membres de l’équipe. / This dissertation contains three essays that estimate the effects of self-confidence on economic agents’ decisions. An experimental approach is used for those contributions. This work is interested in three topics concerning behavioral labor economics: moonlighting, job search and teamwork. The first chapter investigates the existence of optimism biases in the context of irregular work. This essay proposes a measure of optimism biases through a decision process. The results show that the way the monitoring policy is announced deeply affects the perception of the risk at stake: the designation of the number of randomly controlled agents tends to foster the cheats’ optimism. The second chapter studies how the uncertainty on ability and self-esteem of job-seekers affect their search behaviors. The results show that on average the low ability agents’ decisions are not affected by the uncertainty about their ability, whereas the high ability agents tend to decrease their reservation wage and thus to stop their search faster. However, the low ability agents’ decisions are not homogeneous: the higher the worker’s self-esteem is, the higher his reservation wage is. The third chapter aims at estimating how workers’ self-image biases affect effort choices and team production. The results show that the workers who overestimate (underestimate) their ability provide higher (lower) effort levels than the unbiased. The results also reveal that the agents benefit from their partner’s confidence, but not from their own bias. Conversely, the presence of underconfident agents in the team damages the welfare of both teammates.

Motivée par la conviction que la science économique et la sociologie doivent se rencontrer, notre recherche a deux objectifs. Elle questionne les filiations théoriques (ou migrations conceptuelles) entre la science économique et la sociologie d’une part ; et à analyser les caractéristiques de ces filiations théoriques d’autre part. Alors que s’accroit le dialogue entre la science économique et la sociologie depuis les années 1960, des filiations théoriques entre les deux disciplines sont-elles possibles ? Et quelles en sont les caractéristiques ? Notre recherche repose sur l’étude d’un cas, celui de la théorie de l’action. Nous abordons plus précisément différents objets de cette vaste théorie : la théorie du choix rationnel, le champ de l’économie des conventions et le concept d’encastrement. L’étude révèle que les filiations théoriques entre la science économique et la sociologie sont possibles, ne sont pas systématiques et peuvent être « imparfaites ». / Motivated by the conviction that economics and sociology must combine, our research has two goals. It questions theoretical filiations (or conceptual migrations) between economics and sociology on the one hand ; and analyzes the characteristics of these theoretical filiations on the other hand. Even though the dialogue between economics and sociology has been improving since the1960s, we question whether theoretical filiations between both disciplines are possible ; as well as the nature of the characteristics ? Our research is based on a case study, the theory of action. More specifically, we discuss different objects of this vast theory: the rational choice theory, the field of économie des conventions and the concept of embeddedness. The study reveals that theoretical filiations between economics and sociology are possible, unsystematic and can be considered as « imperfect ».

The PhD dissertation studies the construction of trade protection in the United States and the European Union. It focuses in particular on measures of contingent protection, comprising anti-dumping duties, countervailing duties and safeguards. The dissertation adopts a constructivist approach based on narrative analysis: broadening the conventional scope of political economy research on trade, the analysis combines the study of narratives with the concept of ‘discourse coalition’. The period under investigation spans over the period 2010-2014, covering the Obama Administration and the mandate of European Commissioner for trade Karel De Gucht. Adopting a comparative approach of the US and EU trade policy, the dissertation provides a detailed analysis of the US administration’s and the European Commission’s discourses on trade protection, and includes an analysis of a large array of other actors’ alternative, or competing constructions of contingent protection. The dissertation demonstrates that a specific type of unilateral enforcement plays an underestimated role in the construction of contingent protection. It also emphasizes that policy actors consider contingent protection as necessary to convince people that the trading system is fair; the research proposes the concept of ‘discursive embedded liberalism’ to account for this specific construction of trade protection. The research underlines elements of continuity and change, showing that many elements of the current crisis within the international trade regime were already in the making in the period under investigation. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished