Le changement climatique et les migrations humaines constituent deux problématiques majeures de notre époque. Et, partant du constat d’une connaissance fragmentée entre maximalistes et minimalistes, qui s’est traduite par une capacité limitée de la recherche scientifique à prendre en compte les interactions complexes entre le climat et les migrations humaines, cette thèse propose, à travers une approche renouvelée (celle de la vulnérabilité du système socio-écologique), une meilleure compréhension et explication des relations climat- migrations. Elle cherche à répondre à deux objectifs. D’une part, produire des connaissances nouvelles en nous appropriant de façon sélective et ordonnée les apports empiriques produits par les approches précédentes. Et, d’autre part, par une analyse instrumentée des interactions mises en évidence, générer des informations chiffrées pertinentes permettant un ciblage plus efficace des politiques. Cette thèse insiste en premier lieu sur une certaine difficulté à mettre en évidence une relation robuste entre changement climatique et migrations à l’échelle Sahélienne. Contrairement aux idées reçues sur l’image type du « migrant/réfugié climatique » sahélien véhiculée par les médias et reprise, sans un recul critique, dans la littérature grise et certaines études scientifiques, la région, souvent vue et analysée comme une entité relativement homogène, présente de fortes hétérogénéités spatiales physico-climatiques, outre celles socio-économiques. Et, ces dernières ne permettent pas une compréhension des migrations, une des expressions des transformations sociétales. Il convient de repenser la problématique sur des échelles plus homogènes (Sénégal des zones agro-écologiques et régions administratives)Nos résultats montrent un effet climatique accélérateur/amplificateur des migrations interrégionales sous-jacent aux conditions de vie des populations. Généralement, le climat ne suffit pas, à lui seul, à « produire » des migrations. Il transite par les variables socio-économiques (vulnérabilité initiale). Ce qui nous a amené à retenir l’appellation de «migrants éco-climatiques ». Ainsi, les politiques devraient aller à la fois vers : (i) des questions de développement en réduisant des vulnérabilités socio-économiques (pauvreté et inégalités) en agissant sur l’environnement d’action et les acteurs respectivement de manière cohérente et extensive ; mais, également, (ii) des questions d’économie du climat par la réduction de la vulnérabilité physico-climatique à travers des politiques d’atténuation et d’adaptation du milieu et des populations face au changement climatique. / Climate change and human migration are two major issues of our time. Starting from the observation of a dichotomous knowledge between maximalists and minimalists, which results in a limited capacity of scientific research to take into account the dynamic and complex interactions between climate and human migrations, this thesis proposes a better understanding and explanation of the climate-migration relations through a renewed and integrative approach (the vulnerability of the socio-ecological system). It aims to fulfill two objectives. On the one hand, to produce new knowledges those take into accounts socio-ecological interactions and feedbacks at different spatial and temporal scales and, on the other hand, to propose a quantified instrumentation of these social-ecological interactions and feedback. This contribution could serve as a starting point for a decision-making tool to evolve towards more targeted and effective policies.This thesis emphasizes a certain difficulty in highlighting a robust relationship between climate change and migration in the Sahel region. This latter, often seen as a relatively homogeneous entity, presents complex socio-economic and physical-climatic spatial heterogeneities that do not allow a stronger understanding of migratory movements which are in change since the 1970s. For this purpose, a reduced complexity model, based both on a partitioning of the study area (Senegal) and a partitioning of data (agro-ecological zones and regions of Senegal), is mobilized as a framework for the analysis of social-ecological migrations in terms of vulnerability induced by climate change. Thus, the innovative heuristic framework built (knowledge model with a sequencing of variables) has made it possible to instrument the climate-migration relationships within Senegal.Our results show an accelerating/amplifying climatic effect of interregional migrations underlying the living conditions of populations. In general, climate alone is not sufficient to "produce" migration. The climatic effects channel through the socio-economic variables (initial vulnerability). Under these results, we retained in fine the name of "eco-climatic migrants". Thus, policies relating to eco-climatic migration in this western part of the Sahel should move towards both: (i) development issues by reducing socio-economic vulnerabilities (poverty and inequality) by acting on the environment and the populations consistently and extensively respectively; and (ii) climate economics issues by reducing the physical-climatic vulnerability through appropriate mitigating and adapting policies to face climate change.

Le vieillissement démographique en France constitue un sujet de préoccupation majeure et fait l'objet de plusieurs recherches du point de vue économique. La plupart des études mettent en évidence les effets négatifs du vieillissement sur l'économie française notamment sur les comptes de la protection sociale et le marché du travail. Récemment une nouvelle littérature relative au vieillissement émerge. Celle-ci cherche à savoir et à montrer en quoi le vieillissement peut être une opportunité pour l'économie. Cette thèse s'inscrit dans cette littérature. Elle cherche à répondre à la question suivante : Est-ce que le vieillissement peut être une opportunité pour l'économie française ? Pour répondre à cette question, la thèse explore les pistes de l'épargne et de la consommation en insistant sur la partie de la consommation. La thèse est articulée en cinq chapitres. Le chapitre 1 décrit les causes du vieillissement démographique en France et dresse un état des lieux des études qui portent sur l'effet de ce phénomène sur l'économie française. Le chapitre 2 analyse l'évolution du revenu, du niveau de consommation et du taux d'épargne au cours du cycle de vie et selon les générations afin d'appréhender l'évolution la consommation et du taux d'épargne agrégés dans une société vieillissante et avec le renouvellement des générations. Ces résultats permettent également de comparer le niveau de vie des classes d'âge et des différentes générations. Le chapitre 3 se focalise sur l'évolution de la structure de consommation selon l'âge, les générations et suite à une modification du revenu du ménage. Le chapitre 4 part du constat de la modification de la structure de consommation au cours du temps, la différence de la structure de consommation entre les ménages d'âge actif et les seniors pour estimer les échelles d'équivalence de 1979 à 2010, des seniors et des ménages d'âge actif. Ces échelles permettent de comparer le niveau de vie des seniors et des ménages d'âge actif en tenant compte des économies d'échelles réalisées au sein des différents ménages. Enfin le chapitre 5 utilise un modèle d'équilibre général pour quantifier l'effet du vieillissement sur la structure de consommation, productive et de l'emploi. / The ageing population in France is a subject of major concern and has been the subject of several studies from the economical perspectives. Most of studies highlight the negative effects of aging on the French economy, particularly on social protection accounts, the labor market. Recently a new literature on ageing emerges. It seeks to know and show how ageing can be an opportunity for the economy. This thesis is part of this literature. It seeks to answer the following question: Is Ageing can be an opportunity for the French economy? To answer to this question, the thesis explores the tracks of savings and consumption insisting on the consumption. The thesis is organized in five chapters. Chapter 1 describes the causes of ageing in France and provides an overview of studies covers the effect of this phenomenon on the French economy. Chapter 2 analyzes the evolution of income, consumption levels, and savings rates over the life cycle and according to the generations, to understand the evolution of aggregate consumption and aggregate savings rate in a society that's facing ageing and the renewal generations. These results also allow us to compare standards of living of age groups and different generations. Chapter 3 focuses on the evolution of consumption structure by age, generations. It provides also information about evolution of consumption structure when the household income changes. Chapter 4 began from the observation of the change in structure consumption over time, the difference in consumption structure between working-age households and seniors to estimate equivalence scales from 1979 to 2010, seniors and working-age households. These scales are used to compare the standards of living of seniors and working-age households, taking into account economies of scale achieved within different households. Finally Chapter 5 uses a general equilibrium model to quantify the effect of aging on the structure of consumption, productive and employment.

El objetivo del presente trabajo es analizar la existencia de trampas de pobreza en Argentina. Para ello se estima la dinámica de ingresos a partir de un pseudo panel construido con información brindada por la Encuesta Permanente de Hogares. Esta metodología permite superar los problemas econométricos que enfrenta la estimación de trampas de pobreza: carencia de un panel para un periodo largo de tiempo, attrition y la presencia de errores no clásicos de medición en los ingresos. Los resultados encontrados descartan la existencia de trampas de pobreza debido a no linealidades en la dinámica de ingresos. / The aim of this paper is to analyze the existence of poverty traps in Argentina. In order to do it so, the income dynamic was estimated by using a pseudo panel built from the Encuesta Permanente de Hogares. This methodology allows to overcome econometric challenges involved in testing for the presence of poverty traps: lack of long duration panels, attrition, and measurement error in income. The results do find no evidence for the existence of poverty traps due to nonlinearities in income dynamics.

Even though unhealthy habits, drinking, smoking and overeating, are among the most expensive burdens for the health system, much research is still needed to understand how individuals form them, how do they correlate between them and what impacts do they have in labor productivity. The first paper in this thesis fills in the gap of un- derstanding whether individuals substitute among habits by exploring the effect that quitting smoking has on obesity. The second paper analyze the impact that the business cycle, that is, unemployment rate and income per capita have on drinking participation and alcohol consumption. To overcome the lack of a true longitudinal panel which would prevent us from obtaining unbiased estimates in these two first papers, we use cohort analysis methodology to control for unobservables, while instrumenting the habit deci- sion and introducing dynamics into the estimation equation. The third paper focuses on the effects of smoking over labor productivity. Here we exploit many outcomes that are potentially correlated with individual labor productivity using a longitudinal panel and instrumenting the smoking decision. The three papers make use of a dataset on US regulations regarding tobacco use, which was self developed from the compilation of the different laws enacted by the states. / Tot i que els hàbits no saludables, com poden ser beure, fumar o menjar en excés, són algunes de les càrregues més cares per al sistema de salut, encara és necessari molt més recerca per entendre com els individus formen els hàbits, com aquestes es correlacionen entre si, i quins efectes tenen per a la productivitat. El primer document busca comprendre si els individus substitueixen uns hàbits per altres, en particular, analitza l'impacte que deixar de fumar té sobre l'obesitat. El segon article analitza l'impacte que té el cicle econòmic, és a dir, la taxa d'atur i l'ingrés per càpita, sobre la decisió de beure i sobre el volum d'alcohol consumit. Per superar la manca d'un veritable panell longitudinal que impedeix obtenir estimacions no esbiaixades, en aquests dos primers articles s'ha utilitzat la metodologia de l'anàlisi de cohortes per a poder controlar d'aquesta manera per a les característiques no observables, en particular les preferencies, al mateix temps que s'ha instrumentat la decisió de l'hàbit i s'ha introduït dinàmica en l'equació d'estimació. El tercer document se centra en els efectes del tabaquisme sobre la productivitat laboral. Aquí s'exploren moltes variables que potencialment estan correlacionades amb la productivitat del treball, utilitzant un panell longitudinal i instrumentant la decisió de fumar. Els tres documents fan servir un conjunt de dades sobre reglaments pel que fa a l'ús del tabac als Estats Units.

As one of the fastest growing regions in the world, crop production and education remain two of the most important topics for the development of sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. This dissertation is composed of three chapters that investigate the economic returns to education (Chapter 1 and 2) and assess the policy influence on fertilizer usage (Chapter 3) in two SSA countries, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. Chapter 1 investigates the casual impact of improved educational attainment on household well-being as reflected by consumption level in Zimbabwe. We use the age-specific exposure to the 1980 education reform as the instrument for the household head educational attainment to identify the economic returns to education. We find that an extra year of household head schooling leads to an 8% increase in per capita household consumption on average when using the multiple rounds of the Income, Consumption and Expenditure Survey (ICES). The impact of enhanced education on household consumption is larger for rural and female-headed households and we also find some evidence that head educational attainment could affect consumption patterns, where additional schooling leads to slightly lower consumption share in food and higher share in non-durable goods. Chapter 2 extends this topic by utilizing a pseudo panel data constructed with multiple waves of repeated cross-sectional data, which allows us to use fixed-effect and other panel data methods to address the problem of unobserved "ability" bias. For pseudo panel, we use age, gender and some other time-persistent criterions to define the cohorts and replace the individual observations with the intra-cohort means. Individual time-invariant factors that influencing both education and consumption are transformed into cohort time-invariant factors, within transformation on the pseudo panel would eliminate such factors leads to achieve unbiased and consistent estimates on the returns to education. We find on average there is a 14% increase in monthly household per capita consumption for each one more year of education for the household head. By further disaggregating our population, we find female-headed households exhibit a return to education of around 15.3%, much higher than its corresponding OLS/IV estimates. On the other hand, we fail to detect such large discrepancy for the male-headed households, suggesting that the overall downward bias of OLS/IV estimates mostly come from female-headed households. Facing significant higher opportunity cost, Zimbabwean females are much less likely to furthering their education when compared to males with similar unobserved ability level which can be one of the major underlying reasons. Chapter 3 investigates the potential effect of fertilizer promotion polices on crop acreage and input intensities in Ethiopia. We use a fully calibrated multi-input and -output model based on the principle of positive mathematical programming (PMP) to assess the policy impact in four major agricultural states in the country. I analyze two policies designed to promote fertilizer use, namely fertilizer import expansion and a universal subsidy program. The results from the simulation model suggest that local farmers actively respond to these promotion policies by adjusting crop acreage and investing more in fertilizer input. However, when the availability of fertilizer in one region is fixed and local farmers face a binding constraint, the behavior responses to the subsidy program alone would be limited. / Doctor of Philosophy / Education and food production are two of the most important issues when we study the development in Sub-Saharan African countries, which are among the fastest developing regions in the world. The dissertation is composed of three manuscripts, aiming to evaluate the economic returns to education and the impact of fertilizer promotion policies in two of the SSA countries, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. Chapter 1 investigates the returns to education as reflected by household consumption and finds significant positive effect of enhanced education on household well-being. We also find such effect is larger for rural and female-headed households which shed light on the policy of more public investment targeting female and rural education in developing countries. Chapter 2 further extends this topic by combining multiple rounds of survey data and finds larger educational effects on household consumption compared to the results in Chapter 1. Female household heads, facing more barriers in attaining higher education, are an important cause of the higher estimates of returns found in this chapter. Chapter 3 investigates how potential fertilizer promotion polices would affect the regional level of choices on crop acreage and fertilizer input intensities in the major agricultural states in Ethiopia. It finds local farmers will actively adjust their land and fertilizer inputs when facing a fertilizer import expansion in combined with a universal fertilizer subsidy program.

Le principal objectif de ce travail de recherche est d'analyser de façon empirique, à l'aide d'une approche nouvelle et robuste, les déterminants de la fréquentation scolaire, le rôle du secteur informel dans l'abandon scolaire, et les liens entre le travail des jeunes et la productivité dans les petites entreprises. Premièrement, nous sommes intéressés à déterminer la magnitude des rendements privés de l'éducation au Venezuela. Pour cela, nous utilisons des données en coupe transversale répétée provenant de l'enquête des ménages. Le désavantage d'utiliser des données de pseudo-panel est la présence élevée d'erreurs de mesure. Nous abordons ce problème à travers l'utilisation de la méthode de variables instrumentales basée sur les moments empiriques d'ordre supérieur à deux. Par la suite, nous cherchons à comprendre les causes de l'abandon scolaire dans l'enseignement secondaire au Venezuela. Notre contribution à la littérature de l'abandon scolaire est double. Tout d'abord,l'inclusion de l'informalité (représentée par les parents des jeunes qui travaillent au noir) comme l'un des principaux facteurs qui influent sur la probabilité que les enfants culminent leurs études secondaires. Deuxièmement, l'utilisation de données de panel dans l'évaluation du problème des jeunes décrocheurs du secondaire, donne un aperçu nouveau et plus robuste sur les goulets d'étranglement de l'éducation du Venezuela. L'approche économétrique est basé sur l'utilisation des corrections de Mundlak afin d'éliminer le biais d'endogénéité. Pour terminer, nous analysons l'effet de jeunes travailleurs sur la productivité des petites entreprises non enregistrées au Brésil. Nous utilisons la méthode de la variable instrumentale afin de veiller à ce que nos résultats ne soient pas biaisés. / The purpose of this thesis is to empirically assess, through the use of novel and econometrically robust approaches, the drivers of school attendance, the role of informality in school dropout, and the linkages between youth work and productivity in small firms. First, we are interested in determining how important the private returns to education are in Venezuela. To this matter, we construct a pseudopanel data by means of the repeated cross-sections from the household survey. The drawback of using pseudo-panel data is the high presence of measurement errors. We address this issue through the use of consistent instrumental variables estimators based on sample moments of order higher than two. Second, we seek to understand the causes of school dropout in secondary education in Venezuela. The econometric approach consists in eliminating the endogeneity bias by using Mundlak corrections, since there is neither a good instrument nor can fixed-effects estimators be used in this estimation. Our contribution for school dropout's literature is twofold. First, the inclusion of informality (informal worker parents) as one of the main factorsffecting the likelihood of children completing high school. Second, the use of recent panel data in assessing the problem of early high school dropouts, provides new and more robust insight into Venezuela's educational bottlenecks. Finally, we analyzethe affect of the share of young workers on small unregistered firms' productivity in Brazil. We use the method of Instrumental Variable in order to ensure that our results are not biased.

Thesis advisor: Ina V. S. Mullis / TIMSS and PIRLS assess representative samples of students at regular intervals, measuring trends in student achievement and student contexts for learning. Because individual students are not tracked over time, analysis of international large-scale assessment data is usually conducted cross-sectionally. Gustafsson (2007) proposed examining the data longitudinally by analyzing relationships between country-level trends in background constructs and trends in student achievement. Through longitudinal analysis of international large-scale assessment data, it becomes possible to mitigate some of the confounding factors in the analysis. This dissertation extends this country-level approach to subpopulations within countries. Adapting a pseudo-panel approach from the econometrics literature (Deaton, 1985), the proposed approach creates subpopulations by grouping students based on demographic characteristics, such as gender or parental education. Following grouping, the subpopulations with the same demographic characteristics are linked across cycles and the aggregated subpopulation means are treated as panel data and analyzed through longitudinal data analysis techniques. As demonstrated herein the primary advantages of the subpopulation approach are that it allows for analysis of subgroup differences, and it captures within-country relationships in the data that are not possible to analyze at country level. Illustrative analysis examines the relationship between early literacy activities and PIRLS reading achievement using PIRLS 2001 and PIRLS 2011 data. Results from the subpopulation approach are compared with student-level and country-level cross-sectional results as well as country-level longitudinal results. In addition, within-country analysis examines the subpopulation-level relationship between early literacy activities and PIRLS reading achievement, multiple group analysis compares regression coefficient estimates between boys and girls and across parental education subgroups, and mediation analysis examines the extent that partaking in early literacy activities can explain differences between boys and girls in PIRLS reading achievement. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Research, Measurement and Evaluation.

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Fondée sur une analyse de données microéconomiques — enquêtes auprès des ménages de 1996-1997 et de 2001-2002 — et macroéconomiques, la présente étude s'attache à cerner le phénomène de la pauvreté à Maurice. Les profils de pauvreté, établis en termes monétaires, permettent d'appréhender la configuration des états sociaux selon les différents groupes socio-économiques, leur localisation dans l'espace et la relation avec le genre. Ensuite, plusieurs approches quant à la modélisation économétriques des déterminants de la pauvreté analytique expliquent la pauvreté selon les segments du marché du travail. Les mesures de la pauvreté monétaire sous-tendent une conception trop étroite du bien-être. Pour cette raison, la crédibilité d'une analyse des états sociaux nécessite une approche multidimensionnelle. Dans cette optique, on montre l'opportunité et la complémentarité d'une analyse de la pauvreté humaine mettant en évidence les graves pénuries en termes de capacité de choix — par rapport à l'alphabétisation et les conditions de vie. La dernière partie de cette thèse sera consacrée à l'évolution de la pauvreté à Maurice. Sachant que les données dont nous disposons sont non panélisées, nous utiliserons deux concepts. D'une part, l'approche proposée par Chaudhurri (2002,2003) et d'autres auteurs, tels que Bourguignon, Goh, Kim, Jalan, Ravallion, Sumarto et Suryahadi, pour mesurer la vulnérabilité des individus par rapport à la pauvreté, le risque ex ante qu'un ménage soit pauvre ex post et, d'autre part, une approche qui consiste à distinguer la pauvreté chronique de la pauvreté transitoire en utilisant le modèle de Markov.

This thesis examines the relationship between demographic ageing, as captured by temporal, within-country variation in the ratio of elderly to the working-age population – the dependency ratio – on citizens’ support for the welfare state. The research problem is vitally relevant considering the worsening demographic structure of advanced democracies, a process that is having considerable ramifications on the possibilities of financing comprehensive welfare states. Using a time-series cross-sectional design, and building on representative survey data from 13 advanced democracies, the thesis specifically assesses the relationship between the dependency ratio, and individual spending preferences towards 1) the welfare state as a whole, as captured by an additive index, 2) education policy, and 3) old-age benefits. It also assesses whether demographic ageing exacerbates attitude differences between age groups, thereby scrutinising some assumptions made previously on the issue of intergenerational cleavages. The thesis uncovers no significant relationship between the dependency ratio and general support for the welfare state. However, the dependency ratio is shown be positively correlated with citizens’ support for education policy, while being instead potentially negatively correlated with support for old-age benefits. The differences between these two policies, in terms of their enjoyed support, are important considering the presumed shift in welfare state priorities towards what is commonly called social investment. Indeed, they indicate that there may be popular support for the type of reform strategies whose purpose is to invest in tomorrow’s diminishing workforce, whereas the support for more compensatory old-age policies may instead be weakening. There are also signs that the positive effect on the support for education policy is lower among older individuals. This evidence is quite interesting considering the previous expectations of deepening intergenerational cleavages as a consequence of demographic ageing, but the weak indications of this development in previous empirical research.