L’objectif principal de cette thèse est d’apporter de nouveaux résultats théoriques concernant la performance d’investissements basés sur des modèles stochastiques. Pour ce faire, nous considérons la stratégie optimale d’investissement dans le cadre d’un modèle d’actif risqué à volatilité constante et dont la tendance est un processus caché d’Ornstein Uhlenbeck. Dans le premier chapitre,nous présentons le contexte et les objectifs de cette étude. Nous présentons, également, les différentes méthodes utilisées, ainsi que les principaux résultats obtenus. Dans le second chapitre, nous nous intéressons à la faisabilité de la calibration de la tendance. Nous répondons à cette question avec des résultats analytiques et des simulations numériques. Nous clôturons ce chapitre en quantifiant également l’impact d’une erreur de calibration sur l’estimation de la tendance et nous exploitons les résultats pour détecter son signe. Dans le troisième chapitre, nous supposons que l’agent est capable de bien calibrer la tendance et nous étudions l’impact qu’a la non-observabilité de la tendance sur la performance de la stratégie optimale. Pour cela, nous considérons le cas d’une utilité logarithmique et d’une tendance observée ou non. Dans chacun des deux cas, nous explicitons la limite asymptotique de l’espérance et la variance du rendement logarithmique en fonction du ratio signal-sur-bruit et de la vitesse de retour à la moyenne de la tendance. Nous concluons cette étude en montrant que le ratio de Sharpe asymptotique de la stratégie optimale avec observations partielles ne peut dépasser 2/(3^1.5)∗100% du ratio de Sharpe asymptotique de la stratégie optimale avec informations complètes. Le quatrième chapitre étudie la robustesse de la stratégie optimale avec une erreur de calibration et compare sa performance à une stratégie d’analyse technique. Pour y parvenir, nous caractérisons, de façon analytique,l’espérance asymptotique du rendement logarithmique de chacune de ces deux stratégies. Nous montrons, grâce à nos résultats théoriques et à des simulations numériques, qu’une stratégie d’analyse technique est plus robuste que la stratégie optimale mal calibrée. / The aim of this thesis is to study the robustness of the optimal trading strategy. The setting we consider is that of a stochastic asset price model where the trend follows an unobservable Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. In the first chapter, the background and the objectives of this study are presented along with the different methods used and the main results obtained. The question addressed in the second chapter is the estimation of the trend of a financial asset, and the impact of misspecification. Motivated by the use of Kalman filtering as a forecasting tool, we study the problem of parameters estimation, and measure the effect of parameters misspecification. Numerical examples illustrate the difficulty of trend forecasting in financial time series. The question addressed in the third chapter is the performance of the optimal strategy,and the impact of partial information. We focus on the optimal strategy with a logarithmic utility function under full or partial information. For both cases, we provide the asymptotic expectation and variance of the logarithmic return as functions of the signal-to-noise ratio and of the trend mean reversion speed. Finally, we compare the asymptotic Sharpe ratios of these strategies in order to quantify the loss of performance due to partial information. The aim of the fourth chapter is to compare the performances of the optimal strategy under parameters mis-specification and of a technical analysis trading strategy. For both strategies, we provide the asymptotic expectation of the logarithmic return as functions of the model parameters. Finally, numerical examples find that an investment strategy using the cross moving averages rule is more robust than the optimal strategy under parameters misspecification.

L’objet de cette thèse est d’étudier dans un contexte de financiarisation des marchés de matières premières, certaines stratégies adoptées par les investisseurs et leurs impacts sur la volatilité et le co-mouvement excessif entre les marchés énergétiques et financiers. Pour ce faire, trois études sont proposées. La première fait appel aux modèles à changement de régime (MS-VAR) appliqués sur un ensemble des produits énergétiques et couvre la période 1992-2017. Les résultats obtenus suggèrent qu’en période de forte volatilité, les agents commerciaux (agents de couverture) jouent un rôle crucial dans la découverte des prix du marché du gaz. Cependant, ces agents de couverture affectent le bon fonctionnement des autres marchés (pétrole, essence, fioul) et amplifient leur volatilité. La deuxième étude traite les modèles GARCH ADCC versus GARCH DCC sur un échantillon de 17 pays et sur la période 1997-2016. Cette étude met en avant l’effet asymétrique des chocs pétroliers sur les corrélations conditionnelles des marchés asiatiques et africains, qui s’expliquent notamment par les activités d’arbitrage et les comportements hétérogènes des investisseurs. La troisième étude porte sur les modèles autorégressifs à retards échelonnés (ARDL) et révèle qu’après la crise financière, et au-delà des fondamentaux macro-économiques et financiers, l’indice de la spéculation excessive explique, aussi bien à long terme qu’à court terme, la corrélation entre le marché pétrolier et les marchés financiers de certains pays. Ceci génère un phénomène de co-mouvement excessif, et donc un effet de financiarisation sur ces marchés. Enfin, nous concluons les éléments suivantes : premièrement, en période de forte volatilité, le marché du gaz constitue une valeur refuge pour les investisseurs financiers ; deuxièmement, le comportement de l’investisseur explique l’effet de co-mouvement excessif entre le marché pétrolier et certains marchés financiers ; troisièmement, ce phénomène de co-mouvement excessif limite les avantages de la diversification internationale des portefeuilles notamment au moment des turbulences financières. / The object of this thesis is to study in a context of financialization of commodity markets, some strategies adopted by investors and their impact on volatility and excess co-movement between energy markets and financial markets. To this end, three studies are proposed. The first study uses the approach VAR with Switching Regime (MS-VAR) applied to energy markets during the period 1992-2017. The results suggest that during high volatility period, commercial agents (hedging agents) play a crucial role in the discovery of gas market prices. However, these agents affect the efficiency of other markets (crude oil, gasoline, heating oil) and amplify their volatilities. The second study employs GARCH ADCC versus GARCH DCC models for a sample of 17 countries and covering the period 1997-2016. This study highlights the asymmetric effect of oil shocks on the conditional correlations of the Asian and African markets, which can be explained in particular by the arbitrage activities and the heterogeneous behavior of investors. The third study focuses on Autoregressive Distributed Lag models (ARDL) and reveals that after the financial crisis, and beyond the macroeconomic and financial fundamentals, the index of excessive speculation, explains in long term as well as in short term, the correlation between oil market and some financial markets. This generates a phenomenon of excess co-movement, and therefore a financializing effect on these markets. Finally, we can conclude that : firstly, during high volatility period, gas market is a safe haven for financial investors ; secondly, the behavior of the investor explains the effect of excess co-movement between the oil market and some financial markets ; thirdly, this phenomenon of excess co-movement limits the benefits of international portfolio diversification especially during financial turbulences.

In order to understand the dynamics of desertification after the 1980s droughts, the trends and changes of photosynthetically active fraction of the vegetation cover of the semi-arid region of West Africa have been analyzed across three ecoclimatic entities. This study focuses on six countries (Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina-Faso, Niger and Benin) that reflect quite well the human and environmental context of semi-arid regions. The main objective of this thesis is to check in the before-mentioned biophysical and human context, if the state of the vegetation improves because of more favourable rainfall conditions, or if, conversely, the long environmental deterioration during recent decades has a healthy dose of irreversibility for several years. The process of investigation proceeds in three stages defined by geographical scales and a geoclimatic gradient. At the regional level, we compared vegetation productivity data from 1982-1999 time series of NOAA-AVHRR NDVI data to rainfall data. We analyzed data from 315 rain gauges distributed across five countries (Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina-Faso and Niger) with annual average isohyets ranging from 100 to 900 mm. For trends analysis, we used the ratio of the integrated vegetation index (iNDVI) during the crop-growth period (June to October) to the May to October sum of rainfall (RR). This ratio (iNDVI/RR), a proxy of the Rain Use Efficiency, is widely used by ecologists as an indicator for detecting desertification processes. Overall, our results show a significant increase of the net primary production as a response of post-drought rainfall increase. However, the trends of iNDVI/RR ratio suggest that most of the studied stations (54%) in sahelian and sahelo-sudanese belts were stable and 31.4% showed strong to very strong negative change in iNDVI/RR ratio, while 13.3% of the stations showed a moderate decrease and only 1.3% showed a positive trend. At the country level, similar trends were recorded throughout 128 stations in Burkina Faso located between the 500 mm and 1100 mm isohyets. In fact, more than half the studied stations showed a stability of iNDVI/RR ratio. However, 39.8% of them show a negative trend from low to high, while only 2.4% of them show a slight positive trend. In addition, a comparison with more detailed local case studies confirmed these observed trends. However, the obtained results for wetter stations in the southern part of the country should be taken with precaution, as the relationship between NDVI and rainfall tends to weaken when annual rainfall is higher than 1000 mm. Overall, the negative trends highlight a gradual decline in plant productivity. These results recorded in 44.7% of the analyzed stations may reflect ongoing desertification processes in the sahelian and sahelo-sudanian zones over the past two decades. At the local level, a structural characterization of woody units in three bioclimatic regions of the sudanian zone (900 mm 1200 mm) in the north of Benin was conducted to assess their degradation status. We recorded the structural characteristics of stands (basal area, density), species diversity as well as disturbances type and intensity. Multivariate analysis revealed a gradient of productivity between the three regions: there was a high diversity of woody stands in the south-sudanian sector, while the north-sudanian and sudano-sahelian sectors were dominated by savannas and shrub, which had low productivity. The productivity gradient is influenced by a disturbance gradient suggesting that the decline in productivity is stronger from south-sudanian to the sudano-sahelian region. In addition, the spatial component of the observable changes in vegetation cover has been mapped by remote sensing in a restricted area of the sudanian zone in northern Benin with SPOT-XS data over the period 1986-2005. Over the past two decades, 19.6% of the woody stands have completely disappeared; 12.9% of this extinction of woody stands was due to deforestation, and 13.9 % due to degradation processes. In contrast to these trends, 21.8% of the study area were stable, while less than a third (31.7%) of the area were experiencing woody recovery (reforestation). The analysis also reveals significant disparities in the rates of change of the identified land use class units. These variations are more pronounced for the woody units and agricultural land than in villages. These results suggest that land cover degradation throughout the study area is primarily due to anthropogenic factors (livestock and agricultural expansion, logging, breeding). In fact, this area is a preferred destination for agricultural migrants fleeing the unpredictable climatic conditions of the drier semi-arid areas. Overall, our results highlight the rapid decline of vegetation resources, challenging assumptions that the impact of ongoing desertification processes is mixed, outside of the arid and semi-arid regions of West Africa. The developed framework is easily reproducible and allows the implementation of a reliable diagnosis on the state of the vegetation cover from accessible and inexpensive data. Its implementation should facilitate the development of managerial techniques for better assistance to the poor, especially vulnerable to the gradual degradation of their environment.

La statistique est d’une grande importance pour l’éducation scientifique et citoyenne, et a été adoptée pour cette raison dans les programmes des collèges et lycées dans plusieurs pays, parmi lesquels le Brésil et la France. Les mesures de tendance centrale et les mesures de dispersion sont deux concepts fondamentaux de la statistique descriptive. À partir des problèmes identifiés dans différentes recherches sur l’apprentissage des mesures de tendance centrale et de dispersion dans l’enseignement secondaire et supérieur, nous formulons l’hypothèse qu’il existe une relation entre ces problèmes d’apprentissage et la façon dont ce savoir est transposé dans les manuels et les programmes. Nous considérons également que ces mesures doivent être enseignées en articulation avec la dispersion. Dans ce sens, cette étude se propose d’analyser la façon dont les mesures de tendance centrale et de dispersion sont présentées dans les programmes et dans certains manuels scolaires utilisés dans les lycées Brésiliens et Français. L’objet principal de cette recherche a donc été la réalisation d’une recherche bibliographique. Cette étude s’appuie sur un ensemble de recherches et de théories, et en particulier sur la théorie anthropologique de la didactique et la théorie des champs conceptuels. Les résultats produits incluent une proposition de systématisation de notre recherche de thèse, un chapitre sur le savoir scientifique relatif aux mesures de tendance centrale et de dispersion ainsi que l’analyse de la transposition didactique des programmes et des manuels scolaires qui comportent une discussion sur les caractéristiques de ces éléments au Brésil et en France. Les résultats indiquent des limitations parmi les programmes et les manuels scolaires sélectionnés, ce qui peut indiquer que les problèmes mis en évidence dans les recherches étudiées sont en partie liés à la façon dont cette connaissance est transposée dans les programmes et les manuels scolaires. / The statistic has a great importance in the scientific and civic education, and was adopted for this reason in the programs of middle and high schools in several countries, among which Brazil and France. Central tendency measures and dispersion measures are two fundamental concepts for descriptive statistic. From the problems identified in various researches about learning central tendencies and dispersion in secondary and higher education, we hypothesize that there is a relation between these learning problems and the way this knowledge is transposed in handbooks and school programs. We also consider that these measures must be taught articulated with dispersion. In that sense, this study offers to analyze how central tendency and dispersion measures are presented in some programs and handbooks used in Brazilian and French high schools. The main objet of this research was the realization of a bibliographical research. This study is built on various theories and researches and in particular the anthropological theory of didactics and the theory of conceptual fields. The results produced include the proper proposition of systematization of the thesis research, a chapter about the scientific knowledge related to central tendency measures and dispersion measures as well as the analysis of didactic transposition of the programs and scholar handbooks that include a discussion about the characteristics of these elements in France and Brazil. The results show limitations among the selected handbooks and programs, which points out the problems highlighted in the studies are partly linked to how this knowledge is transposed in programs and handbooks. / A Estatística é importante para a educação científica e cidadã e por esta razão ela é adotada nos programas do ensino fundamental e médio de vários países, entre eles, o Brasil e a França. Dois conceitos fundamentais da estatística descritiva são as medidas de tendência central e dispersão. Partindo de problemas identificados em diversas pesquisas sobre a aprendizagem dessas medidas na educação básica e em cursos de graduação, propomos como hipótese que existe uma relação entre esses problemas e a forma como esse saber é transposto para o livro didático e os programas. Consideramos também que essas medidas devem ser ensinadas de forma articuladas com a dispersão. Nesse sentido, este estudo tem por objetivo a análise da forma como as medidas de tendência central e dispersão são apresentadas nos programas e em alguns livros didáticos utilizados no Brasil e na França no ensino médio. Para esta investigação, realizamos uma pesquisa bibliográfica. Apoiamos este estudo em diversos teóricos e pesquisas. Destacando em especial a teoria antropológica do didático e a teoria dos campos conceituais. Entre os resultados produzidos, temos a própria proposta de sistematização da pesquisa pela tese, um capítulo sobre o saber científico relativo às medidas de tendência central e dispersão e a análise da transposição didática dos programas e dos livros que envolvem uma discussão sobre as características destes elementos no Brasil e na França. Os resultados indicam limitações entre os programas e livros selecionados, o que pode indicar que em parte os problemas indicados, nas pesquisas levantadas, estão relacionados à forma como esse conhecimento é transposto nos programas e livros didáticos.

Ce travail de thèse s'insère dans une démarche globale d'acquisition des connaissances sur la tortue verte (Chelonia mydas) dans l'océan Indien occidental et ce afin de disposer d'éléments scientifiques essentiels à la mise en place d'une gestion cohérente et efficace de cette espèce menacée. Dans un premier temps, appliquant différentes modèles statistiques, ce travail a visé à établir des données de référence sur l'abondance des tortues vertes femelles en reproduction et les tendances sur le long terme des principales populations. Dans un second temps, il a consisté à déterminer la structure génétique et les relations qui existent entre les différentes populations de cette espèce. Enfin, la conservation des tortues marines étant étroitement liée aux pressions extérieures, ce travail a tenté dans un troisième temps de caractériser les pressions anthropiques qu'elles subissent, et notamment celles liées à la pêche. L'ensemble de ces résultats a permis de réaliser des avancées majeures dans la connaissance de la biologie et de l'écologie de la tortue verte et de disposer d'une vision régionale fiable de l'état de conservation de cette espèce dans l'océan Indien occidental. Leur compilation a ainsi permis d'identifier des zones régionales prioritaires de protection mais aussi des sites de vigilance plus spécifiques comme celui d'Europa. Enfin cette synthèse met en lumière les priorités de recherche et les approches scientifiques à favoriser à l'avenir pour améliorer les connaissances et affiner les priorités de conservation non seulement des tortues marines, mais aussi de la mégafaune marine en général. / This thesis is a comprehensive work aiming to improve scientific knowledge on the green turtle (Chelonia mydas) in order to provide key scientific evidences needed for the implementation of coherent and effective management measures to protect at the Western Indian Ocean scale this threatened species. In a first step, this work aimed to established baseline data on the abundance of green turtles nesting females and long term trends of some key nesting populations of the region by applying different modelling methods. In a second step, this work determined the regional genetic structure of this species and the relationships that exists between the different populations. Finally, the conservation of marine turtles being closely dependant to external pressures, this work tried to characterize theanthropogenic pressures they face, more specifically those related to fishing activities. All these results allowed unraveling some key gaps on the biology and ecology of the green turtle in the region and led to a global vision of the conservation status of this species in the Western Indian Ocean. The compilation of the results enabled the identification of regional priority areas for protection, but also some more specific threatened sites such as Europa. Finally, this synthesis shedslight on research priorities and scientific approaches to be promote in the future to unlock other keyscientific issues and refine conservation priorities, not only of marine turtles, but also of marine megafauna as a whole.