The thesis, entitled "Essays on macroeconometrics and short-term forecasting",<p>is composed of three chapters. The first two chapters are on nowcasting,<p>a topic that has received an increasing attention both among practitioners and<p>the academics especially in conjunction and in the aftermath of the 2008-2009<p>economic crisis. At the heart of the two chapters is the idea of exploiting the<p>information from data published at a higher frequency for obtaining early estimates<p>of the macroeconomic variable of interest. The models used to compute<p>the nowcasts are dynamic models conceived for handling in an efficient way<p>the characteristics of the data used in a real-time context, like the fact that due to the different frequencies and the non-synchronicity of the releases<p>the time series have in general missing data at the end of the sample. While<p>the first chapter uses a small model like a VAR for nowcasting Italian GDP,<p>the second one makes use of a dynamic factor model, more suitable to handle<p>medium-large data sets, for providing early estimates of the employment in<p>the euro area. The third chapter develops a topic only marginally touched<p>by the second chapter, i.e. the estimation of dynamic factor models on data characterized by block-structures.<p>The firrst chapter assesses the accuracy of the Italian GDP nowcasts based<p>on a small information set consisting of GDP itself, the industrial production<p>index and the Economic Sentiment Indicator. The task is carried out by using<p>real-time vintages of data in an out-of-sample exercise over rolling windows<p>of data. Beside using real-time data, the real-time setting of the exercise is<p>also guaranteed by updating the nowcasts according to the historical release calendar. The model used to compute the nowcasts is a mixed-frequency Vector<p>Autoregressive (VAR) model, cast in state-space form and estimated by<p>maximum likelihood. The results show that the model can provide quite accurate<p>early estimates of the Italian GDP growth rates not only with respect<p>to a naive benchmark but also with respect to a bridge model based on the<p>same information set and a mixed-frequency VAR with only GDP and the industrial production index.<p>The chapter also analyzes with some attention the role of the Economic Sentiment<p>Indicator, and of soft information in general. The comparison of our<p>mixed-frequency VAR with one with only GDP and the industrial production<p>index clearly shows that using soft information helps obtaining more accurate<p>early estimates. Evidence is also found that the advantage from using soft<p>information goes beyond its timeliness.<p>In the second chapter we focus on nowcasting the quarterly national account<p>employment of the euro area making use of both country-specific and<p>area wide information. The relevance of anticipating Eurostat estimates of<p>employment rests on the fact that, despite it represents an important macroeconomic<p>variable, euro area employment is measured at a relatively low frequency<p>(quarterly) and published with a considerable delay (approximately<p>two months and a half). Obtaining an early estimate of this variable is possible<p>thanks to the fact that several Member States publish employment data and<p>employment-related statistics in advance with respect to the Eurostat release<p>of the euro area employment. Data availability represents, nevertheless, a<p>major limit as country-level time series are in general non homogeneous, have<p>different starting periods and, in some cases, are very short. We construct a<p>data set of monthly and quarterly time series consisting of both aggregate and<p>country-level data on Quarterly National Account employment, employment<p>expectations from business surveys and Labour Force Survey employment and<p>unemployment. In order to perform a real time out-of-sample exercise simulating<p>the (pseudo) real-time availability of the data, we construct an artificial<p>calendar of data releases based on the effective calendar observed during the first quarter of 2012. The model used to compute the nowcasts is a dynamic<p>factor model allowing for mixed-frequency data, missing data at the beginning<p>of the sample and ragged edges typical of non synchronous data releases. Our<p>results show that using country-specific information as soon as it is available<p>allows to obtain reasonably accurate estimates of the employment of the euro<p>area about fifteen days before the end of the quarter.<p>We also look at the nowcasts of employment of the four largest Member<p>States. We find that (with the exception of France) augmenting the dynamic<p>factor model with country-specific factors provides better results than those<p>obtained with the model without country-specific factors.<p>The third chapter of the thesis deals with dynamic factor models on data<p>characterized by local cross-correlation due to the presence of block-structures.<p>The latter is modeled by introducing block-specific factors, i.e. factors that<p>are specific to blocks of time series. We propose an algorithm to estimate the model by (quasi) maximum likelihood and use it to run Monte Carlo<p>simulations to evaluate the effects of modeling or not the block-structure on<p>the estimates of common factors. We find two main results: first, that in finite samples modeling the block-structure, beside being interesting per se, can help<p>reducing the model miss-specification and getting more accurate estimates<p>of the common factors; second, that imposing a wrong block-structure or<p>imposing a block-structure when it is not present does not have negative<p>effects on the estimates of the common factors. These two results allow us<p>to conclude that it is always recommendable to model the block-structure<p>especially if the characteristics of the data suggest that there is one. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Concilier le droit à l'action collective et les autres droits fondamentaux :recours au principe de proportionnalité ?<p><p><p>Difficile équilibre entre efficacité du droit de grève et respect des autres droits fondamentaux<p><p><p>Viviane Vannes <p><p><p>L’objet de la thèse est de vérifier si le principe de proportionnalité, entouré de certains critères fixes et cohérents, permet au juge de justifier de manière plus rationnelle une décision portant sur l’exercice du droit de grève. La proportionnalité est en effet de plus en plus invoquée dans la matière des conflits collectifs du travail soit pour admettre son exercice soit pour le limiter voire le sanctionner. <p><p>La première partie de la thèse entend identifier le concept de proportionnalité: notion, champ d’application, critères, limites, avantages et inconvénients. Elle est, aujourd’hui, l’instrument de référence comme mode de résolution des conflits de droit, à un point tel qu’elle est érigée au rang des principes de droit. C’est, la raison pour laquelle nous avons voulu déterminer les tenants et aboutissants du concept. Son inconvénient majeur est de s’appuyer, le plus souvent, sur des critères subjectifs :le raisonnable en droit, l’éthique du comportement et la morale sociale. Nous avons, alors, recherché des critères plus objectifs qui seraient susceptibles d’écarter le risque de subjectivité du juge. Nous avons observé qu’en droit européen, la Cour de Justice apprécie la validité d’un acte communautaire ou d’une mesure nationale en vérifiant s’il répond des critères précis :l’aptitude de l’acte à atteindre l’objectif poursuivi, la nécessité de l’acte en vue de l’atteindre et la proportionnalité intrinsèque de l’acte analysée dans ses rapports à l’égard de son ou ses destinataires. Ces critères sont également appliqués par la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme dans la matière portant sur l’application de la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme et des libertés fondamentales. L’analyse de cette jurisprudence permet d’affirmer qu’ils présentent une meilleure cohérence et plus d’objectivité que le raisonnable en droit. <p><p>La deuxième partie de la thèse s’attache à fixer le statut du droit de grève en Belgique. Compte tenu de l’absence de réglementation générale belge, nous avons, d’abord, pris en considération le droit international et européen. Nous en avons retiré des lignes directives de l’exercice normal du droit de grève. L’analyse de la doctrine et de la jurisprudence belge a, ensuite, permis de fixer les éléments suivants du droit de grève :notion, contours, conditions d’existence, de légalité, de légitimité; compétence du juge du fond et des référés en cas de litige portant sur l’exercice du droit de grève. <p><p>La troisième partie de la thèse identifie, dans la matière des conflits collectifs du travail, les droits susceptibles d’être soumis au raisonnement de proportionnalité et ceux qui ne le sont pas. Car, la proportionnalité ne résout pas tous les conflits. Elle ne s’applique pas lorsqu’il s’agit de juger de la légalité de la grève, de sa régularité et dans les situations de grève spontanée déclenchée en réaction aux violations par l’employeur de ses propres obligations. Elle concerne celles où le juge est amené à juger de la légitimité du moment de sa mise en œuvre, des buts poursuivis ou des atteintes que ses modalités causent aux droits subjectifs d’autrui. C’est, alors, le conflit entre des droits de même valeur juridique qui met en œuvre le jugement de proportionnalité :droit de grève et droit de propriété et liberté d’industrie des employeurs ;droit au travail des travailleurs non grévistes ;liberté d’industrie des tiers en relation commerciale avec l’entreprise en grève, fournisseurs, clients, usagers, d’exercer leur commerce, leur industrie ;liberté d’aller et venir des usagers d’un service public. <p><p>Dans les situations où elle s’applique, la thèse propose d’inviter le juge à appliquer des critères précis pour juger de la proportionnalité de la grève. Les demandes actuelles du justiciable de rationalité et de compréhension de la décision de justice l’exigent. C’est, dans son application comme mode de résolution des conflits de droit, que notre questionnement est de savoir si, les critères contenus dans le principe de proportionnalité de droit communautaire de l’aptitude, de la nécessité et la proportionnalité de l’acte, peuvent fixer une ligne de conduite destinée à établir les règles de l’exercice normal de la grève ?La réponse donnée est, selon nous, positive. <p><p>La thèse n’entend nullement porter atteinte au droit de grève. Il appartient au socle des droits sociaux fondamentaux. La reconnaissance du droit de grève aux travailleurs ou à leurs organisations syndicales est l’un des attributs essentiels des régimes démocratiques. Il n’est donc pas question de remettre en cause un droit fondamental durement acquis. Toutefois, l’essence même d’une société démocratique repose sur le respect d’autres droits, l’intérêt général, la sécurité, la propriété, la liberté au travail, la liberté d’entreprendre. C’est la raison pour laquelle, la thèse s’attache à la difficile question de la conciliation entre, d’une part, droit de grève et efficacité de la grève et, d’autre part, droits d’autrui. <p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p> / Doctorat en droit / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Over the last years, the growing availability of large datasets and the improvements in the computational speed of computers have further fostered the research in the fields of both macroeconomic modeling and forecasting analysis. A primary focus of these research areas is to improve the models performance by exploiting the informational content of several time series. Increasing the dimension of macro models is indeed crucial for a detailed structural understanding of the economic environment, as well as for an accurate forecasting analysis. As consequence, a new generation of large-scale macro models, based on the micro-foundations of a fully specified dynamic stochastic general equilibrium set-up, has became one of the most flourishing research areas of interest both in central banks and academia. At the same time, there has been a revival of forecasting methods dealing with many predictors, such as the factor models. The central idea of factor models is to exploit co-movements among variables through a parsimonious econometric structure. Few underlying common shocks or factors explain most of the co-variations among variables. The unexplained component of series movements is on the other hand due to pure idiosyncratic dynamics. The generality of their framework allows factor models to be suitable for describing a broad variety of models in a macroeconomic and a financial context. The revival of factor models, over the recent years, comes from important developments achieved by Stock and Watson (2002) and Forni, Hallin, Lippi and Reichlin (2000). These authors find the conditions under which some data averages become collinear to the space spanned by the factors when, the cross section dimension, becomes large. Moreover, their factor specifications allow the idiosyncratic dynamics to be mildly cross-correlated (an effect referred to as the 'approximate factor structure' by Chamberlain and Rothschild, 1983), a situation empirically verified in many applications. These findings have relevant implications. The most important being that the use of a large number of series is no longer representative of a dimensional constraint. On the other hand, it does help to identify the factor space. This new generation of factor models has been applied in several areas of macroeconomics and finance as well as for policy evaluation. It is consequently very likely to become a milestone in the literature of forecasting methods using many predictors. This thesis contributes to the empirical literature on factor models by proposing four original applications. <p><p>In the first chapter of this thesis, the generalized dynamic factor model of Forni et. al (2002) is employed to explore the predictive content of the asset returns in forecasting Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation and the growth rate of Industrial Production (IP). The connection between stock markets and economic growth is well known. In the fundamental valuation of equity, the stock price is equal to the discounted future streams of expected dividends. Since the future dividends are related to future growth, a revision of prices, and hence returns, should signal movements in the future growth path. Though other important transmission channels, such as the Tobin's q theory (Tobin, 1969), the wealth effect as well as capital market imperfections, have been widely studied in this literature. I show that an aggregate index, such as the S&P500, could be misleading if used as a proxy for the informative content of the stock market as a whole. Despite the widespread wisdom of considering such index as a leading variable, only part of the assets included in the composition of the index has a leading behaviour with respect to the variables of interest. Its forecasting performance might be poor, leading to sceptical conclusions about the effectiveness of asset prices in forecasting macroeconomic variables. The main idea of the first essay is therefore to analyze the lead-lag structure of the assets composing the S&P500. The classification in leading, lagging and coincident variables is achieved by means of the cross correlation function cleaned of idiosyncratic noise and short run fluctuations. I assume that asset returns follow a factor structure. That is, they are the sum of two parts: a common part driven by few shocks common to all the assets and an idiosyncratic part, which is rather asset specific. The correlation<p>function, computed on the common part of the series, is not affected by the assets' specific dynamics and should provide information only on the series driven by the same common factors. Once the leading series are identified, they are grouped within the economic sector they belong to. The predictive content that such aggregates have in forecasting IP growth and CPI inflation is then explored and compared with the forecasting power of the S&P500 composite index. The forecasting exercise is addressed in the following way: first, in an autoregressive (AR) model I choose the truncation lag that minimizes the Mean Square Forecast Error (MSFE) in 11 years out of sample simulations for 1, 6 and 12 steps ahead, both for the IP growth rate and the CPI inflation. Second, the S&P500 is added as an explanatory variable to the previous AR specification. I repeat the simulation exercise and find that there are very small improvements of the MSFE statistics. Third, averages of stock return leading series, in the respective sector, are added as additional explanatory variables in the benchmark regression. Remarkable improvements are achieved with respect to the benchmark specification especially for one year horizon forecast. Significant improvements are also achieved for the shorter forecast horizons, when the leading series of the technology and energy sectors are used. <p><p>The second chapter of this thesis disentangles the sources of aggregate risk and measures the extent of co-movements in five European stock markets. Based on the static factor model of Stock and Watson (2002), it proposes a new method for measuring the impact of international, national and industry-specific shocks. The process of European economic and monetary integration with the advent of the EMU has been a central issue for investors and policy makers. During these years, the number of studies on the integration and linkages among European stock markets has increased enormously. Given their forward looking nature, stock prices are considered a key variable to use for establishing the developments in the economic and financial markets. Therefore, measuring the extent of co-movements between European stock markets has became, especially over the last years, one of the main concerns both for policy makers, who want to best shape their policy responses, and for investors who need to adapt their hedging strategies to the new political and economic environment. An optimal portfolio allocation strategy is based on a timely identification of the factors affecting asset returns. So far, literature dating back to Solnik (1974) identifies national factors as the main contributors to the co-variations among stock returns, with the industry factors playing a marginal role. The increasing financial and economic integration over the past years, fostered by the decline of trade barriers and a greater policy coordination, should have strongly reduced the importance of national factors and increased the importance of global determinants, such as industry determinants. However, somehow puzzling, recent studies demonstrated that countries sources are still very important and generally more important of the industry ones. This paper tries to cast some light on these conflicting results. The chapter proposes an econometric estimation strategy more flexible and suitable to disentangle and measure the impact of global and country factors. Results point to a declining influence of national determinants and to an increasing influence of the industries ones. The international influences remains the most important driving forces of excess returns. These findings overturn the results in the literature and have important implications for strategic portfolio allocation policies; they need to be revisited and adapted to the changed financial and economic scenario. <p><p>The third chapter presents a new stylized fact which can be helpful for discriminating among alternative explanations of the U.S. macroeconomic stability. The main finding is that the fall in time series volatility is associated with a sizable decline, of the order of 30% on average, in the predictive accuracy of several widely used forecasting models, included the factor models proposed by Stock and Watson (2002). This pattern is not limited to the measures of inflation but also extends to several indicators of real economic activity and interest rates. The generalized fall in predictive ability after the mid-1980s is particularly pronounced for forecast horizons beyond one quarter. Furthermore, this empirical regularity is not simply specific to a single method, rather it is a common feature of all models including those used by public and private institutions. In particular, the forecasts for output and inflation of the Fed's Green book and the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) are significantly more accurate than a random walk only before 1985. After this date, in contrast, the hypothesis of equal predictive ability between naive random walk forecasts and the predictions of those institutions is not rejected for all horizons, the only exception being the current quarter. The results of this chapter may also be of interest for the empirical literature on asymmetric information. Romer and Romer (2000), for instance, consider a sample ending in the early 1990s and find that the Fed produced more accurate forecasts of inflation and output compared to several commercial providers. The results imply that the informational advantage of the Fed and those private forecasters is in fact limited to the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s. In contrast, during the last two decades no forecasting model is better than "tossing a coin" beyond the first quarter horizon, thereby implying that on average uninformed economic agents can effectively anticipate future macroeconomics developments. On the other hand, econometric models and economists' judgement are quite helpful for the forecasts over the very short horizon, that is relevant for conjunctural analysis. Moreover, the literature on forecasting methods, recently surveyed by Stock and Watson (2005), has devoted a great deal of attention towards identifying the best model for predicting inflation and output. The majority of studies however are based on full-sample periods. The main findings in the chapter reveal that most of the full sample predictability of U.S. macroeconomic series arises from the years before 1985. Long time series appear<p>to attach a far larger weight on the earlier sub-sample, which is characterized by a larger volatility of inflation and output. Results also suggest that some caution should be used in evaluating the performance of alternative forecasting models on the basis of a pool of different sub-periods as full sample analysis are likely to miss parameter instability. <p><p>The fourth chapter performs a detailed forecast comparison between the static factor model of Stock and Watson (2002) (SW) and the dynamic factor model of Forni et. al. (2005) (FHLR). It is not the first work in performing such an evaluation. Boivin and Ng (2005) focus on a very similar problem, while Stock and Watson (2005) compare the performances of a larger class of predictors. The SW and FHLR methods essentially differ in the computation of the forecast of the common component. In particular, they differ in the estimation of the factor space and in the way projections onto this space are performed. In SW, the factors are estimated by static Principal Components (PC) of the sample covariance matrix and the forecast of the common component is simply the projection of the predicted variable on the factors. FHLR propose efficiency improvements in two directions. First, they estimate the common factors based on Generalized Principal Components (GPC) in which observations are weighted according to their signal to noise ratio. Second, they impose the constraints implied by the dynamic factors structure when the variables of interest are projected on the common factors. Specifically, they take into account the leading and lagging relations across series by means of principal components in the frequency domain. This allows for an efficient aggregation of variables that may be out of phase. Whether these efficiency improvements are helpful to forecast in a finite sample is however an empirical question. Literature has not yet reached a consensus. On the one hand, Stock and Watson (2005) show that both methods perform similarly (although they focus on the weighting of the idiosyncratic and not on the dynamic restrictions), while Boivin and Ng (2005) show that SW's method largely outperforms the FHLR's and, in particular, conjecture that the dynamic restrictions implied by the method are harmful for the forecast accuracy of the model. This chapter tries to shed some new light on these conflicting results. It<p>focuses on the Industrial Production index (IP) and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and bases the evaluation on a simulated out-of sample forecasting exercise. The data set, borrowed from Stock and Watson (2002), consists of 146 monthly observations for the US economy. The data spans from 1959 to 1999. In order to isolate and evaluate specific characteristics of the methods, a procedure, where the<p>two non-parametric approaches are nested in a common framework, is designed. In addition, for both versions of the factor model forecasts, the chapter studies the contribution of the idiosyncratic component to the forecast. Other non-core aspects of the model are also investigated: robustness with respect to the choice of the number of factors and variable transformations. Finally, the chapter performs a sub-sample performances of the factor based forecasts. The purpose of this exercise is to design an experiment for assessing the contribution of the core characteristics of different models to the forecasting performance and discussing auxiliary issues. Hopefully this may also serve as a guide for practitioners in the field. As in Stock and Watson (2005), results show that efficiency improvements due to the weighting of the idiosyncratic components do not lead to significant more accurate forecasts, but, in contrast to Boivin and Ng (2005), it is shown that the dynamic restrictions imposed by the procedure of Forni et al. (2005) are not harmful for predictability. The main conclusion is that the two methods have a similar performance and produce highly collinear forecasts. <p> / Doctorat en sciences économiques, Orientation économie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

La norme pénale valide est celle qui possède la capacité de déployer ses effets. Elle est celle qui autorise le déclenchement des poursuites, le prononcé des condamnations et l'exécution de peines. En premier lieu, il a fallu montrer ce qui paraît s’imposer d’instinct : loin de se résumer au respect d'exigences formelles, la validité de la norme pénale dépend directement de la conformité à des exigences substantielles, portées par la Constitution et les conventions européennes. La preuve de la part substantielle de validité est apportée en deux temps. D’abord, l’entrée en vigueur de la règle pénale est subordonnée à sa bonne insertion dans la hiérarchie des normes. Ensuite, les normes répressives irrégulières sont systématiquement invalidées.En second lieu, la composante substantielle de la validité de la norme pénale a de multiples conséquences, qui sont tantôt bénéfiques, tantôt problématiques. En effet, les principes qui conditionnent substantiellement la validité de la norme pénale assoient la légitimité de la répression. En revanche, l’avènement du pouvoir prétorien, dans une discipline en quête de stabilité, soulève de nombreuses difficultés. Pour les surmonter, proposer des clefs de résolution s’est révélé nécessaire. / The valid criminal norm is the one that is able to have a legal impact. It allows for the commencement of a prosecution, the imposition of a sanction, and the enforcement of sentences. Firstly, we had to demonstrate what seems manifest: far from being only a matter of respecting the formal requirements, the validity of a criminal norm depends directly on its compliance to substantial requirements that are contained in the French Constitution and the European conventions. The substantial proportion of the validity is demonstrated in two steps. The entry into force of the criminal rule is at first subordinated to its correct integration in the hierarchy of norms. Then, the improper repressive norms are systematically invalidated. Secondly, the substantial part of the validity of the criminal norm has several consequences that are in some cases beneficial but not in others. Indeed, the principles that substantially determine the validity of the criminal norm make the punishment legitimate. However, the emergence of the judge-made law raises many difficulties in a discipline that yearns for stability. In order to overcome them, it appeared necessary to suggest some key elements of resolution.

Les rapports entretenus par le droit de l’Union européenne et le droit français de la propriété publique sont équivoques. Alors que l’article 345 TFUE témoigne, a priori, de la neutralité du droit de l’Union européenne quant aux régimes de propriété nationaux, le premier possède des incidences tangibles sur le second. La présente thèse s’applique d’abord à en démontrer les ressorts théoriques : compte tenu de l’emprise systémique et de la prééminence des règles concurrentielles, la portée de l’article 345 TFUE se révèle presque nulle. À cela s’ajoute une mutation conceptuelle des notions de propriété et de biens publics : redéfinissant et rompant le lien entre appropriation publique, intérêt général et satisfaction de l’utilité publique, le droit de l’Union européenne substitue une vision renouvelée de la propriété publique, englobant l’ensemble des biens contrôlés par les personnes publiques et ayant une valeur patrimoniale. À la neutralisation conceptuelle succède un infléchissement matériel de la propriété publique. Même si la réception en droit français est parfois incertaine ou insuffisante, l’application des règles de concurrence ou du droit des aides d’État altére les régimes d’acquistion, de gestion ou de cession des biens publics. Favorisant la fragmentation et la privatisation du droit de la propriété publique, le droit de l’Union européenne semble aussi en mesure de remettre en cause les privilèges d’insaisissabilité et d’incessibilité à vil prix. Accélérant la décomposition de la propriété publique, son influence n’en constitue pas moins une opportunité, celle-ci étant susceptible de permettre une refondation cohérente de l’édifice français. / Interactions between European Union law and French law can be confusing when it comes to public property. Although it a priori testifies of the neutrality with which the European Union law deals with public property regulations at national scale, article 345 TFUE actually has tangible impacts on them. This thesis first looks to demonstrate the theoretical aspects behind it: given the pre-eminence and systemic influence of competition rules, the reach of article 345 TFUE turns to be almost void. In addition to this arises a conceptual mutation in the notions of property right and public ownership: as it redefines and breaks the link between public appropriation, general interest and the satisfaction of public affectation, the European Union law brings a renewed vision of public property which encompasses all the assets controlled by a public-law person and having a heritage value. To the conceptual neutralization succeeds a substantive inflection of public property. Although its reception under French law is sometimes uncertain or insufficient, the application of competition or State aid rules alters the acquisition, operation and disposal schemes for publicly-owned assets. Since it fosters the fragmentation and privatization of the public property law, it appears that the European Union law is also able to question the privileges of unseizability and the principle according to which a publicly-owned asset cannot be sold at a price lower than its market value. Accelerating the decomposition of public property, its influence remains nonetheless an opportunity as it could lead to a comprehensive re-founding of the French edifice.

Le droit des aides d’Etat est un domaine singulier du droit de l’Union européenne (UE). Sonobjectif le rend même unique au monde et pourtant il demeure en partie méconnu et seseffets sous-estimés. La crise économique et financière débutée en 2007 l’a remis sur ledevant de la scène. Dans ce contexte, un outil s’est révélé comme central dans la gestiondes évènements : la conditionnalité. Longtemps ignorée, cette technique, présente depuisles origines en droit des aides d’Etat, s’avère être d’une influence insoupçonnée sur lemécanisme de contrôle des soutiens étatiques. D’une part, elle autorise la Commission àexiger des modifications substantielles, tant du projet d’aide que des bénéficiaires, afin d’enautoriser la mise en oeuvre. D’autre part, la conditionnalité permet à la Commissiond’avancer un agenda politique, de manière indirecte, au service de l’approfondissement del’UE. Son incidence ne se limite pas seulement à la question de la compatibilité desfinancements publics. Elle s’exprime également dans le cadre du suivi des décisionsconditionnelles, et des éventuels recours juridictionnels. De nouvelles techniques basées surla conditionnalité ont fait leur apparition à tous les stades de l’examen des aides. Plusencore, elle joue un rôle considérable, en amont, dans le processus de création du droit desaides d’Etat et de sa soft law. Compte tenu de sa portée, cette étude s’est attachée àmesurer l’ampleur de ce phénomène, à définir ses concepts, à identifier ses formes et àévaluer ses conséquences. Il en résulte que la conditionnalité est à l’origine d’une nouvelleapproche du droit des aides d’Etat. / State aid law is a unique area of European Union (EU) law. Its objective makes it evenunique in the world and yet it remains partly unknown and its effects underestimated. Theeconomic and financial crisis, which began in 2007, has brought it back to the forefront. Inthis context, a tool has proved to be central in the management of events: conditionality. Thistechnique, which has long been ignored, has always had an unsuspected influence on themechanism of control over state support. On the one hand, it authorizes the Commission torequire substantial changes, both in the aid project and for the beneficiaries, in order toauthorize its implementation. On the other hand, conditionality allows the Commission to putforward a political agenda, indirectly, to service the deepening of the EU. Its impact is notlimited to the question of the compatibility of public funding. It is also expressed in the contextof the monitoring of conditional decisions, and possible judicial review. New techniquesbased on conditionality have emerged at all stages state aid control. Moreover, it plays aconsiderable role, upstream, in the process of creating state aid law and its soft law. Givenits scope, this study focused on measuring the extent of this phenomenon, defining itsconcepts, identifying its forms and evaluating its consequences. As a result, conditionality isat the origin of a new approach to state aid law.

L’interaction du droit de l’Union européenne avec le droit international privé se manifeste avec une acuité particulière en matière de lois de police, continuant et renouvelant les discussions suscitées par celles-ci. La promotion des intérêts de l’Union européenne par ce mécanisme de DIP peut être facilement observée. Il reste que des questions peuvent surgir quant à l’aménagement, dans les systèmes juridiques nationaux, de l’articulation des lois de police de source nationale et européenne. Le transfert de certaines compétences des Etats membres vers l’Union, le rapprochement des législations des Etats membres ou le poids plus important accordé aux raisonnements et aux intérêts européens au moment de la qualification mettent en lumière une catégorie « lois de police » avec des contours nouveaux. La mise en oeuvre des lois de police porte, elle aussi, l’empreinte de l’influence du droit de l’Union européenne. L’intégration des données liées à la réalisation du marché intérieur entraîne une perturbation significative du mécanisme traditionnel des lois de police, accompagnée d’une diminution de l’efficacité de ces normes dans les relations entre les Etats membres. L’objectif de création, au sein de l’Union, d’un espace de liberté, de sécurité et de justice s’est matérialisé par la mise en place de corps de règles européennes de DIP dans diverses matières. La méthode des lois de police en ressort transformée, suite tant à la prise de position directe du législateur européen sur les conditions de son intervention, qu’en raison des évolutions enregistrées par d’autres méthodes concurrentes de droit international privé. / The interaction between the European Union law and the private international law is particularly acute in the field of internationally mandatory rules, maintaining and renewing the debate which always accompanied this kind of norms. If the internationally mandatory rules occupy a special place in the European legislation, being an extremely effective tool of European policy, some difficulties arise as to the articulation, in the Member States’ legal systems, of the both national and European different sources of lois de police. The transfer of powers from Member States to the European Union, the harmonization of national legislations and the greater weight given to European reasoning and interests at the time of qualification highlight a new dimension of the internationally mandatory rules concept. Also the implementation of internationally mandatory rules is highly influenced by the European Union Law. The Member States’ obligations concerning the completing of the internal market and the removal of restrictions to changes involve a significant disturbance to this traditional PIL mechanism; a decrease in the effectiveness of internationally mandatory rules in relations between Member States may be observed. The purpose of establishing an area of freedom, security and justice within the European Union was materialized in the establishment of European private international law rules in various fields; the internationally mandatory rules method is transformed as a result of the European legislator direct intervention on his definition and regime, but also as a result of the evolution that affects other concurring private international law methods.

L'évolution du droit de l'environnement de l'Union européenne a conduit au développement d'un objectif nouveau qui vise à promouvoir l'éco-innovation et les modèles d'entreprise verts, afin de mettre en place une économie verte et circulaire. Ce nouvel objectif a eu des conséquences sur sa forme et son contenu. En effet, la forme du droit de l'Union européenne en matière d'environnement est dominée par des directives-cadres et présente une flexibilité accrue, tandis que son contenu intègre de nouveaux modèles d'entreprise, notamment le modèle d'entreprise circulaire. La transition vers une économie verte a également des conséquences sur la manière dont les États membres transposent le droit de l'environnement de l'Union européenne. Le processus de transposition est devenu un vecteur de commercialisation de l'éco-innovation sur le marché européen, associant des acteurs nouveaux à la prise de décision, à savoir : les éco-entreprises, les laboratoires de recherche et d'innovation, les pôles de compétitivité, les entreprises du numérique ou les investisseurs providentiels. / The evolution of the European Union environmental law has led to the development of a new goal that aims to promote eco-innovation and green business models, in order to create a green and circular economy. This new goal had consequences on its form and content. The form of the European Union environmental law is dominated by framework directives and presents increased flexibility, while its content integrates new business models, particularly the circular business model. Furthermore, the transition to a green economy has an impact on how Member States transpose the European Union environmental law. The transposition process has become a vector of commercializing eco-innovation on the European market, and brings together new stakeholders in the decision-making process, namely: green companies, research and innovation laboratories, clusters, digital companies or business angels.

Après des décennies de mise en œuvre d’une politique économique protectionniste et enfermée, l’Égypte a opté en 1991 pour l’économie du marché et l’ouverture de ses frontières aux échanges internationaux. Dès lors, il manquait une pièce importante de lutte contre les cartels et le pouvoir de marché de manière générale. En 2005, l’Égypte a finalement adopté sa première législation de concurrence. Au regard de l’importance de l’Égypte au niveau régional et mondial, sur le plan économique et politique, il est opportun de s’intéresser à l’effectivité du droit égyptien de la concurrence, dans le but d’apprécier ses avancées et ses faiblesses et de proposer des pistes de perfectionnement. Cette étude cible des aspects qu’elle juge prioritaires : les règles substantielles, procédurales et institutionnelles visant la lutte contre les ententes secrètes, les abus de position dominante et les concentrations. Les appréciations et propositions sont faites à partir d’une mise en perspective de systèmes juridiques qui ont été choisis en référence : ceux de deux pays en développement (Brésil et Afrique du sud) et ceux des pays développés (Union européenne, la France et, à titre subsidiaire, les États-Unis). Elles entendent également tirer profit des travaux d’organisations internationales. / After decades of adopting a protective and closed economic policy, Egypt has finally opted in 1991 for the market economy and the opening of its borders to international trade. However, an important aspect was missing ; the fight against cartels and market power in general. In 2005, Egypt has finally adopted its first competition law. Given the importance of Egypt at the regional and global levels, from both economic and political perspectives, it is timely to pay attention to the effectiveness of Egyptian competition law in order to evaluate its level of progress and its weaknesses and to propose methods and means of enhancement. This study is targeting issues and matters that are considered to be priorities: substantive, procedural and institutional rules aiming for fighting against cartels, abuse of dominance and mergers. The assessments and proposals set out in this study have been made in perspective of legal systems that have been chosen as reference: those of two developing countries (Brazil and South Africa) and those of developed countries (European Union, France and, alternatively, the United States). They also intend to benefit from the work of international organizations.

Cette thèse constitue une analyse de contenu des critiques contre l'Union européenne exprimées par plusieurs acteurs politiques et sociaux de gauche en France et en Allemagne, au cours des débats sur le projet de Constitution européenne. Elle s'intéresse plus particulièrement aux idéologies sous-jacentes à ces critiques. Pour comprendre le sens de ces arguments, les comparer entre eux et les classer, certains idéaux-types ont été élaborés sur quatre dimensions (politique, socio-économique, identitaire et stratégique). Cette recherche a permis de combler une lacune importante dans l'analyse des acteurs dits "eurosceptiques", à savoir, l'étude des idéologies animant ces courants. L'essentiel de la littérature se concentre en effet surtout sur l'explication de l'euroscepticisme et, lorsqu'elle aborde leur idéologie, c'est pour construire des taxinomies excessivement globales. La thèse explore aussi en conclusion certaines pistes d'explications de ces résistances à l'UE en essayant d'aller au-delà des visions stratégiques, culturalistes et institutionnalistes, dominantes dans ce domaine, et en insistant davantage sur les dimensions idéelles et structurelles.<p><p>//<p>This doctoral dissertation analyses the content of the critiques made by some left-wing social and political actors in France and Germany against the current EU. The study focuses on the debates that surrounded the project of European Constitution and more specifically on the more general ideologies underlying these arguments. In order to understand, compare and classify these critiques, idealtypes have been elaborated on four dimensions (socio-economic, political, identity-related and strategic). This research fills a gap in the literature analysing so-called "eurosceptic" actors by concentrating on the ideas conveyed by these currents. Indeed, most of this literature mostly tries to explain this phenomenon. And when it addresses the issue of ideology, it is only to build too far-reaching categories. The conclusion also aims at exploring possible explanations of theses resistances to the EU beyond the traditional theories, based on strategic agency, culturalism and institutionalism, and insisting more on the role of ideas and material structures.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished