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Le médicament propose de concilier sa finalité sanitaire et la maîtrise budgétaire en empruntant la voie concurrentielle par laquelle le paysage des antagonismes ne cesse de défiler. Convoquant le droit dans son dessein, le médicament lui présente des conditions semblant indépassables ; surtout lorsque dans l'équation s'invite un autre objet paradoxal : le marché. La rencontre d'une demande irrationnelle, insensibilisée à la dépense qui, de surcroit, ne détermine pas seule son besoin, avec une offre naturellement monopolistique oblige l'intrusion de l'État dans les mécanismes de marché. La détermination du marché pertinent, outil économique converti au droit, en devient un précieux outil politique. Offrant d'expliquer le marché en identifiant sa réalité concurrentielle, il oblige à l'analyse de ses structures, des déterminants comportementaux des agents s'y confrontant et, plus que de révéler des pouvoirs de marché qui manquent d'être équilibrés, renseigne sur l'état du marché : son équilibre concurrentiel, sa finalité naturelle ; son équilibre social, sa finalité culturelle. Délimitant le champ d'application du droit de la concurrence, le marché pertinent conditionne la stratégie concurrentielle des opérateurs et cristallise les tensions entre le droit et l'économie. Cette thèse démontre que malgré les typicités du médicament, la méthodologie traditionnelle de définition du marché pertinent demeure opérationnelle dans le secteur pharmaceutique. / The definition of the relevant market aims at identifying the competitive constraints that an undertaking faces and, thus, defines the scope of competition law enforcement. Given the antagonisms that characterise the pharmaceutical sector, defining the relevant market in this industry seems to disqualify the classic methodology and points out the tensions between law and economy. The interaction of an irrational demand - one which is insensitive to the expenditures and that doesn't define its needs on its own - with an offer naturally monopolistic, makes the involvement of the State in the market mechanisms strictly necessary to ensure its equilibrium. This thesis demonstrates how the conventional tools used to define relevant product markets remain operational inspite of the idiosyncrasies of the pharmaceutical sector.

Due to the important role of advertising in marketing practice, its effects have been the research focus since 1920. Among relevant research fields, the issue that has been paid close attention in the economic field is its impact on consumer welfare. Issues focused in the marketing field are its impacts on consumer perception, feelings, attitudes, behaviors, and competitive interaction among firms. However, in these two fields the integrated channel is the focused scenario where the advertising works in vast majority of literatures. Only very few of them investigate effects of advertising in other channel structure context. However, in practice indirect channels are very common. There may be interactions between advertising and channel structure due to the existence of the independent retailer and the specific degree of competition. Since advertising is an important strategic instrument, it deserves to pay more efforts to relate the advertising and channel structure. This dissertation use game-theoretical approach to target three issues relating the advertising and channel structure. The first issue focuses on discussing the differential of choices between informative and persuasive advertising across three channel structure contexts for two competing manufacturers. This dissertation argues that the use of advertising strategy crucially depends on the channel structure. Specifically, it shows that when manufacturers delegate the sales responsibility to dedicated retailers, informative advertising may yield a higher profit for the manufacturers due to its pro-competitive nature. On the contrary, persuasive advertising should be used more extensively when either the manufacturers sell directly to the end consumers or sell through a common retailer. This therefore provides a theoretical foundation for why both advertising strategies can emerge as optimal responses from the manufacturers' viewpoints and subsequently provides handy guidelines for when these advertising strategies should be used in various scenarios. The second issue is about the choice between direct and indirect channels. The introduction of independent retailers has long been recognized as a buffer that alleviates the price competition between channels. If the sales responsibility is delegated to the retailers, the retail prices are driven upwards, thereby allowing the manufacturers to avoid the head-to-head competition. In this dissertation, we argue that this effect may be counter-balanced if the manufacturers are privileged with sufficiently large loyal segments. It shows that, selling directly to the consumers (through the direct channel) may be more beneficial for the manufacturers than delegation with the presence of competition, because the low prices due to the intense competition may help the manufacturers to extract more revenue from loyal consumers. Furthermore, if the manufacturers compete along dimensions that differ from prices, they may be further in favor of the direct channel and less concerned about price competition. In particular, this dissertation shows that if the manufacturers also compete on their advertising strategies, delegating to the retailers may force them to invest on the wasteful advertising, which could be prevented had the manufacturers sold the products themselves. The third issue discusses the combativeness of the persuasive advertising in the common retailer channel. The existing marketing literature suggests that persuasive advertising elicits counteractions from competing manufacturers and consequently leads to wasteful cancellation of the advertising effects. However, recent empirical studies document a surprisingly negative result against this conventional wisdom. To provide a theoretical ground for this empirical puzzle, we propose a novel way to model the advertising effect on the consumers' preference that incorporates two critical driving forces: on one hand, advertising shifts the consumers' preferences towards the advertised product (the "absolute effect"); on the other hand, it also makes the rival product a less desirable substitute from the consumers' viewpoints (the "relative effect"). Through our alternative interpretation of persuasive advertising, we show that channel conflict can be alleviated if a manufacturer adopts persuasive advertising that wisely "targets" appropriate consumers. In stark contrast with the established work, this advertising strategy may give rise to profit increases for every channel member, including the rival manufacturer and the retailer that were previously believed to always counteract/ resist to such persuasive advertising. We further identify the detailed operating regimes within which such a manufacturer-initiated persuasive advertising strategy is no more harmful for other channel members.

This thesis consists of three chapters investigating the impact of immigrant language skills on Canadian wages. The first chapter, “Linguistic diversity among Canadian immigrants: 1981-2006”, describes the changes in linguistic diversity among Canadian immigrants, as measured by a preferred linguistic distance measure, the Levenshtein Distance (LD) Index, and documents socio-demographic characteristics of recent immigrants as well as their labour market performance based on their language capital at the time of entry. The LD is an approximation of immigrants’ language skills in the Canadian official languages and represents the “distance” of an immigrant’s reported language to the Canadian official languages. Using the 20% micro-data files of the Canadian Censuses between 1981 and 2006, I assign each immigrant an index number based on two language measures: mother tongue and home language. French and English are defined as the Canadian official languages in Quebec and outside of Quebec, respectively. The main findings suggest that although immigrants’ mother tongues became more “distant” to the Canadian official languages in both regions over time, the language skill of an average immigrant based on home language remained almost the same in Quebec, in particular, between 1981 and 1996. In terms of immigrants’ socio-demographic characteristics and their labour market performance, general patterns were similar across the two regions, although there were significant differences by language groups. In particular, the change in immigrants’ wages by language groups is suggestive of the role of language skills in determining wages. The second chapter, “Immigrant versus native men? Substitutability and the role of linguistic diversity in Canada”, estimates the degree of substitutability between immigrant and native men by incorporating immigrants’ language skills into the analysis and calculates the potential wage effects of immigration on Canadian wages. Using the 20% micro-data files of the Canadian Censuses between 1981 and 2006 and imposing a nested-CES production function on the Canadian economy, I estimate immigrant-native substitutability based on immigrants’ language skills in addition to education levels and years of labour market experience. I use the LD Index to represent immigrants’ language skills by the distance of the mother tongue and home language of an immigrant to English outside of Quebec and to French in Quebec. I define three language groups for immigrants as the high language-skilled, the medium language-skilled, and the low language-skilled. The key findings are as follows. First, home language-based estimates suggest imperfect substitutability in Canada outside of Quebec in some cases. Second, by language skill groups, the low language-skilled immigrants are more likely to be imperfect substitutes for the Canadian-born. Third, the findings for Quebec are substantially different from those for Canada outside of Quebec. My simulations suggest that the long-run effect of immigration on immigrants’ wages was negative between 1981 and 2006 while the long-run effect of immigration on the wages of the Canadian-born was small but positive over the same period. The third chapter, “Gender, linguistic diversity, and labour market substitutability”, uses the same methodology and data sources as in the second chapter to incorporate female workers into the analysis of immigrant-native substitutability. This study estimates the elasticity of substitution between immigrant language groups and natives for female workers and the pooled sample of male and female workers. The findings suggest that the degree of substitutability between female immigrants and female natives is similar to the degree of substitutability between male immigrants and male natives. The main results do not change for the pooled sample. Due to potential differences between language accumulation processes between female and male immigrants, the third chapter also estimates female-male immigrants substitutability based on language skills, education levels, and years of labour market experience. The findings suggest that female and male immigrants are imperfect substitutes outside of Quebec regardless of language measures.

Immigration, the subject of repeated policy debates throughout the last two decades, has once again assumed a central position on the policy agenda. This debate has become more intense in recent years in Canada; the fear is over the potential job displacement and unemployment of Canadian-born workers, and the consequence to the Canadian economy. The recent immigrant incomes have been falling compared to their older counterparts helped to trigger the current policy debate. This thesis attempts to address this debate by providing an objective assessment of the displacement of Canadian-born workers due to immigration and the unemployment-immigration dynamics over the past 40 years of immigration to Canada. The thesis consists of two objectives:<p>Objective-I: Job Displacement Effects of Immigration on Canadian-born <p>First I address the job displacement effects on Canadian-born due to exogenous shifts in immigration flows. It is, therefore, necessary to consider the substitutability or complementarity between Canadian-born and immigrant workers. This is examined by estimating the set of wage earnings equation from the Generalized Leontief Production Function. The model specification abstracts from the role of capital, by assuming that labor and capital are separable in production. I then derive the iterated Zellner-efficient estimator (IZEF) (which is numerically equivalent to the maximum likelihood estimator) from the set of wage earnings equations. Then the degree of substitutability or complementarity is calculated using Hicks (as opposed to Allens) elasticity of complementarity. The estimated Hicksian elasticities suggest, in the aggregate, there is no displacement of Canadian-born workers by immigration, although there is some displacement by industry.<p>Objective-II: Unemployment and Immigration Dynamics<p>Next, I consider immigrant not only as an additions to the existing labor force but also job creation effects through their effects for goods and services. Here immigrants are considered as endogenous and I model the dynamics of unemployment and immigration. As a first step, statistical causality is investigated between immigration and unemployment. But causality methods can suffer from omitted variable problem. So, I construct a theoretical labor market and use the cointegration analysis to determine the long run relationship among unemployment rate, immigration level, real wage, and real GDP. Then, I estimate the short-run dynamics with a specification in difference form where the parameters of the cointegrating vectors from the first-step are fixed and entered as an error correction mechanism. The causality test finds no evidence of a significant effect of Canadian unemployment on immigration. The estimation of the long-run and short-run parameter indicates that no statistically significant relationship exists between unemployment and immigration.

Immigration, the subject of repeated policy debates throughout the last two decades, has once again assumed a central position on the policy agenda. This debate has become more intense in recent years in Canada; the fear is over the potential job displacement and unemployment of Canadian-born workers, and the consequence to the Canadian economy. The recent immigrant incomes have been falling compared to their older counterparts helped to trigger the current policy debate. This thesis attempts to address this debate by providing an objective assessment of the displacement of Canadian-born workers due to immigration and the unemployment-immigration dynamics over the past 40 years of immigration to Canada. The thesis consists of two objectives:<p>Objective-I: Job Displacement Effects of Immigration on Canadian-born <p>First I address the job displacement effects on Canadian-born due to exogenous shifts in immigration flows. It is, therefore, necessary to consider the substitutability or complementarity between Canadian-born and immigrant workers. This is examined by estimating the set of wage earnings equation from the Generalized Leontief Production Function. The model specification abstracts from the role of capital, by assuming that labor and capital are separable in production. I then derive the iterated Zellner-efficient estimator (IZEF) (which is numerically equivalent to the maximum likelihood estimator) from the set of wage earnings equations. Then the degree of substitutability or complementarity is calculated using Hicks (as opposed to Allens) elasticity of complementarity. The estimated Hicksian elasticities suggest, in the aggregate, there is no displacement of Canadian-born workers by immigration, although there is some displacement by industry.<p>Objective-II: Unemployment and Immigration Dynamics<p>Next, I consider immigrant not only as an additions to the existing labor force but also job creation effects through their effects for goods and services. Here immigrants are considered as endogenous and I model the dynamics of unemployment and immigration. As a first step, statistical causality is investigated between immigration and unemployment. But causality methods can suffer from omitted variable problem. So, I construct a theoretical labor market and use the cointegration analysis to determine the long run relationship among unemployment rate, immigration level, real wage, and real GDP. Then, I estimate the short-run dynamics with a specification in difference form where the parameters of the cointegrating vectors from the first-step are fixed and entered as an error correction mechanism. The causality test finds no evidence of a significant effect of Canadian unemployment on immigration. The estimation of the long-run and short-run parameter indicates that no statistically significant relationship exists between unemployment and immigration.

The Arab Spring, the protests that spread through the Arab world, led to very different outcomes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. That some regimes survived during the Arab Spring and some experienced regime-change has been explained through political, economic and social perspectives. This desk-study investigates how the Moroccan government addressed popular discontent during and after the Arab spring in 2011. In order to examine the case study through a new theoretical angle, this research applies the Theory of Policy Substitutability by Amy Oakes (2012) to the chosen case study. This study identifies that the Moroccan government used political reform, repression, a sort of economic reform and the use of cultural symbols were put in place to lower the intensity of protests. The findings underline that the government used a number of tactics that can be analyzed through the concept of diversionary tactics, meaning the diversion from internal struggle.   This research adds value to the discussion about regime survival in the case of the Moroccan Arab Spring not only by applying the Theory of PS as a structuring device for existing explanations of regime survival, it furthermore adds value by giving an example of how scholars can examine qualitatively how the concept of diversionary tactics (military and non-military responses) can have applicability.

Submitted by JÚLIO HEBER SILVA (julioheber@yahoo.com.br) on 2017-03-28T19:58:38Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Heverton Eustáquio Pinto - 2017.pdf: 2633492 bytes, checksum: 36847d4ff7c45f84e544a3521c462a4d (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2017-03-31T10:38:09Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Heverton Eustáquio Pinto - 2017.pdf: 2633492 bytes, checksum: 36847d4ff7c45f84e544a3521c462a4d (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-31T10:38:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Heverton Eustáquio Pinto - 2017.pdf: 2633492 bytes, checksum: 36847d4ff7c45f84e544a3521c462a4d (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-21 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The use of technology in production has become the main driver for the competitiveness of agricultural businesses. Investigating the process of technological adoption in a society that presents a heterogeneous technological structure is essential for a harmonious modernization process on the field. The present study investigates the process of adopting technologies in precision agriculture in the states of Goiás and Federal District, in Central Brazil. By means of primary data, the characterization of farm usage, its conditioning factors for adoption and their interactions, through estimation of econometric models. In view of the 15 years of commercial availability in Brazil of the main technologies in precision agriculture, soybean producers in the region have been adopting this set of technologies, on average, for 5 years. The use of management practices, previous experience with technologies, participation in cooperative networks were important conditioning factors for adoption, as well as their time of adopting technologies in agronomic diagnoses. The use of these technologies is initially interrelated, however, when interacting with the size of farm, with time of adoption of soil diagnoses technologies, grid soil sample and remote censoring become substitutes. The data show that the larger farm size, the greater the substitution effect. Policies that aim at the formation of cooperatives and implementation of technical infrastructure of communication should be implemented for the adoption and diffusion of technologies in precision agriculture, thus acting by these indications, public sector can foment the modernizing process in the field. / O uso de novas tecnologias na produção vem, a cada ano, tornando-se o principal direcionador para a competitividade dos negócios agrícolas. Investigar o processo de adoção tecnológica em uma sociedade que apresenta uma estrutura tecnológica heterogênea é essencial para um processo modernizador harmônico no campo. O presente estudo busca investigar o processo de adoção de tecnologias em agricultura de precisão (TAP) no estado de Goiás e Distrito Federal. Os dados foram coletados em dois grandes eventos de exposição agrícola na região. Após aplicação de 105 questionários a produtores de soja, foi levantada a caracterização do uso de cinco tecnologias em agricultura de precisão, seus fatores condicionantes de adoção e o seu uso interrelacionado de tecnologias em diagnósticos de solo, através de estimação de modelos econométricos. Em 15 anos de disponibilidade comercial, no Brasil, das principais tecnologias em agricultura de precisão, aqui investigadas, produtores de soja da região estudada adotam, em média, há cinco anos esse grupo de tecnologias. O uso de práticas de manejo, experiência anterior com tecnologias, participação em redes de cooperativas foram importantes fatores condicionantes para a adoção, bem como o seu tempo de adoção de tecnologias em diagnósticos agronômicos. A inter-relação dessas tecnologias, quando avaliada com o tamanho de propriedade, sobre o tempo de adoção de tecnologias de diagnóstico, amostra de solo em grade e sensoriamento remoto se tornam substitutas entre si. Os dados evidenciam que quanto maior o tamanho de propriedade, maior o efeito substituição. Políticas que visam à formação de cooperativas e implantação de infraestrutura técnica e de comunicação devem ser implementadas para maior adoção e difusão das tecnologias em agricultura de precisão, desta forma atuando por essas indicações o poder público fomenta o processo modernizador no campo na região.

Cette thèse se situe dans le domaine de la programmation par contraintes (CP). Plus précisément, nous nous intéressons au problème de satisfaction de contraintes pondérées (WCSP), qui est un problème d'optimisation pour lequel plusieurs formes de cohérences locales souples telles que, par exemple, la cohérence d’arc existentielle directionnelle (EDAC*) et la cohérence d’arc virtuelle (VAC) ont été proposées durant ces dernières années. Dans ce cadre, nous adoptons une perspective différente en revisitant la propriété bien connue de la substituabilité. Tout d’abord, nous précisons les relations existant entre la substituabilité de voisinage souple (SNS) et une propriété appelée pcost qui est basée sur le concept de surcoût de valeurs (par le biais de l'utilisation de paires de surcoût). Nous montrons que sous certaines hypothèses, pcost est équivalent à SNS, mais que dans le cas général, elle est plus faible que SNS prouvée être coNP-difficile. Ensuite, nous montrons que SNS conserve la propriété VAC, mais pas la propriété EDAC. Enfin, nous introduisons un algorithme optimisé et nous montrons sur diverses séries d’instances WCSP l’intérêt pratique du maintien de pcost avec AC*, FDAC* ou EDAC*, au cours de la recherche. Nous introduisons un algorithme optimisé et nous étudions la relation existante entre SNS et les différentes cohérences. Nous présentons aussi un nouveau type de propriétés pour les WCSPs. Il s'agit de la cohérence de tuples (TC) dont l'établissement sur un WCN est effectué grâce à une nouvelle opération appelée TupleProject. Nous proposons également une version optimale de cette propriété, OTC, qui peut être perçue comme une généralisation de OSAC (Optimal Soft Arc Consistency). Enfin, nous étendons la notion de substituabilité souple aux tuples. / This thesis is in the field of constraint programming (CP). More precisely, we focus on the weighted constraint satisfaction problem (WCSP), which is an optimization problem for which many forms of soft local (arc) consistencies have been proposed such as, for example, existential directional arc consistency (EDAC) and virtual arc consistency (VAC) in recent years. In this context, we adopt a different perspective by revisiting the well-known property of (soft) substitutability. First, we provide a clear picture of the relationships existing between soft neighborhood substitutability (SNS) and a tractable property called $pcost$ which allows us to compare the cost of two values (through the use of so-called cost pairs). We prove that under certain assumptions, $pcost$ is equivalent to SNS but weaker than SNS in the general case since we show that SNS is coNP-hard. We also show that SNS preserves the property VAC but not the property EDAC. Finally, we introduce an optimized algorithm and we show on various series of WCSP instances, the practical interest of maintaining $pcost$ together with AC*, FDAC* or EDAC*, during search. We also present a new type of properties for WCSPs called tuples consistency (TC). Enforcing TC is done through a new operation called TupleProject. Moreover, we propose an optimal version of this property, OTC, which can be seen as a generalization of OSAC (Optimal Soft Arc Consistency). Finally, we extend soft substitutability concept to tuples.

The objective of this thesis is to examine real exchange rate volatility, with a particular focus on investigating the causes of exchange rate jumps. While the predominant approach in the literature is to examine the interaction between nominal rigidities and nominal shocks, this thesis examines the volatility that arises from real rigidities and shocks. Trying to better understand the transmission of real shocks to the exchange rate is a worthwhile task, given the substantial evidence that these shocks and rigidities are important for explaining other economic fluctuations. This thesis develops theoretical models that examine the contributions of specific real rigidities to exchange rate volatility. Chapter 1 introduces our baseline specification - a frictionless model, with the exception of capital adjustment costs. This baseline generates very mild exchange rate fluctuations. Additional rigidities are required to generate volatility of the magnitude that is typically observed. Chapter 2 finds that introducing imperfect asset substitutability - specifically, home asset bias - goes a little towards achieving this. When investors are biased, the exchange rate must adjust by more to equilibrate asset markets. This greater burden of adjustment on the exchange rate along the short run path typically translates to larger jumps after shocks. Similarly, Chapter 3 shows that augmenting the baseline with banks and financial frictions raises exchange rate volatility. The key point is that, in the presence of financial frictions, there is a risk premium that widens after negative shocks, increasing the required adjustment of the exchange rate. A fourth chapter extends Chapter 3 and shows that unconventional credit policy, while beneficial in some respects, nonetheless entails nontrivial costs because it invites moral hazard by encouraging banks to be more highly leveraged, which increases exchange rate and consumption volatility. So, the overall message is that, in the presence of plausible real frictions - including (i) capital adjustment costs, (ii) imperfect asset substitutability, and (iii) financial frictions - real shocks can generate a plausibly significant degree of real exchange rate volatility. This thus posits an additional explanation of exchange rate jumps that complements the predominantly monetary literature.