A model for dual health care market with congestion differentiation

The French market for specialist physician care has a dual legal structure: physicians must exclusively work in sector 1 and charge regulated fees or in sector 2, where they can freely set their fees. Patient out-of-pocket payments in sector 2 are partially covered by private insurance. The primary differentiating factor between both sectors is the number of patients per specialist, which in turn directly affects the overall quality of the service provided. We built an equilibrium model to analyze both specialists' decisions about which sector to work in, and patients' choice of physician and therefore sector. More specifically, the model allowed us to study the effect of changes in prices and economy-wide patient-to-specialist ratios on profits and patients' utility associated with the services provided in each sector.     

Attracting responsible employees: Green production as labor market screening

Corporate social responsibility can improve firms’ ability to recruit highly motivated employees. This can secure socially responsible firms’ survival even in a highly competitive environment. We show that if both socially responsible (green) and non-responsible (brown) firms exist in equilibrium, workers with high moral motivation, who shirk less than others, will self-select into the green firms. If unobservable effort is sufficiently important for firm productivity, this can drive every brown firm out of business—even in the case where many workers have no moral motivation whatsoever.     

Determinants of international retail operation mode choice: Towards a conceptual framework based on evidence from French specialised retail chains

Abstract

More and more retailers have expanded internationally. Because of its impact on the success of a retailer's international operations, a critical aspect of an internationalisation strategy consists of choosing the appropriate entry and expansion modes. The phenomenon remains misunderstood as little research in international retailing has focused on this question and findings from international management literature find limited application to services.

This paper draws upon a literature review and six case-studies from French specialised retailers to provide an exploratory framework for examining key determinants of operation mode choice. It is found that retailers consider four underlying dimensions of operation modes. These dimensions are affected by situational, individual and marketing factors whose explanatory impacts are moderated by the motives for internationalisation and relationship networks.     

Retailer Supply Chain and Market Access: Evidence From French Agri‐food Firms Certified with Private Standards

This paper explores an original data set identifying French agri‐food firms certified with two European private standards: the International Food Standard and/or the British Retail Consortium standard (BRC). Certified firms complying with such requirements are able to supply some European retailers with products sold under their retailers' own private label. Our analysis revealed that certified firms were among the biggest and most productive firms in the sample. Then, based on recent developments in international economics, we propose a modification of Chaney's model and estimations to test for the hypothesis that entering retailer networks reduces export costs faced by certified firms to access European union (EU) markets. After controlling for size and productivity effects, model estimations show that French firms who adopt BRC and enter the corresponding network benefit from better access through a significant decrease in their entry costs to certain EU markets.     

Exporting firms and retail internationalization: Evidence from France

This paper questions the impact of the globalization of the retail sector on the export activity of origin country agri‐food firms. We use an original firm‐level database of French agri‐food exports that identifies the domestic suppliers of French retailers through certification with the private International Featured Standard (IFS). The results show that IFS certified French firms are more likely to export and export larger volumes than noncertified firms to markets where French retailers have established outlets. We also show that when French retailers stop their activities in a market, certified firms reduce their exports to this market in the following years. The results are robust to the use of different sets of firm‐year‐ and country‐year‐specific controls and fixed effects, and are not affected by possible selection and endogeneity biases. The difference in the behavior of certified and noncertified exporting firms on markets where French retailers operate confirms the network effect that benefits retailers’ suppliers, which is lost when French retailers exit from the destination country.     

Ouverture des marchés et localisation des productions agricoles Market openness and location of agricultural activities

Nous analysons dans cet article l'impact de l'ouverture des marchés sur la localisation des activités agricoles et agro-alimentaires entre deux régions représentant de manière stylisée l'Union européenne et le reste du monde. L'analyse repose sur un modèle d'économie géographique qui considère certaines caractéristiques de l'agriculture et des marchés de produits alimentaires. Dans un cadre de marché en concurrence monopolistique où les produits sont différenciés horizontalement et verticalement, il apparaît que l'ouverture du marché induit dans tous les cas une baisse de la production communautaire. Seule une forte différentiation des produits selon leur origine géographique permet de limiter cette baisse.
We analyze, in this article, the effect of a liberalization of the markets on the location of agricultural and agro-food activities, between two stylized regions: the European Union and the rest of the world. We build an economic geography model. It considers the specificity of the agricultural activity and the food markets. In a monopolistic competition framework where the products are horizontally and vertically differentiated, we show that the openness of the market induces a decrease of the production in the European Union. Only a strong differentiation of the production according to its geographic origin can limit this effect.     

Quel prix pour la sécurite alimentaire? Une évaluation contingente suite à la crise européenne de la ≪ vache folle ≫

L'hypothèse d'une éventuelle contamination humaine par la maladie de Creutzfeldt‐Jakob, par le biais du prion de I'encéphalite spongiforme bovine (ESB), faite en 1996 par le ministre de la santé anglais a étéè l'origine d'une perte de confiance des consommateurs dans la viande de b?uf. Lew comportement en France a étéétudié a partir d'une enquête menée en 1997, auprés d'un échantillon représentatif de 700 personnes résidant dans l'agglomération de Rennes en Bretagne. L'enquête présente aux personnes interrogées un scénario contingent visant èévaluer leur consentement è payer (CAP) afin de disposer d'une viande pour laquelle tout risque de contamination par l'ESB est écarté. Un processus original de révélation des CAP a été utilisé, combinant la méthode du référendum et un système d'enchères. Le CAP moyen obtenu est relativement élevé puisqu'il atteint 22 % du prix initial de la viande. Un modéle micro‐économique visant è expliquer la valeur du CAP du consommateur pour une sécurité alimentaire totale par rapport è l'ESB est alors présenté. De cette formalisation micro‐economique découle une spécification économétrique correspondant au modele multinomial logit ordonnéè seuils connus. Parmi les variables ayant un role determinant dans le choix du CAP des consommateurs figurent notamment la confiance dans les indications géographiques et les labels. After the British Minister of Health admitted a possible link between the BSE prion and the Creutzfeldt‐Jakob disease in 1996, consumers lost confidence in the beef sector. This paper analyses consumers behavior after the BSE crisis in France in 1997, based on a survey using a random sample of 700 people located in the area of Rennes (Bretagne). Particularly, a contingent scenario was proposed to the respondents to elicit their willingness to pay (WTP) to have beef which would not transmit CJD using a mix of the referendum method and the bidding process. The mean WTP reaches 22% and is consistent with results obtained in other studies. A microeconomic model is proposed and an econometric approach based on an ordered logit model is developed. Among the significant variables, it is interesting to note the role of stamps of quality to explains consumers'behavior. Such variables prove the interest of a transparency and tracability policy to restore the consumers confidence.     

The surplus prior to ruin and the deficit at ruin for a correlated risk process

This paper presents an explicit characterization for the joint probability density function of the surplus immediately prior to ruin and the deficit at ruin for a general risk process, which includes the Sparre-Andersen risk model with phase-type inter-claim times and claim sizes. The model can also accommodate a Markovian arrival process which enables claim sizes to be correlated with the inter-claim times. The marginal density function of the surplus immediately prior to ruin is specifically considered. Several numerical examples are presented to illustrate the application of this result.     

The importance of EU-15 borders for CEECs agri-food exports: The role of tariffs and non-tariff measures in the pre-accession period

This paper assesses the evolution of the EU-15 market access for the agri-food products, originating from CEECs. A gravity model technique has been used to assess the overall trade resistance (border effect), and to weight its various components such as tariff and non-tariff measures (sanitary and phytosanitary standards, other quality measures) in the pre-accession period (1999–2004). The findings reveal, despite the undertaken integration and trade liberalisation processes, a persisting and significant trade resistance for the CEECs’ agri-food exports to the EU market, even just prior their accession in 2004. Still present difficulties in market access at the time are partially explained by tariff and non-tariff measures, while a large part of border effect remains in the domain of other, presumably non-trade policy related factors (home bias, consumer preferences, etc.). These results indicate that despite the accession process (customs union and adoption of the EU standards), the trade integration of the enlarged EU market was not yet completed in 2004.     

The effects of political fragmentation on investments: A case study of watermill construction in medieval Ponthieu, France

The link between political fragmentation and economic development has been frequently discussed in the pre-modern growth literature, yet, it has mostly been treated in a general manner. This paper provides a specific and detailed case study of the patterns of watermill construction in the northern French region of Ponthieu, France. The results suggest that political fragmentation in the juridical context of medieval Europe positively affected investments in machinery. I concentrate on the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a period characterized by political fragmentation and weak central authority, and provide original evidence that watermill construction was significantly more intense in areas where authority was fragmented and landholding was divided between numerous landlords. I suggest that the mechanism behind the phenomenon is that in the institutional context of medieval Europe political fragmentation reduced the territorial extent of lords' jurisdiction and therefore, of their monopoly over watermill construction. This, in return, promoted the construction of neighboring watermills, thereby affecting the number of watermills and the level of competition in the milling industry.