Mediation of artefacts,tools and technical objects: an international and french perspective

In this article we present a review of literature on the concept of Artefact, Tool and Technical Object in the light of in sociocultural approach. Particular attention is given to present and discuss the French research tradition on the Technical Object and Technological education. The aim is to give a broad perspective to explore the mediation between the individual and their environment.     

Shaping the landscape: Agricultural policies and local biodiversity schemes

This paper analyses the potential effect of local agro-environmental policies in promoting multifunctionality in a rural landscape, with a two-scale modelling framework: a regional scale for food demand and a local scale for the forces driving land use. The framework has been designed in four steps. First, the relative influence of the driving factors on the current land use pattern has been analysed. Two scenarios are designed that vary the external demand for the total land use, and alter more or less quickly the specific location factors that drive the landscape pattern. The first scenario considers trends in the external and internal driving forces. The second relies both on totally decoupled farm subsidies and unregulated housing growth. In both scenarios a local agro-environmental policy is introduced and we compare its consequences with the previous scenario's landscape pattern. The third step consists of a modelling exercise that analyses the likely outcome of each scenario on the development of land use patterns on a local scale. Last, these landscape patterns have been translated into ecological indexes that assess the effect of the policy options on the multifunctionality of the local landscape.     

The theory of optimum currency areas,trade adjustment,and trade

This article seeks to provide a closer integration of the theory of optimum currency areas with the theory of international trade. A currency area is treated as a continuous variable ranging from zero to one: zero if there is no enlargement, and some positive value otherwise, corresponding exactly to the percentge of trade in the enlarged area. The benefits of widening a currency area are then regarded, in terms of conventional trade theory, as equivalent to a reduction in transportation cost. The costs of widening a currency area are seen, instead, with reference to open economy macroeconomics, as a drop in the speed of adjustment of the terms of trade to their long-run equilibrium level. On this basis, it is shown that the marginal benefits of enlarging a currency area fall, the marginal costs rise, and an optimum size arises. But this size depends heavily on the optimal composition of the members.CEPR     

On Inequality-Sensitive and Additive Achievement Measures Based on Ordinal Data

This paper, following earlier work on the measurement of inequality when only ordinal information is available, proposes an axiomatic derivation of a new class of inequality-sensitive and additive achievement measures. Use is then made of these indices to study health achievement in Europe, using information on self-assessed health in 30 countries, based on the European Health Interview Survey (wave 2).     

Some Doubts about the Economic Analysis of the Flow of Silver to China in 1550–1820

Open Economies Review - The paper takes issue with the mainstream economic analysis of the enormous flow of silver into China in 1550–1820. First, I challenge the view that arbitrage between...     

BILATERAL COUNTERPARTY RISK UNDER FUNDING CONSTRAINTS—PART I: PRICING

This and the follow‐up paper deal with the valuation and hedging of bilateral counterparty risk on over‐the‐counter derivatives. Our study is done in a multiple‐curve setup reflecting the various funding constraints (or costs) involved, allowing one to investigate the question of interaction between bilateral counterparty risk and funding. The first task is to define a suitable notion of no arbitrage price in the presence of various funding costs. This is the object of this paper, where we develop an “additive, multiple curve” extension of the classical “multiplicative (discounted), one curve” risk‐neutral pricing approach. We derive the dynamic hedging interpretation of such an “additive risk‐neutral” price, starting by consistency with pricing by replication in the case of a complete market. This is illustrated by a completely solved example building over previous work by Burgard and Kjaer.     

The relationship between monetary policy and economic development in modern Europe: Problems and possible solutions

The author analyzes the risks of dismantling of the European Union posed by the current monetary policy, under which the single currency of the European Union not only retarded economic growth, but also led to economic contraction and high unemployment. Analyzing the widely debated idea of federalization as a way to tackle the challenge of Euroscepticism in major European countries and estimating the net transfers that are necessary for the proper functioning of the recipient country, the author concludes that federalization can only be considered a real action provided the current policy pursued by Germany as the hegemon of the European Union is to change. In the conclusion, the article reviews the problem of monetary independence as a necessary condition for the implementation of a national industrial policy based on the experience of France.