The Fiscal Impact of Immigration in France: A Generational Accounting Approach

The objective of this study is to use both static and dynamic frameworks to compare the benefits that immigrants draw from the public system with their contributions through the taxes that they pay. The main conclusion of this paper is that the impact of immigration on welfare systems is weak. Thus, if we compare, on a given date, immigrants' global contribution to the public administration budget with the volume of transfers they receive, immigrants appear to be relatively favoured by the redistribution system. At the same time, even if immigrants seem to pay less taxes and receive more transfers than natives, the difference in distribution between the two populations, with a higher concentration of immigrants in the active age groups and a sparser concentration among the net beneficiaries of the social transfer system, leads to a slightly positive long‐term impact of immigration on public finances. However, the impact of immigration remains very slight compared with the global effort that would have to be undertaken to reduce budgetary imbalances.     

Who captures the price rent? The impact of European Union trade preferences on export prices

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) aim at increasing trade flows via the incentives created by preference margins; this is the difference between the preferential tariff and the tariff of the main competitors. However, an additional impact that is often omitted in PTAs evaluations is the possibility that the wedge between preferential and most favoured nation (MFN) tariffs may induce a preference rent that translates into larger prices for preferential exporters. This paper analyses empirically whether preferential exporters capture this preference rent using a unique dataset of imports in the European Union at a highly disaggregated level linked to information on the preferential regime used and the tariff applied. Our main findings suggest that on average an exporter obtains a larger price margin under a preferential regime than under MFN. However, this preference rent is only partially appropriated by exporters with a pass-through coefficient from preference to price margins that oscillates between 0.17 and 0.8, depending on the size of the margin and the type of product.     

Promoting green tourism: the future of environmental awards

Awards and labels can help consumers choose more environmentally benign tourism products and encourage more attention to the environment by producers. As in other areas, however, there is an increasing clutter of environmental awards and labels in tourism. Concerns exist about the value and appropriateness of some claims associated with these. This paper reviews and assesses environmental awards in tourism and recreation using comparative analysis. Sixteen awards relating to manufacturing, forestry, tourist attractions and tourism companies are appraised under the classifications of focus, criteria, certification system and results. Having identified the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches it is concluded that the time is ripe to rationalise awards and labels in the tourism industry and that an environmental management systems approach provides a flexible template to fulfil such a need and drive the agenda of environmental improvements in the industry. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.