Marx's critique of “eternal” political economy: how Mill is alien to Marx's attacks

Marx deplored political economy's claims to establish “eternal” – or “natural” – laws. This paper seeks to defend John Stuart Mill from his critique. It argues that, contrary to what Marx alleged, these two economists have a great deal more in common on this topic than is frequently realised. Both on the theoretical level and on the political one, Mill's views about the relativity of capitalism seem very close to Marx's. This paper also suggests that Marx may have ignored Mill's insistence on the relativity of economic theories because it may have challenged his own “scientific socialism”.     

Exchange rate volatility and productivity growth: The role of financial development

The vast empirical exchange rate literature finds the effect of exchange rate volatility on real activity to be small or insignificant. In contrast, this paper offers empirical evidence that real exchange rate volatility can have a significant impact on productivity growth. However, the effect depends critically on a country's level of financial development. The results appear robust to time window, alternative measures of financial development and exchange rate volatility, and outliers. We also offer a simple monetary growth model in which real exchange rate uncertainty exacerbates the negative investment effects of domestic credit market constraints.     

Business services,the new engine of French regional growth

This article analyses the evolution of employment in the French regions, putting the accent on business service firms. A ‘shift and share’ type of analysis shows that a primary decentralisation in tertiary activities seems to emerge in the 1990s, essentially pertaining to ancillary producer services. An explanatory analysis backs up the general validity of the regional economic base theory: the basic activities, to which business services can quite legitimately be attached, certainly play a leading long-term role on global employment dynamics. Finally it shows that over the past 20 years, the regional offer of services to businesses has been the major discriminating variable between regions, greatly influencing the evolution of basic employment and thus confirming the vital driving force of this sector in regional dynamics.     

Twenty-year review of South African fiscal policy: A tale of two sustainabilities

In 2014 democracy in South Africa was 20 years old. The democratic government in 1994 inherited both a high and increasing public debt/gross domestic product ratio and significant development backlogs. The government had to establish fiscal sustainability, yet also pursue development in a sustainable way. This article explores the government's performance in reconciling fiscal sustainability with sustainable development. The article shows that fiscal policy has been sustainable over the 20 years, with some risks appearing towards the end, and that the government pursued sustainable development through reallocating resources within the budget and by spending more in real terms. Three phases can be identified: 1994–2000, 2001–08 and 2009–13. However, poor service delivery and low levels of government investment during the 20 years threaten to undermine economic growth. Lower growth consequently threatens the sustainability of both fiscal policy and development, which, in turn, again undermines growth prospects. Hence, the article also identifies key future challenges.     

Productivity, terms of trade and the ‘home market effect’

This paper analyzes the international transmission and welfare implications of productivity gains and changes in market size when macroeconomic adjustment occurs both along the intensive margin of trade (changes in the relative price of existing varieties of tradable goods) and the extensive margin (creation and destruction of varieties). We draw a distinction between productivity gains that enhance manufacturing efficiency and gains that lower the cost of firms' entry and of product differentiation. Countries with lower manufacturing costs have higher GDP but supply their products at lower international prices. Instead, countries with lower entry costs supply a larger array of goods at improved terms of trade. Output growth driven by demographic expansions, as well as government spending, is associated with an improvement in international relative prices and firms' entry. While trade liberalization may result in a smaller array of goods available to consumers, efficiency gains from deeper economic integration benefit consumers via lower goods prices. The international transmission mechanism and the welfare spillovers vary under different asset market structures, depending on trade costs, the elasticity of labor supply, and consumers' taste for varieties.     

Exit Options in Corporate Finance: Liquidity versus Incentives

This paper provides a first study of the optimal design of active monitors'exit options in a problem involving a demand for liquidity and costly monitoring of the issuer. Optimal incentives to monitor the issuer may involve restricting the monitor's right to sell her claims on the firm's cash-flow early. But the monitor will then require a liquidity premium for holding such an illiquid claim. In general, therefore, there will be a trade off between incentives and liquidity. The paper highlights a fundamental complementarity between speculative monitoring in financial markets (which increases the informativeness of prices) and active monitoring inside the firm: in financial markets where price discovery is better and securities prices reflect the fundamentals of the issuer better, the incentive cost of greater liquidity may be smaller and active monitoring incentives may be preserved. The paper spells out the conditions under which more or less liquidity is warranted and applies the analysis to shed light on common exit provisions in venture capital financing.     

Positioning of the stakeholders in the interaction project management–project marketing: A case of a coconstructed industrial project

Based on a business‐to‐business (B‐to‐B) case within the automotive industry, this study proposes logics (constructivist and determinist, respectively) of protagonists and highlights the complexity of their dynamics during the successive project's phases. The concept of milieu will emphasize the complex business in which project marketing takes place; notably, it allows better identification of relevant relationships. Our article focuses on this concept of milieu with regard to the interactions between project marketing and project management actors during project phases. In particular, this article underlines the difference and the accommodation between the dynamics of interaction and the dynamics of congruence of marketing and management logics.     

Reciprocal influences in future thinking between Europe and the USA

La prospective is generally considered to have grown after WWII in developed countries with two main centers, France and the United States of America. In France, the development of prospective does constitute an important point in contemporary history. Stemming from an idea from philosopher Gaston Berger near the end of the 1950s, a spirit arose accompanied by a practice spread in the central administration (government) and in major French corporations. The objective of this article is not to claim any French originality in thinking about the future. Instead, the following pages show how an original approach blending reflection on the future and present action took shape and the relationship that developed involving current practices on the other side of the Atlantic, mainly the USA, with the help of a few intermediaries.