Rural Futures: Alternative Scenarios for French Rural Society to 2020

The foresight approach presented in this article is a contribution to a work programme set up by the French land planning agency (DATAR) on the theme'Land planning for the France of 2020'. The future of rural space is a matter of concern because of the rapid economic polarization movement towards the metropolis and surroundings, observed over the last three decades. This movement threatens the viability of rural space. The foresight study is based on scenario building. Rural space is seen as a system that ensures various functions: residence, production, nature. Each function and the global context are considered as subsystems driven by a set of key variables. Combining the various modalities of any subsystem variables allows us to build partial scenarios. In turn, these partial scenarios are combined to design four global scenarios describing the possible futures of the French rural space:'a generalized residential countryside', characterized by a marked increase in urban spread; 'sustainable towns and large farms', where rural areas are organized according to the interest of farmers;'towards the nature countryside', a breaking scenario where the priority is to meet environmental challenges; and'active and competitive rural areas', emphasizing the role of local productive systems. Policy makers have many choices and can shape the countryside's picture in the next decade.     

What can econophysics contribute to financial economics?

Econophysics presents itself as a new paradigm and a new specialty (or even a discipline), using various models and concepts imported from condensed matter and statistical physics to analyze financial phenomena. Financial economics is becoming more and more concerned by the emergence of econophysics because this new field deals with the economic reality. In this perspective, one might ask “What can econophysics contribute to financial economics?” After emphasizing the main differences between financial economics and econophysics, this paper will show that these two disciplines can be complementary. I then provide some research themes from econophysics that could be a source of inspiration for financial economists to broaden their theoretical framework.     

Do Real Estate Brokers Choose to Discriminate? Evidence from the 1989 Housing Discrimination Study

Discrimination is systematic unfavorable treatment based solely on group membership. This study focuses on racial and ethnic discrimination in qualitative actions by real estate brokers, such as showing an advertised house, based on 2000 audits conducted in 1989. Each audit consists of a visit to a broker by a white person and a black or Hispanic person with equal qualifications. The audit data are used to measure the incidence of discrimination and to test hypotheses about its causes. The results reveal widespread discrimination and indicate that brokers discriminate based on personal prejudice and the prejudice of white clients.     

Building Core Competencies in Crisis Management Through Organizational Learning: The Case of the French Nuclear Power Producer

Drawing from the resource-based theory of the firm, we develop a conceptual framework to show how organizational learning helps companies build a set of embedded knowledge assets (core competencies). The evolution of the core competencies over time depends on the ability of the firm to maintain a high level of organizational learning. In this article, we take the case of the French nuclear industry to illustrate how the most powerful French electricity producer and supplier, EDF, had succeeded, for 20 years, in building a core competence in nuclear risk and crisis management. Referring to the future deregulation of the European electricity market and the fierce competition of substitute resources of energy, the article shows that nuclear safety is a crucial issue for the survival of EDF and the European nuclear industry. We explore how EDF has learned from Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986 to improve and enrich continuously its core competence in risk and crisis management. We distinguished three phases in the learning process of EDF: the technical phase (1977–1982), the human phase (1982–1989), and the cultural phase (1989–1995). Each phase is analyzed as a step toward a greater awareness of the multidimensional nature of risk and crisis management.     

Extrinsic Rewards,Intrinsic Motivation,and New Product Development Performance

Reward structures can have a significant impact on the performance of new product development (NPD) teams. However, there are several gaps in our understanding of how different types of extrinsic rewards influence the creative performance of NPD teams. Drawing on key theoretical objectives for advancing rewards-creativity research in general, and NPD research in particular, this study incorporates a cognitive and behavioral view of rewards use. In so doing, we distinguish between three kinds of extrinsic rewards: financial, recognition, and social (based on their properties). We then draw upon self-determination theory to hypothesize the differential effects of three types of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic task motivation, and subsequently the creative performance of NPD teams. The proposed framework is tested using two rounds of survey data from 238 members of 64 NPD teams in the high-tech industry. Results of a multilevel structural equation modeling (MLSEM) analysis show that financial rewards have a negative relationship with intrinsic task motivation, while recognition and social rewards have a positive influence. Complexity of the product being developed not only helps to mitigate the negative effects of financial rewards on intrinsic task motivation, but it also reduces the positive effects of social rewards on intrinsic task motivation. Intrinsic task motivation is found to have a positive effect on NPD creative performance in terms of both the developed product’s degree of innovation and its quality. Theoretical and managerial implications are explored.     

Short Selling and the Weekend Effect in Nasdaq Stock Returns

We examine daily short selling of Nasdaq stocks to explore whether speculative short selling causes a significant portion of the weekend effect in returns. We identify a weekend effect in speculative short selling whereby it constitutes a larger percentage of trading volume on Mondays versus Fridays. We find an opposite effect in dealer short selling, consistent with market makers adding liquidity and stability. Our main finding is that speculative short selling does not explain an economically meaningful portion of the weekend effect in returns, even among the firms most that are most actively shorted. This finding contradicts some prior studies.     

Sharing Money Creation in a Monetary Union*

How to share money creation among the members of the European Monetary Union? To address this issue, we construct a two‐country New Open‐economy Macroeconomics model of an asymmetric monetary union with an incomplete financial market and home bias in consumption. We consider two sharing rules consistent with the current regulations of the European System of Central Banks. First, each participating National Central Bank supplies half of the European Central Bank determined money creation in the monetary union. Secondly, each National Central Bank adapts the national increase in money demand, under the constraint that the total money creation in the union does not exceed the level determined by the ECB for the whole union. We show that the current sharing rule, which ignores countries’ heterogeneity, is superior in terms of welfare. The key role of the current account is emphasized. It proves an efficient decentralized mechanism for allocation of money.     

What do we really know about fiscal sustainability in the EU? A panel data diagnostic

We assess the sustainability of public finances in the EU-15 over the period 1970–2006 using stationarity and cointegration analysis. Specifically, we use panel unit root tests of the first and second generation allowing in some cases for structural breaks. We also apply modern panel cointegration techniques developed by Pedroni (Oxf Bull Econ Stat 61(1):653–670, 1999; Econom Theory 20(3):597–625, 2004), generalized by Banerjee and Carrion-i-Silvestre (Cointegration in panel data with breaks and cross-section dependence, European Central Bank, Working Paper 591, 2006) and Westerlund and Edgerton (Econ Lett 97(3):185–190, 2007), to a structural long-run equation between general government expenditures and revenues. While estimations point to fiscal sustainability being an issue in some countries, fiscal policy was sustainable both for the EU-15 panel set, and within sub-periods (1970–1991 and 1992–2006).     

Liquidity and CDS premiums on European companies around the Subprime crisis

This paper sheds new light on the liquidity dynamics of the credit default swaps (CDS) market in Europe around the Subprime crisis. Based on an original dataset of 94 European companies from 2005 to 2009, we use a panel regression analysis to study the relationship between CDS premiums and liquidity. We measure the level of liquidity, look at liquidity risk, and study the liquidity spillovers from the bond and equity markets to the CDS market. We show that the effect of liquidity on CDS premiums is dominated by the influence of worsening credit conditions and deteriorating investors?? expectations about default risk. Controlling for credit risk, we also find that liquidity risk is priced in the European CDS market and that liquidity spillovers from the bond market matter in determining CDS premiums.