GIRAUD Gael

The energy transition requires an evolution of productive and financial structures in order to develop, finance and deploy low-carbon assets. Based on a historical and prospective approach, this thesis proposes four essays contributing to the analysis of the sustainability of such a transition under a structural approach. The first chapter focuses on the role of energy in long-term growth during the industrial revolution. We show that once human capital, technical progress and demography are taken into account, energy appears more as a catalyst than as a root cause of modern growth. These results suggest that economic growth that is not dependent on fossil resources would be feasible, but that it could have significant transition costs, especially because of the dependence on the technological path. The next two chapters focus on the trade-off between financial stability and climate sustainability at the global level. We show that a proactive climate policy package is needed to achieve a balanced growth pathway that controls both risks. The last chapter deals with citizens' attitudes through the study of participatory financing of renewable energies in France. We show that the policy framework is essential for the success of such an instrument, which is relevant for diversifying and raising awareness among the investor base. The latter would be primarily guided by their views on the sustainability of the sector, the transparency of investment opportunities and the perception of risks.

"Should we aim for "degrowth"? Is it already too late to save biodiversity? Is "nature" an obsolete and harmful concept? What are the colonial roots of the climate troubles? Are the "collapsologists" overdoing it by announcing the imminent collapse of the thermo-industrial civilization? In twelve in-depth interviews with philosophers, economists, sociologists and activists, this book explores the major questions raised by the ecological catastrophe and is intended for all those interested in the upheavals to come."

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"Innovation is often presented as one of the main levers to promote a more sustainable and inclusive development. In the fields of agriculture and food, innovation is marked by specificities linked to its relationship to nature, but also to the great diversity of actors involved, from farmers to consumers, including research and development services. Innovation emerges from the interactions between these actors, who mobilize resources and produce knowledge in collaborative arrangements, in order to generate change. It covers fields as varied as production practices, market organization, or food practices. Innovation is linked to major development issues: agro-ecological innovation, social innovation, territorial innovation, etc. This book takes a look at innovation in agricultural and food systems. It places particular emphasis on supporting innovation, by examining methods and organizations, and on evaluating innovation according to various criteria. It is based on the reflections of various scientific disciplines, on fieldwork conducted in France and in many countries of the South, and on the experience gained by accompanying innovating actors. It combines syntheses on innovation and emblematic case studies to illustrate the points made." [source: 4th cover].

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The main theme of this thesis is macro financial linkages. I have covered three different issues related to this topic. In the first chapter, Gaël Giraud and I develop a model for the euro area in response to many criticisms of policy models prior to the GFC and with a focus on the interaction between the financial sector and the macroeconomy. The second and third chapters focus on the behavior of the financial sector in the wake of the global financial crisis and its implications for the macroeconomy. Chapter 2 examines the practice of forbearance for distressed borrowers. The ultimate question in this chapter is the extent to which this behavior affects the real economy. Finally, the third chapter highlights an episode of manipulation in commodity markets. This alleged manipulation was apparently only possible because of the dominant market position of banks in the run-up to the crisis and afterwards. Ultimately, I quantify the effects of such behavior and provide evidence of a structural change in the manipulated market during the period of alleged manipulation. The first chapter exploits a bank-level dataset, while in Chapters 2 and 3 I develop structural macro models. In particular, the dynamic system model in the second chapter is an innovation. This class of models, and especially a model of the size we develop, has never been estimated and subsequently used for policy analysis.

This thesis takes as its object the transformations in macroeconomic analysis in the United States during the 1970s while questioning the way in which these transformations are studied and analyzed. From the perspective of factual history, the period seems to mark a break from the relative economic stability of the postwar period. This period of economic instability, known as stagflation, echoes the instability of macroeconomic theory in the United States. The consensus of the time, considered "Keynesian", was attacked by the so-called "monetarist" and "new classic" economists. The last of these groups is the "revolutionary" group, which is considered to have radically changed the discipline. The purpose of my dissertation is to study the influence of the New Classics on macroeconomics in the 1970s by mobilizing a historiographical apparatus that places the role played by stagflation at the heart of the study, and to confront the results of this study with the "conventional" history of macroeconomics. The thesis is structured around four independent articles. The first chapter compares the methodologies of Lucas and Sargent, and shows that the second attempts to give a more realistic character to the models of the New Classical Economy, by using rational expectations to describe different economic phenomena. The second chapter deals with the confrontation between Lucas and Sargent on the one hand, and the advocates of structural macroeconometric models on the other. Chapter 3 studies the evolution of Robert Gordon's work on inflation in the 1970s and documents the way in which he gradually adopted the natural rate of unemployment hypothesis. Finally, Chapter 4 focuses on the empirical debates in the early 1980s around the Lucas crisis.

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Since the stagflation observed following the sharp rise in the price of oil in 1973 and 1979, oil shocks have been considered one of the most potentially important sources of fluctuations in the United States as well as in many industrialized countries. Many articles have studied the role of oil shocks in the fluctuation of the main macroeconomic variables, namely growth, unemployment, inflation and wages. However, this work has not yet led to a consensus. The debate has even intensified over the past decade, due to a lack of a strong response from the real economy during the period of rising oil prices between 2002 and 2007. In effet, the recession that such a price increase should have caused was not observed until the subprime crisis in 2008. Several hypotheses were put forward to explain the difference between the crises of the 1970s and 2000s. Blanchard & Gali (2009) and Blanchard & Riggi (2013) mention, for example, the reduction in the amount of oil used in production, greater flexibility in real wages and greater credibility of monetary policy. Hamilton (2009) and Kilian (2008), on the other hand, suggest that it can be explained by the different origins of the two oil shocks: a supply shock during the 1970s and a demand shock during the 2000s. The original objective of the thesis was to re-examine the impact of oil shocks on the real economy through the debt channel. [The development of this work initiated in the thesis may lead to an alternative modeling framework that is decisive for the intelligence of macroeconomics. It should allow a better understanding of the evaluation of the reciprocal relations between the financial sphere, the reality of real macroeconomic cycles, energy and climate in what is undoubtedly the challenge of our generation: the ecological transition.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the role of energy in long-term economic growth. Chapter 1 describes the four main facts of growth: the transition from stagnation to sustainability, the Great Divergence, the interdependence between energy consumption and technical progress, and the dynamics in nested and hierarchical cycles. The various remote causes of growth (biogeography, culture, institutions and contingency) are then studied. Chapter 2 presents the theories involving so-called proximate causes, such as technical progress and the accumulation of physical and human capital. The unified growth theory (UGT) is also analyzed. Chapter 3 presents the fundamental laws of thermodynamics and the associated concepts of exergy and entropy. It is then shown that only the consumption of exergy services is a fundamental cause of growth. In chapter 4, it is established that world oil and gas production (but not coal) has already exceeded its maximum energy rate of return (EROI), so that future conventional production will be with a decreasing EROI. Chapter 5 shows that the higher metal requirements of renewable technologies could be a constraint to the successful feasibility of the energy transition. Chapter 6 shows that the net energy constraint materializes in the short term through the energy expenditure (share of the economic product consumed to obtain energy). Chapter 7 presents a theoretical model of endogenous growth integrating the biophysical approach.

Our contemporary societies are affected by major social, economic and environmental tensions. The succession of financial and ecological crises, the excesses of capitalism, the growing financialization of human activities and the globalization of inequalities require the construction of new economic reference points for thinking about the public policies of tomorrow. In this context, while past recipes have shown their limits, it seems relevant to question the role that a more social and solidarity-based economy could play. What changes and new skills could we imagine in this changing socio-economic context? How could we respond differently to needs and promote alternative forms of action to the logic of accumulation? By inviting researchers in the humanities and social sciences to consider these questions and by proposing that they reflect on new ways of understanding the world, in order to act more effectively, this book seeks to move away from the conventional and repetitive solutions often suggested by experts close to the "dominant" economic science. In the first part, it takes stimulating paths to "rethink" the economy. The questions of measuring wealth, of trust in economic relations and of the management of common goods are thus addressed. Then, concrete avenues for renewing the foundations of the social state are considered. New spaces of transformation that the social and solidarity economy seems to be able to develop are then outlined.

The economic implications of oil price shocks have been extensively studied since the 1970s. Despite this huge literature, no dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model was available that captures two well-known stylized facts: (1) the stagflationary impact of an oil price shock, together with (2) the influence of the energy efficiency of capital on the depth and length of this impact. We build, estimate and simulate a New-Keynesian model with capital accumulation, which takes the case of an economy where oil is imported from abroad, and where these stylized facts can be accounted for. Moreover, the Bayesian estimation of the model on the US economy (1984-2007) suggests that the output elasticity of oil might have been above 10%, stressing the role of oil use in US growth at this time. Finally, our simulations confirm that an increase in energy efficiency significantly attenuates the effects of an oil shock-a possible explanation of why the third oil shock (1999-2008) did not have the same macro-economic impact as the first two ones. These results suggest that oil consumption and energy efficiency have been two major engines for US growth in the last three decades.

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Since the stagflation observed following the sharp rise in the price of oil in 1973 and 1979, oil shocks have been considered one of the most important sources of fluctuations in the United States as well as in many industrialized countries. Numerous articles have then studied the role of oil shocks in the fluctuation of the main macroeconomic variables, namely growth, unemployment, inflation and wages. However, this work has not yet led to a consensus. The debate has even intensified over the last decade, following the lack of reaction of the real economy during the period of rising oil prices between 2002 and 2007. Indeed, stagflation was only observed at the time of the subprime crisis in 2008. Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain the difference between the crises of the 1970s and 2000. Blanchard & Gali (2009) and Blanchard & Riggi (2013) mention, for example, the reduction in the quantity of oil used in the production process, the greater flexibility of real wages and the greater credibility of monetary policy. Hamiltion (2009) and Kilian (2008) suggest the difference in the origin of the two oil shocks: a supply shock in the 1970s and a demand shock in the 2000s. The objective of this thesis is to re-examine the impact of oil shocks on the real economy. First, based on the work of Blanchard & Gali, we propose three new dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models, which incorporate oil as both a factor of production and a consumption good. By relaxing several assumptions adopted in Blanchard & Gali, our models allow a better simulation of the real economy and thus a more detailed study of the transmission mechanisms of shocks. Second, we analyze several types of public interventions that could mitigate the impact of oil shocks on the economy.

If development is conceived as a process of rent elimination, does the Douglass North, John Wallis, Barry Weingast (NWW) conceptual framework developed in 2009, which defines it as a process of institutional transition from a limited access social order (developing countries) where violence is permanent and disseminated, to an open access social order (developed countries) where economic and political access is open to all through free competition, really eliminate rents? Through an internal theoretical critique and an empirical critique illustrated by the history of Nigeria and in particular the activity of the multinational oil companies, we argue that NWW's conceptual framework is flawed i) in its conception of the role of elites and non-elites in the process of opening up access within the limited-access social order ii) and in its epistemological construction of the open-access social order model based on free political and economic competition. NWW's open access order maintains rents, and legitimizes predation, which we define as the exploitation of rents of domination. Predators thus impose social costs on their victims that sustainable development (SD) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches struggle to eliminate. SD and CSR will only succeed in eliminating predation by developing institutions and frames of reference that force actors to take into account the asymmetry of power and the risk of domination in negotiations between stakeholders, with a view to respecting human dignity in transactions.

The economic implications of oil price shocks have been extensively studied since the 1970s'. Despite this huge literature, no dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model was available that captures two well-known stylized facts: 1) the stagflationary impact of an oil price shock, together with 2) the influence of the energy productivity of capital on the depth and length of this impact. We build, estimate and simulate a New-Keynesian model with capital accumulation, which takes the case of an economy where oil is imported from abroad, and where these stylized facts can be accounted for. Moreover, the Bayesian estimation of the model on the US economy (1984-2007) suggests that the output elasticity of oil might have been above 10%, stressing the role of oil use in US growth at this time. Finally, our simulations confirm that an increase in energy efficiency significantly attenuates the effects of an oil shock —a possible explanation of why the third oil shock (1999-2008) did not have the same macro-economic impact as the first two ones.

This paper documents the paradoxical short-term effects of training and job programmes implemented by oil companies in the region of Onelga, Rivers State (Nigeria). We use two multidimensional indexes as dependent variables: the UNDP's Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and a ‘Relational Deprivation Index’ (RDI) that measures the quality of social fabric. We find that while the programmes significantly reduce conventional poverty, their impact on RDI is twofold: the beneficiaries' integration into networks improves at the expense of deteriorated private relations. These different effects promote measuring poverty and development as multidimensional phenomena and taking into consideration social aspects of development.

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Why are greenhouse gas emissions not controlled? The thesis interrogates the toolbox of neo-classical economic analysis and asks the question: how does economic theory form an inadequate mental framing of the climate problem? The thesis identifies shifts in the history of resource economics and shows a recurrent neglect of the material substrate of production. The production function, the preferred tool for modeling technical constraints, is based on a misunderstanding, as the Cambridge controversy taught. Cost-benefit analysis, the only supposedly non-normative approach, is preferred to deal with climate change, even if it means modeling unknown relationships. The damage function extrapolates from shared prejudices, and the repeated controversies over discounting highlight the inconsistency of the current macroeconomic framework. The analysis of a contemporary article makes explicit the functioning of this casual relationship to reality: the loose links between the mathematical structure of a model, the words used to describe it and its numerical results give extraordinary margins for interpretation. The relationship between economic system, ideology and academic discipline is studied through the prism of two symbols, homo economicus and the market. The inadequacy of economic theory to deal with climate change has a deeper root in the current market-centered organization of Western societies. The blocking effects can be seen both in the sociological phenomenon of climate skepticism and in the construction of the carbon market.

This paper examines unconventional monetary policies in a two-period general equilibrium model. Agents exchange goods and also collateralized financial assets through money. An unconventional policy of increasing the quantity of money leads to the existence of only three scenarios compatible with the equilibrium conditions: 1) the economy encounters a liquidity trap. 2) money creation makes trade possible, at the cost of inflation. 3) money creation feeds a bubble that causes a financial crash. This trilemma highlights the transmission channels of monetary policies to real trade. It provides a rigorous foundation for the distinction between Fischerian debt deflation and Keynesian liquidity traps.

This paper explores some of the dimensions related to poverty and exclusion, by defining a Relational Capability Index (RCI) which focuses on the quality of relationships among people and on their level of relational empowerment. This index is rooted in a relational anthropology. it insists on the quality of the social fabric and of interpersonal relations as a key aspect of human development. As a multidimensional index, the RCI includes integration into networks, private relations and civic commitments. We provide an axiomatization of a family of multidimensional indexes. This axiomatic viewpoint fills the gap between theories of justice and poverty measurements. By means of illustration, we apply three different versions of the RCI, which are elements of this family, to the measurement of the impact of oil companies on local communities in the Niger Delta (Nigeria) and to national surveys (Afrobarometer).

This thesis consists of two parts: The first part focuses on cooperative market games and the second on strategic market games. In the case of cooperative market games, the link between cooperative games and markets and the associated solution concepts are studied. Together with Jan-Philip Gamp we show the following results: For cooperative market games with transferable utility we present a proof that generalizes the results of Shapley and Shubik (1975) to convex and closed subsets of the heart following a remark of the authors. For cooperative market games with non-transferable utility we extend the results of Qin (1993) to a large class of closed subsets of the inner core. Next, we study the relationship between the inner core and asymmetric Nash bargaining solutions for bargaining games. A strategic market game is a non-cooperative game used to describe price formation in an exchange economy. In this thesis the starting point is the model of Giraud and Weyers (2004). For finite horizon strategic market games, I show proving a theorem analogous to a folk theorem, that even in the presence of collateral requirements, almost anything is possible as long as the players are patient enough. Finally, in a joint work with Gaël Giraud, for strategic market games with infinite horizon and uncertainty we prove a partial folk theorem à la Wiseman (2011).

The purpose of this thesis is to propose a theoretical framework inspired by the work on non-testing in the line of Smale (1976), Champsaur and Cornet (1990), Bottazzi (1994), Giraud (2010). Beyond the attempt to solve the problem of describing trade processes, it also aims to propose a macroeconomic model that explicitly takes into account the micro-structure of trade. It is composed of four chapters, the first of which is a reminder of the main works on non-trading, followed by a presentation of the approach that we propose to address the problem mentioned above. The last three chapters provide the details of the main results. These results are organized around three articles that mark the main stages of our research. The first article is devoted to the definition of a local economy with good properties that serve as a basis for the dynamics we want to define. This local economy is defined by the restriction of exchanges by means of a parameter "tau". The main property sought for this microstructure (the local economy) is the uniqueness of the equilibrium. We have shown that for sufficiently small "tau", the local economy admits a unique normalized equilibrium. In the second paper we have defined a discrete time dynamics by means of the local economy concept of the first paper. The main result is the convergence to a Pareto optimum in a finite number of steps. In the last paper we introduced money in the discrete time dynamics model by means of a cash constraint and a money market. We have drawn some interpretations in terms of monetary policy in the framework of our model.

The focus of this thesis is the study of competitive Nash game forms such that in the presence of a finite number of agents, the set of Nash coi͏̈ equilibrium outcomes coincides with the set of Walrasian equilibria of the economy.