ELIE Luc

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Although there is much analysis of French industry and its underperformance compared to Germany since the global recession, this critique tends not to be linked to a related analysis of French firm-level dynamics. Firm-level research is more relevant than ever to understand the evolving structures of value creation, capture and extraction by different economic actors and the widening inequality between them. As neoliberalism and financialization increasingly influence western capitalism, the firm as a unit of analysis has become critical to understand the conditions for industrial success and failure of nations, including France. Unfortunately, questions raised by the Regulation School concerning industrial dynamics and their firm-level repercussions did not evolve into a shared research agenda for studying the micro-dynamics of capitalist economies in the 21st century. This is particularly valid for France where the School was originally founded. This paper seeks to identify the weaknesses and strengths of French industry over the pre and post-recession periods through an analysis of most recent research, including official reports based on national and international data. We identify the most highlighted but sometimes contradictory issues of French competitiveness by the literature from macro as well as micro perspectives together with the underlying hypotheses and causalities proposed by researchers related to these issues. After we develop our own understanding of the issues of French competitiveness from a strategic control and financial commitment perspective à la Lazonick, in the second part of the paper, we present the industry level data for sources and uses of funds of large French firms in comparison with their British and German counterparts to highlight the changing patterns of earning and spending of major industrial firms in France. This contributes to our understanding of practices of French firms differ from or converge towards those of their rivals to explain the dwindling market share of French firms in certain industries. However, the competitiveness of French firms in different industries varies and its position in some high-tech sectors is improving. In the last part of our paper, therefore, we analyze the social conditions of innovation for a selected number of firms in aerospace, pharmaceutical, automotive and telecommunications equipment industries where French firms are exhibiting a divergent pattern of competitiveness and innovative capacity.

This thesis is part of a diachronic and synchronic analysis of the links between forms of capitalism and their environment. The first chapter proposes to highlight the way in which the co-evolution between capitalism and the environment has been able to take place by crossing the theoretical and empirical contributions of the school of regulation with works from the field of environmental history and ecological economics. We show that the different historical forms of capitalism have generated significant and differentiated environmental consequences. Conversely, it turns out that the relationship with the environment has had a primordial influence on the forms of capitalism, notably through the intermediary of environmental institutional arrangements (EIA). The second chapter aims to find out to what extent these devices undergo a process of differentiated adoption according to the contemporary forms of capitalism in which they are embedded. In this respect, a certain correspondence between our typology of national EISs and the typology of capitalisms emerges. Finally, the third chapter focuses on the way in which levels of inequality, largely dependent on the different forms of capitalism, can influence the adoption of EISs. Through an econometric analysis, we attempt to reveal the mechanisms most likely to explain this phenomenon.

No summary available.

This thesis is part of a diachronic and synchronic analysis of the links between forms of capitalism and their environment. The first chapter proposes to highlight the way in which the co-evolution between capitalism and the environment has been able to take place by crossing the theoretical and empirical contributions of the school of regulation with works from the field of environmental history and ecological economics. We show that the different historical forms of capitalism have generated significant and differentiated environmental consequences. Conversely, it turns out that the relationship with the environment has had a primordial influence on the forms of capitalism, notably through the intermediary of environmental institutional arrangements (EIA). The second chapter aims to find out to what extent these devices undergo a process of differentiated adoption according to the contemporary forms of capitalism in which they are embedded. In this respect, a certain correspondence between our typology of national EISs and the typology of capitalisms emerges. Finally, the third chapter focuses on the way in which levels of inequality, largely dependent on the different forms of capitalism, can influence the adoption of EISs. Through an econometric analysis, we attempt to reveal the mechanisms most likely to explain this phenomenon.

Rising economic inequality, often considered intrinsically harmful, is increasingly being viewed as having a number of secondary impacts as well, including impacts on health and economic growth. The ongoing nature of today's environmental crisis also raises questions about inequality's role in environmental deterioration. Despite the large number of papers that have been written on this topic, no theoretical or empirical consensus presently exists. Firstly, our article identifies that authors' conclusions in this area depend on their hypotheses regarding 1) the relationship between individual income and individual environmental pressure, 2) the impact of inequality on the social norms that influence individual environmental pressure, 3) the interests that social groups have in degrading or protecting the environment, 4) how these interests play out in terms of political demands, and 5) how these political demands translate into political decisions. Secondly, the study shows that, despite enabling a general test of the causal relationship between inequality and the environment, the empirical methods utilised do not account for the full range of theoretical mechanisms in play. Hence the suggestion that a research programme be launched to conduct empirical studies of the five aforementioned hypotheses by applying a recursive approach.