FABRE Adrien

This paper helps to understand how beliefs form and determine attitudes towards policies. Using a new survey and official households’ survey data, we investigate the case of carbon taxation in France in the context of the Yellow Vests movement that started against it. We find that French people would largely reject a Tax & Dividend policy, i.e. a carbon tax whose revenues are redistributed uniformly to each adult. However, they also overestimate the negative impact of the scheme on their purchasing power, wrongly think it is regressive, and do not perceive it as environmentally effective. Using information about the scheme as instruments to robustly identify causal effects, our econometric analysis shows that if we could rectify these three biased beliefs, it would suffice to generate majority approval. Yet, only a small minority can be convinced by new information and revisions are biased towards pessimism. Finally, if overly pessimistic beliefs cause tax rejection, they also result from it through motivated reasoning, which manifests what we define as “tax aversion”.

This paper aims to assess the prospects for French climate policies after the Yellow Vests crisis halted the planned increase in the carbon tax. From a large representative survey, we elicit knowledge, perceptions and values over climate change, we examine opinions relative to carbon taxation, and we assess support for other climate policies. Specific attention is given to the link between perceptions of climate change and attitudes towards policies. The paper also studies in detail the determinants of attitudes in terms of political and socio-demographic variables. Among many results, we find limited knowledge but high concern for climate change. We also document a large rejection of the carbon tax but majority support for stricter norms and green investments, and reveal the rationales behind these preferences. Our study entails policy recommendations, such as an information campaign on climate change. Indeed, we find that climate awareness increases support for climate policies but no evidence for the formation of opinions through partisan cues as in the US, suggesting that better access to science could foster support for climate policies.

The production of energy from renewable sources is much more intensive in minerals than that from fossil resources. The scarcity of certain minerals limits the potential for substituting renewable energy for scarce fossil resources. However, minerals can be recycled,while fossil resources cannot. We develop an intertemporal model to study the dynamics of the optimal energy mix in the presence of mineral intensive renewable energy and fossil energy. We analyze energy production when both mineral and fossil resources are scarce,but minerals are recyclable. We show that the greater the recycling rate of minerals, the more the energy mix should rely on renewable energy, and the sooner should investment in renewable capacity take place. We confirm these results even in the presence of other better known factors that affect the optimal schedule of resource use: expected productivity growth in the renewable sector, imperfect substitution between the two sources of energy, convex extraction costs for mineral resources and pollution from the use of fossil resources.

The production of energy from renewable sources is much more intensive in minerals than that from fossil resources. The scarcity of certain minerals limits the potential for substituting renewable energy for scarce fossil resources. However, minerals can be recycled, while fossils cannot. We develop an intertemporal model to study the dynamics of the optimal energy mix in the presence of mineral intensive renewable energy and fossil energy. We analyze energy production when both mineral and fossil resources are scarce, but minerals are recyclable. We show that the greater the recycling rate of minerals, the more the energy mix should rely on renewable energy, and the sooner should investment in renewable capacity take place. We confirm these results even in the presence of other better known factors that a ect the optimal schedule of resource use: growth in the productivity in the renewable sector, imperfect substitution between the two sources of energy, convex extraction costs for mineral resources and pollution from the use of fossil resources.

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The EROI – for Energy Returned On Invested – of an energy technology measures its ability to provide energy efficiently. Previous studies draw a link between the affluence of a society and the EROI of its energy system, and show that EROIs of renewables are lower than those of fossil fuels. Logically, concerns have been expressed that system-wide EROI may decrease during a renewable energy transition. First, I explain theoretically that the EROIs of renewables themselves could then decrease as energy-efficient fossil fuels would be replaced by less energy-efficient renewables in the supply-chain. Then, using the multi-regional input-output model THEMIS, I estimate the evolution of EROIs and prices of electric technologies from 2010 to 2050 for different scenarios. Global EROI of electricity is predicted to go from 12 in 2010 to 11 in 2050 in a business-as-usual scenario, but down to 6 in a 100% renewable one. Finally, I study the economic implication of a declining EROI. An inverse relation between EROI and price is suggested empirically, even though theory shows that both quantities may move in the same direction.

We study the notion of {\it finitely determined functions} defined on a topological vector space $E$ equipped with a biorthogonal system. This notion will be used to obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for a convex function to attain a minimum at some point. An application to the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker theorem will be given. For real-valued convex functions defined on a Banach space with a Schauder basis, the notion of finitely determined function coincides with the classical continuity but outside the convex case there are many finitely determined nowhere continuous functions.

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This paper follows van der Ploeg (Metroeconomica 37(2):221–230, 1985)’s research program in testing both its extension of Goodwin (in: Feinstein (ed) Socialism, capitalism and economic growth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 4, 54–58, 1967) predator–prey model and the Minsky Financial Instability Hypothesis (FIH) proposed by Keen (J Post Keynes Econ 17(4):607–635, 1995). By endowing the production sector with CES technology rather than Leontief, van der Ploeg showed that the possible substitution between capital and labor transforms the close orbit into a stable focus. Furthermore, Keen (1995)’s model relaxed the assumption that profit is equal to investment by introducing a nonlinear investment function. His aim was to incorporate Minsky’s insights concerning the role of debt finance. The primary goal of this paper is to incorporate additional properties, inspired by van der Ploeg’s framework, into Keen’s model. Additionally, we outline possibilities for production technology that could be considered within this research program. Using numerical techniques, we show that our new model keeps the desirable properties of Keen’s model. However, we also demonstrate that when the economy is endowed with a class of CES production function that includes the Cobb–Douglas and the linear technology as limit cases, the unique stable equilibrium is an economically desirable one. Finally, we propose a modified extension that includes speculative component in the economy as in Grasselli and Costa-Lima (Math Financ Econ 6(3):191–210, 2012) and investigate its effect on the dynamics. We conclude that CES production function is a more suitable assumption for empirical purposes than the Leontief counterpart. Finally, we show, using numerical simulations, that under plausible calibration, the model endowed with CES production function eventually lose the cyclical property of Goodwin’s model with and without the speculative component.

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Bacteria of the genus Campylobacter are bacteria involved in human pathology, most often in intestinal infections of the enteritis type and originate, in the majority of cases, from farm animals (poultry, pigs) consumed in the diet. Antibiotic treatment of these enteric infections, although not systematic, is often conducted with macrolides or fluoroquinolones but systemic infections may require the use of aminoglycosides such as gentamicin. Recent studies report an increased incidence of gentamicin-resistant strains of Campylobacter. Moreover, such strains frequently present multiple associated resistances which limits the therapeutic alternatives. Analysis of twelve whole genomes of multi-resistant Campylobacter has identified new genes coding for aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes and a probable new lincomycin resistance gene. In addition, known resistance genes in other bacterial genera were identified for the first time in Campylobacter. The correlation between genotype and phenotype is 100% for tetracyclines, quinolones, ampicillin, erythromycin and aminoglycosides suggesting that the analysis of the Campylobacter genome is a very powerful tool for the monitoring of antibiotic resistance and could be a substitute for antibiotic susceptibility testing in the future. On the other hand, conjugation tests have shown that these resistance genes, when carried by a plasmid, can diffuse from one Campylobacter strain to another by horizontal transmission and thus contribute to their dissemination and to the emergence of multi-resistant strains.

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