Le blog du CEPII

Lifting the lid on the black box of informal trade in Africa

 Post, October 5, 2018
By Joachim Jarreau, Cristina Mitaritonna, Sami Bensassi
This post, already published on The Conversation, explains how official statistics do not reflect the reality of internal trade in Africa. Intra Africa trade seems low despite numerous regional trade agreements that have led to tariffs removal within the trading blocs. However, a large part of cross-border trade between African countries is informal.
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Banks Defy Gravity in Tax Havens

 Post, September 21, 2018
By Vincent Bouvatier, Gunther Capelle-Blancard, Anne-Laure Delatte
This post, already published in Voxeu, examines the contribution of EU banks to tax evasion. It presents the new finding that bank activity in tax havens is three times larger when using new country-by-country regulatory data than what is predicted by the gravity model, and that British and German banks are particularly present in tax havens.
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Carrier International: the beginning of the unraveling of globalization?

 Post, December 15, 2016
By Jean-Francois Boittin
Dec. 1st may well be remembered in the history books of the 22nd century as the beginning of the end of globalization. This is the day when the President-elect paraded his “victory” over the management of Carrier International, a unit of United Technologies that had announced the move of 2,000 some jobs to Mexico.
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Why denser areas are more productive

 Post, December 2, 2016
By Lionel Fontagné, Gianluca Santoni
A key driver of productivity is ease of resource allocation. This column uses firm-level data for France to show that misallocation has a spatial dimension: resource allocation and the associated effect on productivity are related not only to firms’ characteristics, but also to the environment in which they operate. Denser commuting zones seem to offer a better match between employers and employees, leading to more productive firms.
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In search of a liquid asset for European financial markets

 Post, July 15, 2016
By Francesco Molteni
European financial markets face a shortage of liquid assets. New regulations increase banks’ demand for liquid securities, mainly sovereign bonds, but the European fiscal rules constrain the supply of public debt. Further, the QE is draining bonds from the market. Some proposed forms of “Eurobonds” or new debt securities issued by European supranational organizations could solve this problem.
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COP21

The price of carbon: ways forward after COP-21

 Post, November 26, 2015
By Christian de Perthuis, Pierre-André Jouvet, Raphaël Trotignon
Because the climate is a common good, economists generally advocate the use of an international carbon price to internalize climate risk, to incorporate as many countries as possible into an agreement and to thwart “free-rider” strategies.
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COP21

Towards a Sustainable Financial System

 Post, November 26, 2015
By Armin Haas
It will be key for the global sustainability transition that the measures taken in the respective sustainability dimensions, i.e. the economic, the ecological, and the social dimension, complement and reinforce each other.
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COP21

How Could We Finance Low-Carbon Investments in Europe?

 Post, October 22, 2015
By Michel Aglietta, Etienne Espagne, Vincent Aussilloux, Baptiste Perrissin-Fabert
This year, Europe is confronted with a critical double challenge: addressing the climate change issue and pulling itself out of a persistent low growth trap. Today these two challenges are addressed separately. We propose to make private low-carbon assets eligible for the ECB asset purchase program.
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COP21

Climate Finance in the Context of Sustainable Development

 Post, October 22, 2015
By Ottmar Edenhofer, Jan Christoph Steckel, Michael Jakob
Novel ideas how to spend climate finance in a way that reduces emissions and at the same time promotes recipients’ immediate development objectives are required. In this short commentary, we propose to regard climate finance in the broader context of sustainable development.
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COP21

Why Finance Can Save the Planet

 Post, October 15, 2015
By Jean Pisani-Ferry
Most people hate finance, viewing it as the epitome of irresponsibility and greed. But, even after causing a once-in-a-century recession and unemployment for millions, finance looks indispensable for preventing an even worse catastrophe: climate change.
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COP21

The “$100 000 000 000 per year” question

 Post, October 8, 2015
By Christian De Perthuis, Pierre-André Jouvet
A mechanism of carbon “bonus-malus” is proposed, where the average emission rate of world countries serves as the anchor: above the threshold, countries should pay a malus, under this level, they would receive a bonus.
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COP21

An Investment Climate for Climate Investment

 Post, September 22, 2015
By Sam Fankhauser
Three factors hold back low-carbon investment in Europe: the risk/return profile of low-carbon investment projects, regulatory and behavioural features in the financial sector and a more global political economy context. These are key issues to create an investment climate for climate investment.
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COP21

Guideposts for low-carbon finance

 Post, September 18, 2015
By Billy Pizer
Four guide-posts for efficient low-carbon finance are proposed: remove subsidies for high-carbon technologies, improve the cost-effectiveness of low-carbon subsidies, encourage private sector innovation, and maintain transparent public policy tools that support cost-benefit accounting.
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COP21

How to Finance the Low Carbon Transition: The Role of the Financial System

 Post, September 17, 2015
By Etienne Espagne, Baptiste Perrissin Fabert
The aim of this webpage, co-hosted by France Stratégie and CEPII, is to provide a medium for experts and non-experts to discuss the merits and the limits of the various proposals and initiatives in the field of international finance. It is intended to become a forum where the debate on the financial system’s contribution to the energy transition can flourish.
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What could be Japan contribution to COP 21?

 Post, May 28, 2015
By Evelyne Dourille-Feer
Europe was disappointed in the GHG emissions reduction proposal by Japan in the context of the COP 21: -25.4% between 2005 and 2030. Japan could nonetheless help move forward the climate issue by its technologies and original experiences.
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Volatility and uncertainty are not the same!

 Post, May 4, 2015
By Valérie Mignon, Marc Joëts, Tovonony Razafindrabe
Crude oil price volatility is often viewed as reflecting uncertainty not only related to the oil market, but also to the global macroeconomic environment. However, the question arises as to whether uncertainty is not likely to be at play without generating high volatility on the oil market.
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Back to the Great Moderation?

 Post, April 30, 2015
By Stéphane Lhuissier
Following the largest financial shock since the Great Depression, modern industrial countries appear to be coming back to a moderate growth trajectory, as was the case for the last three decades.
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Europe is trapped by its competitiveness obsession

 Post, April 22, 2015
By Sébastien Jean
While European external surpluses are accumulating and domestic demand is slacking, insisting on improving the Union’s external competitiveness, as some in the Commission are presently doing, is paradoxical. For Europe, the paramount risk is not losing its competitiveness. It is not recovering cohesion and growth.
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QE - "European style": be bolder, but parsimonious!

 Post, March 24, 2015
By Urszula Szczerbowicz, Natacha Valla
The ECB will purchase a monthly €60bn of private and public debt instruments between March 2015 and September 2016 – a total worth over €1 trillion. While the timing and size of purchases are known, there is more leeway than it seems in the way purchases are allocated to each category of assets.
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Quantitative Easing: were markets surprised?

 Post, January 24, 2015
By Stéphane Lhuissier
The ECB has announced that it will launch in March its first round of quantitative easing. The announcement contains some good and bad surprises: the size of the ECB's plan is gigantic, while the Central Bank was unclear about the Greek issue. How was this announcement perceived by markets?
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ECB equity purchases: too risky, really?

 Post, January 9, 2015
By Urszula Szczerbowicz, Natacha Valla
Instead of buying sovereign debt, the ECB could broaden further its purchases to include equity of all sorts. Fuelling an equity bubble is no worse than fuelling a bond one. It can be mitigated by intervening secretly and including non listed securities. Inhibitions to take risk should be lifted.
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Long live the Juncker Plan!

 Post, December 21, 2014
By Natacha Valla
The long awaited Juncker Plan for investment in Europe has arrived a few weeks ago. Beyond the creation of a Strategic Fund, the Plan as a whole has disappointed: not adamant enough to eliminate the deep obstacles to cross-border investment, and opaque in generating the “List” of projects to be financed. Yet, even imperfectly, Europe has now done its homework.
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TTIP is about regulatory coherence

 Post, December 8, 2014
By Lionel Fontagné, Sébastien Jean
The TTIP has become a full-blown political issue as the two largest economic entities in the world are negotiating a deep integration agreement, going beyond what has been done previously in any agreement except the EU’s Single Market.
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The delusion of State guarantees

 Post, October 3, 2014
By Natacha Valla
European policymakers are currently busy addressing two issues: moribund investment and banks on extended sick leave. Some observers might be tempted to segregate these issues. While investment would be in the remit of States, the financial health of our economies would be under the responsibility of the ECB alone.
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Euro area: deflation is the wrong debate

 Post, March 6, 2014
By Natacha Valla
For a fact, measures of headline consumer price inflation have decelerated sharply over the recent past. At 0.8-1%; inflation hovers around levels that are clearly below the ECB’s flagship 2% medium-term objective.
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The French should care about Karlsruhe

 Post, February 12, 2014
By Natacha Valla
Strikingly, the debate about the Feb 7 ruling of the German Constitutional Court against the ECB’s flagship OMT programme has gone almost unnoticed in France. This is wrong. The French should care about it.
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Emerging turbulences

 Post, September 10, 2013
By Christophe Destais
The current turmoil in emerging capital markets is the result of a classical reversal of market sentiment after an excess of optimism. There are good reasons for being cautiously optimistic but uncertainties remain.
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Challenges ahead for the next WTO DG

 Post, May 2, 2013
By Sébastien Jean
The WTO is going through a leadership transition as after 8 years, the incumbent Director-General steps down on September 1, 2013. What are the challenges ahead for Pascal Lamy’s successor? The next DG will certainly have to take the Doha loss and move toward an updated multilateral trading system.
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Monetary policy in exceptional times

 Post, January 31, 2013
By Urszula Szczerbowicz
The last 5 years have been a major challenge for the theory and practice of monetary policy. The key channel of conventional monetary policy has been severely impaired and the target policy rates in some countries have approached zero.
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Six pack: the case for a simplified scoreboard

 Post, November 14, 2012
By Laurence Nayman, Sophie Piton, Agnès Bénassy-Quéré
In December 2011, the ‘six pack’ introduced a new surveillance procedure of macroeconomic imbalances at the European level. However, the ten indicators used for the early warning of imbalances do not seem much more relevant than the simple indicator of the current account balance.
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The case for the ECB sovereign bonds purchases

 Post, July 10, 2012
By Urszula Szczerbowicz
On Thursday July 5th the ECB decided to cut its main refinancing rate to 0.75%, for the first time crossing the historical low of 1%. More importantly, it reduced the overnight deposit facility rate to 0%. In doing so, the ECB encouraged banks to transform the liquidity received via two 3-year LTROs into credit to companies and households, instead of keeping it at the ECB deposit facility.
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Eurobonds: a way to act swiftly

 Post, June 5, 2012
By Agnès Bénassy-Quéré
The Eurozone is facing three intertwined and mutually reinforcing crises: a sovereign debt glut, banks’ financial fragility and dampened growth prospects. Further fiscal and political integration seems to be the only way to address these issues.
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Don’t let the Eurozone crisis go East

 Post, April 4, 2012
By Asia-Europe Economic Forum
The eurozone crisis presents a risk for Asian economies. Mainly, the crisis could spread through trade and various financial channels.Yet, economic impact of spillovers is not the only reason why Asia has a specific interest in the survival of the euro.
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The international monetary system needs the euro

 Post, January 12, 2012
By Agnès Bénassy-Quéré
With the survival of the euro area at stake, and the reform of the international monetary system no longer a priority of the G20 presidency, it may seem strange to call for an increased international role of the euro.
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China in the WTO: an assessment

 Post, December 22, 2011
By Françoise Lemoine
China joined the WTO in December 2001. China and its partners had been negotiating the conditions of its accession since 1987 with two fundamental goals: integrate China into the global economy and anchor the process of domestic economic reforms and opening up.
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International specialization: a focus on services

 Facts & Figures, December 19, 2011
By Colette Herzog, Deniz Ünal
The specialization of countries in international trade reveals their comparative advantages and disadvantages. The CHELEM database which provides complete and consistent statistics classified by country in the long term is used to analyze the structural aspect of the competitiveness of nations in all economic sectors, namely the primary sector, industry and services.
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CEPII's Well Being Indicator

 Facts & Figures, December 19, 2011
By Michel Fouquin
Although economists have long stressed the limitations of using GDP to evaluate standards of living, the debate was recently reignited by the publication of the Stiglitz report. The CEPII has proposed to calculate an indicator for the year 2009 and 34 countries incorporating certain social data items in terms of income equivalents.
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