Calendrier du 14 mars 2019
TOM (Théorie, Organisation et Marchés) Lunch Seminar
Du 14/03/2019 de 12:30 à 13:30
salle R2-01 campus Jourdan - 48 bd Jourdan, 75014 Paris
LEDUC Mathieu (PSE)
Endogenous fragility in complex economic systems
écrit avec Matt Elliott (Cambridge University) and Ben Golub (Harvard University)
brown bag Travail et Économie Publique
Du 14/03/2019 de 12:30 à 13:30
BATUT Cyprien (Paris School of Economics)
From Ultima Ratio to Mutual Consent: The Effects of Changing Employment Protection Doctrine
écrit avec Co-author: Eric Maurin
In many countries, the termination of employment contracts has to be either on employer initiative or on employee initiative, there is little alternative. Furthermore, the cost of the procedure is borne mainly by the contracting party who takes the initiative and there is very little room for sharing costs and responsibilities. The implicit doctrine is that employment termination has to be the last resort, the ultima ratio. In 2008, the French government initiated a change in doctrine: it became possible to terminate employment contracts by mutual consent, at lower costs. Building on firm-level administrative data, we develop an event analysis which reveals that the reform was followed by a decline in dismissals for non-economic reasons (i.e., the contract terminations associated with the highest litigation risks) as well as by a very significant rise in overall separation rates. By promoting separation by mutual consent, the reform reduced labor litigation risks, boosted workers’ flows, but, eventually, we do not detect any significant effects on firms’ demand for labor and employment levels.
Behavior seminar
Du 14/03/2019 de 11:00 à 12:00
salle R2-21, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris
QUINN Simon (University of Oxford)
When Nudge Comes to Shove: Demand for Commitment in Microfinance Contracts
We conduct a field experiment to test the demand for flexibility and for soft and hard commitment among clients of a microfinance institution. We offer a commitment contract inspired by the rotating structure of a ROSCA. We find substantial demand for both saving and credit contracts, with many respondents willing to take up either — suggesting that many microfinance clients borrow to save. Additional treatments test ex ante demand for soft commitment (e.g., reminders), hard commitment (e.g., penalty for missing an instalment), and flexibility (e.g., option to postpone an instalment). We find no demand for any of these features, in isolation or in combination: individuals
appear to actively dislike them all. These findings complement a literature showing that commitment devices induce financial discipline. Our results suggest that many commitment devices used in practice may be seen as overly restrictive ex ante, even for a population with a demonstrated demand for commitment products.
Macroeconomics Seminar
Du 14/03/2019 de 09:30 à 10:45
PSE - 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris, salle R2-21
BROER Tobias (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne & PSE)
Heterogenous Information Choice in General Equilibrium
écrit avec Alexandre Kohlhas, Kurt Mitman, Kathrin Schlafmann