Calendrier du 31 mai 2018
PEPES (Paris Empirical Political Economics) Working Group
Du 31/05/2018 de 12:45 à 14:00
salle R1-15, campus Jourdan - 48 bd Jourdan, 75014 Paris
WRIGHT Kelsey (PSE)
Rebel Capacity and Randomized Combat
écrit avec Konstantin Sonin and Jarnickae Wilson
Classic theories of counterinsurgency claim rebel forces execute attacks in an unpredictable manner to limit the government’s ability to anticipate and defend against them. We study a model of combat during an irregular insurgency, where the precision of attacks varies with the ability of insurgents to gather intelligence about the vulnerability of targets across time. We test empirical implications of the theoretical model using newly declassified military records from Afghanistan that track the within-day timing of insurgent attacks on security targets. We pair our conflict microdata with granular information on local opium production, yield heterogeneity, and farmgate prices, which enable us to estimate the quantity of annual taxes extracted from farmers and traffickers. Consistent with our model, we find that the capacity (wealth) of local rebel units influences the timing of their attacks. As rebels extract more resources, the timing of their operations deviates substantially from a random allocation of violence. We test additional empirical implications of our model using novel tactical and survey data on the Taliban's spy operations, rebel infiltration of the Afghan security forces, and latent public support for non-stated armed actors. These findings clarify how the accumulation of economic resources by armed groups influences not just when, but how civil wars are fought
brown bag Travail et Économie Publique
Du 31/05/2018 de 12:30 à 13:30
KHOURY Laura (Paris School of Economics)
Unemployment Benefits and the Timing of Dismissals: Evidence from Bunching at a Notch in France
In this paper, I use administrative unemployment data to analyse bunching in the workers’ seniority distribution, at a notch created by an unemployment benefit schedule designed for workers laid-off for economic reasons. I exploit the discontinuity in the level of the budget set to estimate an elasticity of labour supply to unemployment benefits. I also investigate the possible channels of strategic behaviours in a context where the dismissal decision is the result of bargaining between employer, employee and representatives within the firm. I find evidence that significant bunching occurs at the relevant seniority threshold as a response to incentives created by the unemployment benefit scheme: employers and employees maximise joint surplus thanks to a third party’s - the State - transfer. I find that this bunching is concentrated in the population who has the most to gain and is the most able to implement strategic behaviours and to take advantage of unemployment compensation rules.
TOM (Théorie, Organisation et Marchés) Lunch Seminar
Du 31/05/2018 de 12:30 à 13:30
salle R2-20, campus Jourdan - 48 bd Jourdan 75014, Paris
ERLANSON Albin (Stockholm School of Economics)
Costly Verification in Collective Decisions.
écrit avec Andreas Kleiner
We study how a principal should optimally choose between implementing a new policy and maintaining the status quo when the information relevant for the decision is privately held by agents. Agents are strategic in revealing their information, but the principal can verify an agent’s information at a given cost. We exclude monetary transfers. When is it worthwhile for the principal to incur the cost and learn an agent’s information? We characterize the mechanism that maximizes the expected utility of the principal. The evidence is verified whenever it is decisive for the principal’s decision. This mechanism can be implemented as a weighted majority voting rule, where agents are given additional weight if they provide evidence for their information. The evidence is verified whenever it is decisive for the principal’s decision. Additionally, we find a general equivalence between Bayesian and ex-post incentive compatible mechanisms in this setting. Finally, we extend our analysis of optimal mechanisms to imperfect verification.
Behavior seminar
Du 31/05/2018 de 11:00 à 12:00
New building R2-21
FLEURBAEY Marc (PSE)
If you're an egalitarian, how come you're not a vegan?
écrit avec Martin Van der Linden (Utah State University)
Abstract
We study fairness in economies where humans consume one private good and one
public good, the latter representing the welfare of other species. We show that it
is impossible for a social evaluator to be egalitarian with respect to humans and be
speciesist, in the sense of always respecting unanimous preferences among humans
(even when they imply harming other species). One solution is to only impose a respect
for unanimity among humans when it does not lead to a decrease in the welfare
of other species. Characterizing social preferences satisfying these properties reveals a
surprising link between concerns for other species, egalitarianism among humans, and
unanimity: the latter two imply a form of dictatorship from humans with the strongest
preferences for the welfare of other species.
Keywords: Welfare Economics, Animal Ethics, Egalitarianism, Eciency, Fairness.