Do banks and microfinance institutions compete? Microevidence from Madagascar

In recent years, both microfinance institutions (MFIs) and banks across the world have been converging towards the financing of small enterprises with high financing needs. This paper scrutinizes whether banks and MFIs compete each other as a result of recent transformations in both industries. In doing so, we study whether the loan strategy of a microfinance institution is shaped by the local presence of a bank. Specifically, we investigate whether bank proximity influences loan conditions provided by one of the largest microfinance institutions in Madagascar. We employ an original panel dataset of 32,374 loans granted to 14,834 borrowers over the period 2008-2014. We find that the closer a bank is located to a given MFI borrower, the larger the loan obtained and the less collateral required. These results are insensitive to several robustness tests for possible endogeneity of distance, sample selection issue, and alternative specifications. In addition, findings are stronger for larger and more established (older) firms in line with our hypothesis

De Gaule ou l'hypothèque française sur le Canada

« Vive le Québec libre », derrière ces mots lancés à la foule par le général de Gaulle se trouve bien plus qu'il n'y parait. Il s'agit tout d'abord de l'aboutissement d'une longue ligne de pensée politique qui, en France comme dans l'espace canadien-français, n'a cessé de vivre depuis 1763 : le Peuple français est un, les francogènes de France, d'Amérique ou d'ailleurs formant un seul et même ensemble, nonobstant les séparations politiques nées de défaites du passé. Cette conception se décèle depuis l'Ancien Régime jusqu'à de Gaulle en passant par le Premier Empire, la Révolte des patriotes de 1837-1838, le Second Empire ou chez les nationalistes, Français ou Canadiens-français de la fin du XIXe siècle. Il ne s'agit pas uniquement d'un aboutissement, la révélation soudaine d'une idée restée platonique la majeure partie du temps durant deux siècles, mais aussi du début d'une vaste entreprise où le Canada et ses problématiques du XXe siècle se télescopent avec un grand dessein gaullien embrassant de vastes espaces à travers le monde et ayant pour objectif fondamental de briser les blocs de granit jetés à travers le monde par l'ancien Empire britannique pour lier les mains à la France. La France se lance dans une grande entreprise de lutte tous azimuts contre un ensemble de faits accomplis politiques dans le but de regagner sa liberté d'action, sa « Grandeur ». À travers le présent mémoire, nous nous proposons de reconstituer la genèse idéologique des faits qui aboutirent à la politique gaullienne vis-à-vis du Canada français puis le déroulement de ceux-ci, avant comme après la visite historique du chef de l'État français au Québec de 1967. Faisant la jonction entre histoire idéologique, politique et diplomatique, nous nous attacherons à exposer ce que fut le dessein gaullien et l'ampleur de ses visées envers et surtout contre le Canada tel que constitué par l'Acte de l'Amérique du Nord Britannique de 1867 dans le but ultime de permettre la fondation d'un Canada français indépendant et coresponsable, avec la France, de la civilisation française à travers le monde

An evaluation of the effect of the 2003 reform on the retirement behaviour - The case of public secondary-school teachers

While a new retirement pension reform is currently discussed in France, it is crucial to evaluate previous reforms. Up to now, no evaluation of the 2003 reform is available, particularly for civil servants. This article deals with the impact of this reform on the retirement behaviour of public secondary-school teachers. On the one hand, the reform has had an impact on the retirement behaviour of secondary-school teachers who still work at 60. The probability to retire between 60 and 61 years old for those who have paid their social contributions for 37.5 years at 60 years old drops by 9 points. On the other hand, the reform seems to have changed teachers willingness to get the so-called full-pension rate. When the number of missing quarters of social contributions required to benefit from the full pension rate at 60 years old is low, the reform is not found to induce teachers born after 1944 to postpone their retirement after 61 years old. But a large number of missing quarters has still the same effect before and after the reform.retirement pension reform, public secondary-school teachers, propensity score matching, regression-discontinuity

Financial Constraint, Entrepreneurship and Sectoral Migrations

Using an original database of over 3,000 micro and small enterprises (MSEs) that were microfinance institution (MFI) clients in Madagascar over the period of 2008-2014, we observe that around one third of these entrepreneurs switched business sectors in the first five years after starting their business. We find that the probability of an entrepreneur’s changing sectors is highly correlated with the size of the first loan obtained from the MFI. This result survives multiple robustness checks, including treatment for endogeneity and attrition. We interpret this finding in terms of financial constraint: a lack of financing prevents an entrepreneur from initially investing in his first choice sector, causing him to change sectors only when he has become financially able to do so. This result challenges the classic distinction made between ”necessity entrepreneurs” and ”opportunity entrepreneurs” and raises important questions concerning entrepreneurial talent allocation

High-quality Single-walled carbon nanotubes synthesis by hot filament CVD on Ru nanoparticule catalyst

International audienceWe investigated the single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) growth on Ru nanoparticle catalyst via hot filament assisted chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) with two independent W filaments for the carbon precursor (methane) and the hydrogen dissociation respectively. The Ru nanoparticles were obtained following a two-step strategy. At first the growth substrate is functionalized by silanisation, then a self assembly of a ruthenium porphyrin complex monolayer on pyridine-functionalized metal oxide substrates. We have studied the impact of the filaments power and we optimized the SWCNTs growth temperature. The as grown SWCNTs were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Raman spectroscopy. It was found that the quality, density and the diameter of SWCNTs depends on the filament and growth temperature. Results of this study can be used to improve the understanding of the growth of SWCNTs by HFCVD

Investigation of the reactivity of AlCl3 and CoCl2 toward molten alkali-metal nitrates in order to synthesize CoAl2O4

Cobalt aluminate CoAl2O4 powder, constituted of nano-sized crystallites, is prepared, involving the reactivity of AlCl3 and CoCl2 with molten alkali-metal nitrates. The reaction at 450 °C for 2 h leads to a mixture of spinel oxide Co3O4 and amorphous γ-Al2O3. It is transformed into the spinel oxide CoAl2O4 by heating at 1000 °C. The powders are mainly characterized by XRD, FTIR, ICP, electron microscopy and diffraction, X-EDS and diffuse reflection. Their properties are compared to those of powders obtained by solid state reactions of a mechanical mixture of chlorides or oxides submitted to the same thermal treatment

On the mechanisms of precipitation of graphene on nickel thin films

Growth on transition metal substrates is becoming a method of choice to prepare large-area graphene foils. In the case of nickel, where carbon has a significant solubility, such a growth process includes at least two elementary steps: (1) carbon dissolution into the metal, and (2) graphene precipitation at the surface. Here, we dissolve calibrated amounts of carbon in nickel films, using carbon ion implantation, and annealing at 725 \circ or 900 \circ. We then use transmission electron microscopy to analyse the precipitation process in detail: the latter appears to imply carbon diffusion over large distances and at least two distinct microscopic mechanisms

Synthesis of few-layered graphene by ion implantation of carbon in nickel thin films

International audienceThe synthesis of few-layered graphene is performed by ion implantation of carbon species in thin nickel films, followed by high temperature annealing and quenching. Although ion implantation enables a precise control of the carbon content and of the uniformity of the in-plane carbon concentration in the Ni films before annealing, we observe thickness non-uniformities in the synthesized graphene layers after high temperature annealing. These non-uniformities are probably induced by the heterogeneous distribution/topography of the graphene nucleation sites on the Ni surface. Taken altogether, our results indicate that the number of graphene layers on top of Ni films is controlled by the nucleation process on the Ni surface rather than by the carbon content in the Ni film

Covalent grafting onto self-adhesive surfaces based on aryldiazonium salt seed layers

International audienceThe chemistry of aryldiazonium salts has been thoroughly used in recent years to graft in a very simple and robust way ultrathin polyphenylene-like films on a broad range of surfaces. We show here that the same chemistry can be used to obtain self-adhesive surfaces. This target was reached in a simple way by coating various surfaces with chemisorbed organic films containing active aryldiazonium salts. These self-adhesive surfaces are then put into contact with various species (molecules, polymers, nanoparticles, nanotubes, graphene flakes, etc.) that react either spontaneously or under activation with the immobilized aryldiazonium salts. Our self-adhesive surfaces were synthesized following a simple aqueous two-step protocol based on p-phenylenediamine diazotisation. The first diazotisation step results in the robust grafting of thin polyaminophenylene (PAP) layers onto the surface. The second diazotisation step changed the grafted PAP film into a poly-aryldiazonium polymer (PDP) film. The covalent grafting between those self-adhesive surfaces and the target species was achieved by direct contact or by immersion of the self-adhesive surfaces in solution. We present in this preliminary work the grafting of multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), flakes of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG), various organic compounds and copper nanoparticles. We also tested these immobilized aryldiazonium salts as electropolymerization initiators for the grafting-to process