Working Paper 129 - China’s Engagement and Aid Effectiveness in Africa

Chinese aid, finance, trade and investment flows to Africa are growing fast. We consider the consequences of these trends using a quantified framework. Very often, adequate data are simply non-available, but we find that existing data provide useful insights on what is ongoing. We first discuss the allocation of Chinese aid, using data on turnover of economic cooperation, and we find it is at least partially comparable to other bilateral aid. We also consider the potential issue created by re-indebtedness of African countries borrowing to China. Second, we show, through studying African import patterns, that the growing importation of Chinese products in Africa can be interpreted as trade creation instead of trade diversion. Hence it has positive rather than negative impact on African economies. Third, we study the influence of Chinese engagement on economic diversification. We show that the usual “Dutch disease” argument is debatable. We find that none of the various dimensions of China engagement has had so far a significant impact, positive or negative, on African economic diversification. For the future, the evolving preferential trade regime offered by China, and its policy of creating special economic zones, could help tip the balance on the positive side.

What drives innovation in nuclear reactors technologies? An empirical study based on patent counts.

CERNA WORKING PAPER SERIES 2012-01This paper examines the evolution of innovation in nuclear power reactors between 1974 and 2008 in twelve OECD countries and assesses to what extent nuclear innovation has been driven by economic incentives, political decisions and safety regulation considerations. We use priority patent applications related to Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) as a proxy for innovating activity. Our results highlight that nuclear innovation is partly driven by the conventional paradigm where both demandpull, measured by NPPs constructions in the innovating country and in the rest of the world, and technology-push, measured by Research and Development (R&D) expenditures specific to NPPs, have a positive and significant impact on innovation. Our results also evidence that the impact of public R&D expenditures and national NPPs construction on innovation is stronger when the quality of innovation, measured by forward patent citations, is taken into account, and have a long run positive impact on innovation through the stock of knowledge available to innovators. In contrast, we show that political decisions following the Three Miles Island and Chernobyl nuclear accidents, measured by NPPs cancellations, have a negative impact on nuclear innovation. Finally, we find that the nuclear safety authority has an ambivalent effect on innovation. On one hand, regulatory inspections have a positive impact on innovation, one the other hand, regulatory decisions to temporarily close a NPP have an adverse impact on innovation

What drives innovation in nuclear reactors technologies? An empirical study based on patent counts.

This paper examines the evolution of innovation in nuclear power reactors between 1974 and 2008 in twelve OECD countries and assesses to what extent nuclear innovation has been driven by economic incentives, political decisions and safety regulation considerations. We use priority patent applications related to Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) as a proxy for innovating activity. Our results highlight that nuclear innovation is partly driven by the conventional paradigm where both demandpull, measured by NPPs constructions in the innovating country and in the rest of the world, and technology-push, measured by Research and Development (R&D) expenditures specific to NPPs, have a positive and significant impact on innovation. Our results also evidence that the impact of public R&D expenditures and national NPPs construction on innovation is stronger when the quality of innovation, measured by forward patent citations, is taken into account, and have a long run positive impact on innovation through the stock of knowledge available to innovators. In contrast, we show that political decisions following the Three Miles Island and Chernobyl nuclear accidents, measured by NPPs cancellations, have a negative impact on nuclear innovation. Finally, we find that the nuclear safety authority has an ambivalent effect on innovation. On one hand, regulatory inspections have a positive impact on innovation, one the other hand, regulatory decisions to temporarily close a NPP have an adverse impact on innovation.Innovation; nuclear reactors; nuclear safety regulation; nuclear development

Bilateral donors' interest vs. recipients' development motives in aid allocation : do all donors behave the same ?

In this paper, I provide an overall empirical assessment of the motivations of official development assistance granted by rich countries to developing countries, as they are revealed by their aid allocation behaviours. Such behaviours result from a combination of self-interest purposes and of more altruistic development objectives. To perform this analysis, I use a three-dimensional panel dataset, combining the donor, recipient and time dimensions. Such data show a lot of heterogeneity in donor behaviours. Thanks to the width of this dataset, I can properly test differences of parameters among donors. In particular, these tests provide a way to compare the degree of altruism of the different donors.International aid allocation, altruism.

The economics of malaria in Africa

Consultable à http://hdl.handle.net/10419/96345WIDER Working Paper, No. 2014/047Malaria still claims a heavy human and economic toll, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa. Even though the causality between malaria and poverty is presumably bi-directional, malaria plays a role in the economic difficulties of the region. This article provides an analysis of the economic consequences of malaria (with an emphasis on human capital accumulation and productivity), and a discussion of policies aimed at reducing its incidence. A major initiative has been the distribution of insecticidal bed-nets at a highly subsidized price. An economic-epidemiology model is used to explain why such policy is doomed to fail in presence of a very high poverty incidence, as observed in the African region

Nuclear reactors' construction costs: The role of lead-time, standardization and technological progress

This paper provides the first comparative analysis of nuclear reactor construction costs in France and the United States. Studying the cost of nuclear power has often been a challenge, owing to the lack of reliable data sources and heterogeneity between countries, as well as the long time horizon which requires controlling for input prices and structural changes. We build a simultaneous system of equations for overnight costs and construction time (lead-time) to control for endogeneity, using expected demand variation as an instrument. We argue that benefits from nuclear reactor program standardization can arise through short term coordination gains, when the diversity of nuclear reactors' technologies under construction is low, or through long term benefits from learning spillovers from past reactor construction experience, if those spillovers are limited to similar reactors. We find that overnight construction costs benefit directly from learning spillovers but that these spillovers are only significant for nuclear models built by the same Architect Engineer (A-E). In addition, we show that the standardization of nuclear reactors under construction has an indirect and positive effect on construction costs through a reduction in lead-time, the latter being one of the main drivers of construction costs. Conversely, we also explore the possibility of learning by searching and find that, contrary to other energy technologies, innovation leads to construction costs increases

Conjuguer avec l'exigence de réduire les gaz à effet de serre : étude de cas au Québec

Depuis plusieurs dizaines d'années, l'aggravation des problématiques environnementales globales intensifient les réflexions autour des liens entre système économique et environnement, mais sans parvenir à les intégrer dans un système de valeurs commun. Le plus souvent, environnement et économie se retrouvent mis dos à dos ou traduit l'un dans l'autre, et la dimension éthique est rarement opérationnalisée dans les analyses et dans l'aide à la décision. Nous souhaitons présenter un exemple de cadre intégrateur des points de vue en matière éthique, en l'appliquant en particulier à la gestion du défi que représentent les changements climatiques, en tant que conséquence de l'augmentation des concentrations en Gaz à Effets de Serre (GES) d'origine anthropique, dans une situation concrète au Québec. Pour cela, nous souhaitons d'abord présenter une démarche innovante, en replaçant notre étude dans son contexte économique, social et environnemental. Dans notre revue de littérature, nous proposons de nous interroger sur la façon dont se pose la question de l'équilibre entre responsabilité écologique et logique économique, et nous présenterons un cadre d'analyse, tiré des travaux que Ken Wilber repris par Thierry Pauchant, qui servira de base à notre approche. Sous la forme d'un cadran, elle nous permettra de poser l'individuel et le collectif d'une part, l'objectif et le subjectif d'autre part, pour construire notre analyse. Dans notre cas d'étude, la structuration de la réponse donnée à la problématique des émissions de GES sera présentée en partant d'abord du niveau global, sphère où a débuté la recherche de solution, pour déboucher ensuite au niveau au local, avec le cas de notre exemple concret. Dans ce chapitre, le cadran de Wilber sera donc successivement utilisé pour proposer une grille de lecture et de présentation des enjeux depuis la convention sur les changements climatiques jusqu'aux politiques et approches nationales et jusqu'à l'entreprise. Nous présenterons ensuite notre démarche méthodologique en présentant le contexte de notre intervention sur le terrain, les méthodes de collecte et d'analyse des données, sur les plans quantitatif et qualitatif, tout en présentant les limites de notre travail. Dans un chapitre suivant, nous amènerons ensuite une présentation détaillée de nos acteurs de terrain et le contexte dans lequel se place leur intervention en matière de recherche de moyens de réduire les émissions. Le chapitre suivant est le cœur de notre analyse : il nous permettra de présenter le portait des émissions en lien avec les activités menées dans notre cas d'étude, et d'aborder la dynamique de recherche de réductions suivant plusieurs niveaux d'action qui pourraient favoriser la transition, ainsi que suivant un plan transversal. Il sera suivi d'une conclusion générale qui reviendra sur la dimension opérationnelle du cadran de Wilber et les ouvertures que cette approche pourrait avoir dans le cadre de recherches subséquentes.\ud _____________________________________________________________________________

Between Altruism and the Market: an Economist’s View of the Fight Against Poverty

It is no easy task to conclude this special issue of FACTS Reports, given the sheer breadth and diversity of the analyses it contains. One would need in-depth knowledge of a whole range of fields – anthropology, sociology, history, law, management, economics – to adequately identify all of the lessons that can be drawn from these papers. Let me, then, stay with my own field of competence, and offer a conclusion from the standpoint of an economist. The fight against poverty is, admittedly, an..

A New Approach to the Allocation of Aid among Developing Countries: Is the USA Different from the Rest?

This paper attempts to explain the factors that determine the geographical allocation of foreign aid. Its novelty is that it develops a rigorous theoretical model and conducts the corresponding empirical investigations based on a large panel dataset. We run regressions for different major donors (United States, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and multilateral organizations) with the explicit objective of establishing whether the United States, in light of its geopolitical hegemony, behaves differently from others. We find that all the donors respond to recipient need in their allocation of aid, but that the United States puts less emphasis on this than the other donors with the exception of Japan. We also find that the United States puts more emphasis on donor–recipient linkages than do the other donors suggesting that the United States attaches greater importance to issues of donor interest, for example, geopolitical, commercial, and other links with specific recipients