The future of the European sugar market: A case for quotas

Replaced with revised version of paper 10/22/08.quotas, cobweb, market, International Relations/Trade, Marketing,

Consequences of price volatility in evaluating the benefits of liberalisation

Many computable general equilibrium models have been set up recently, in order to assess the benefits of trade liberalisation, especially in agriculture. Although figures magnitudes differ from one model to another, they cannot reach any other conclusion than positive benefits. On the other hand, historical experience shows that liberalisation, far from being a new idea, has been tried at several occasions during the two last centuries, repeatedly ending in crisis, and hasty return to various forms of protection. A possible explanation could be in the comparative static approach of most liberalisation proponents, and their neglect of dynamic aspects. Especially, because risk is necessarily tied with unfulfilled expectations, it should play a decisive role in modelling. A new model is developed along this line, showing the possibility of a chaotic price regime, which would prevent full liberalisation to be feasible.globalisation; risk ; volatility ; modelling ; trade ; agriculture ; Doha ; WTO;

Qui crée la création de valeur?

WORKING PAPER, published in french: « Qui crée la création de valeur? », La nouvelle revue du travail [En ligne], 3 | 2013, mis en ligne le 30 octobre 2013, URL : http://nrt.revues.org/1020Summary: This article examines the unprecedented rise in the number of corporate transactions in France since the 1990’s. Studied from the point of view of economic sociology, it aims to analyse this rise as the construction of a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market by professionals who are intermediaries in this market, namely bankers and business lawyers, financial consultants, investment funds and merchant bankers. It shows how these market intermediaries have developed the idea that a transaction can create value by using homogenised, normative measurement systems. These systems form a cognitive and normative framework in which corporate transactions professionals think and act, hence contributing towards commodifying companies and calculating a market price for them. The rise in the number of transactions over the past thirty years can therefore be explained less as a result of market forces, than as the product of social forces shaping and driving the market. The article is based on a recent survey in the mergers and acquisitions sector in France, which combined biographical interviews, workplace observations and secondary documentation.Cet article s’intéresse au mouvement inédit de transactions d’entreprise depuis les années 1990 en France. Dans une perspective de sociologie économique, il propose d’analyser ce mouvement comme la construction d’un marché de la transaction d’entreprise, les fusions-acquisitions ou plus couramment Mergers & Acquisitions (M & A) en anglais, par les professionnels qui en sont les intermédiaires : banquiers et avocats d’affaires, cabinets d’audit financier, fonds d’investissement et banquiers de financement. Il montre comment ces intermédiaires du marché ont fait émerger l’idée qu’une transaction puisse être créatrice de valeur, à travers l’utilisation de dispositifs de mesure de cette dernière, normés et homogènes. Ces dispositifs, en formant un cadre cognitif et normatif à travers lequel les professionnels des transactions d’entreprise pensent et agissent, participent à faire des entreprises une marchandise et à en calculer un prix de marché. L’augmentation des transactions depuis 30 ans s’explique alors moins comme le résultat des forces du marché que comme le produit de forces sociales structurant et animant le marché. L’article s’appuie sur une enquête récente dans le secteur des fusions-acquisitions français croisant entretiens biographiques, observations du travail et recueil documentaire

Operational experience with the LEP2 SC cavity system

The LEP energy upgrade programme (LEP2) consists of increasing the e+e- colliding beams¹ energies far beyond the W pair production threshold, up to 96 GeV. The large increase in accelerating voltage required, from 250 MV for LEP1 at 45 GeV to 2700 MV at 96 GeV, will be provided by 272 superconducting (sc) cavities. Almost all are of the Nb/Cu type, with a nominal accelerating field of 6 MV/m at 352 MHz. A first set of 56 sc cavities was installed during 1995 and made possible a short physics run at energies of 65, 68 and for a short time 70 GeV. The experience gained during this run, as well as that obtained previously on the machine, will be presented. The cavities and their upgraded ancillary equipment worked satisfactorily at their nominal field and with the LEP beam currents (~ 7 mA). Apart from the usual problems of debugging many new pieces of equipment, the difficulties encountered were microphonic oscillations, together with effects due to the much larger impedance at the RF frequency. An RF feedback working on the vector sum of the signals from the eight cavities driven by a common klystron has been implemented to address these problems. The next steps towards the completion of the LEP2 programme will also be presented

Crafting Democracy : Civil Society in Post-Transition Honduras

Civil society is frequently singled out as one of the most important factors in the democratization process, but existing research is often imprecise with regard to civil society’s relation to democratic development. This study analyzes how, and under what circumstances, civil society can contribute to democratic development in newly established democracies. A conceptual framework is outlined that draws attention to civil society’s multiple democracy–building functions and how they are constrained by the political context, the impact of development assistance and the degree of democracy within civil society. The empirical focus here is on a newly established democracy – Honduras – a country that initiated a transition to democracy in 1980. The present study shows how civil society organizations initially played a relatively limited role in the regime-controlled transition, but eventually reacted against the worsening human rights situation. In the post-transition period, civil society has emerged as an important agenda setter that has drawn attention to democratic deficits, as an educator for civic education of the mass public as well as the political elite, as a source of new political alternatives that has managed to bridge the gap between political society and civil society, and finally, as a counterpart of the government, particularly in development-related areas. Whereas civil society’s function during the transition is best described as a countervailing power that can, if it is democratic in its orientations, promulgate a democratic orientation of reforms, the functions in the post-transition period are best conceptualized as a complex mix of state-supporting and countervailing powers. The study concludes that the political context is crucial for our understanding of civil society’s democracy-building potential. Through different mechanisms, the Honduran state has managed to control civil society organizations, something that has a negative impact on civil society’s countervailing power, and this tendency has been visible during authoritarian rule as well as after the transition to democratic rule. Thus, examining the historical state-society relations can improve our understanding of civil society and its democracy-building potential. The attempts to control or co-opt civil society can be reinforced by the donor community’s efforts to strengthen civil society. Democracy-promoting strategies can, consequently, result in an undermined countervailing power of civil society