Industrial Group's Productive and Financial Investment Strategies

Evolution of the firms' investment behaviour is interpreted by heterodox theories as the resultant of the financialisation of the accumulation regime. The French School of Regulation speaks thus about patrimonial capitalism. Strategies of productive and financial investments, and the way of financing such activities, respond to increased shareholder requirements about the return of the invested funds. In order to check these assumptions, tests on panel data are carried out starting from a sample on great French groups, quoted on the SBF 250 Index.Finance; Investment; Rate of Profit; Growth Regime; Panel data

Industrial Major Firms Investments in a Financialized Context

The evolution of firms' investment behavior is interpreted by heterodox theories as the resultant of the financialization of the accumulation regime. The French School of Regulation thus introduces the notion of patrimonial capitalism. The strategies of productive and financial investments, and the financing mode of these activities, respond to increased shareholder requirements on the return of invested funds. In order to check these assumptions, we have made tests on panel data, starting from a sample on big French groups, quoted in the SBF 250 Price Index.Finance; Investment; Rate of Profit; Growth Regime; Panel data

The inconsistency of French regulation mode faced with the financialization of accumulation pattern.

The absence of specifically dedicated method to represent financialized capitalism constitutes a significant gap in contemporary macroeconomic modelling considering the impact of finance on the rules of wealth production and distribution. From both the lessons of Regulation theory in terms of accumulation pattern and regulation mode declined through the concepts of institutional hierarchy and complementarity, and the neo-Cambridgian modelling framework, one tries to establish the causes which prevail in the divergence of American and French economies in the adoption of finance-led capitalism.modelling and macroeconomic simulation; institutional complementarity and hierarchy; accumulation regime; regulation pattern; financialization.

Equity and debt in a financialised economy: the French case

While many studies have been devoted to capital accumulation and rate of profit, the article empirically characterises the financialization at the level of firms' liability, i.e. at the level of debt and equity. In particular, the determinants of non financial firms' indebtedness and equity issuing will be analysed econometrically. The theoretical framework is mainly Post-Keynesian, with the founding role played by Minsky (1986) and with Stock Flow Consistent models proposed by Lavoie and Godley (2001), Godley and Lavoie (2007), Taylor (2004) and Dos Santos and Zezza (2008 )with their analysis of interactions between financial variables and investment. The article is based on the flow of funds accounts of INSEE which provide coherent data in flows and stocks over the period 1978-2007. Thanks to a precise account of financial assets and liabilities and capital gains, these data allow to implement a rigorous analysis of firms' financial behaviour at the macroeconomic level.finance; investment; portfolio behaviour; growth regime

The inconsistency of French regulation mode faced with the financialization of accumulation pattern.: The contributions of Regulation approach and neo-Cambridgian modelling.

33 pagesThe absence of specifically dedicated method to represent financialized capitalism constitutes a significant gap in contemporary macroeconomic modelling considering the impact of finance on the rules of wealth production and distribution. From both the lessons of Regulation theory in terms of accumulation pattern and regulation mode declined through the concepts of institutional hierarchy and complementarity, and the neo-Cambridgian modelling framework, one tries to establish the causes which prevail in the divergence of American and French economies in the adoption of finance-led capitalism

Porous materials with two populations of voids under internal pressure: II. Growth and coalescence of voids

International audienceThis study is devoted to the mechanical behavior of polycrystalline materials with two populations of voids, small spherical voids located inside the grains and larger spheroidal voids located at the grain boundaries. In part I of the work, instantaneous effective stress-strain relations were derived for fixed microstructure. In this second part, the evolution of the microstructure is addressed. Differential equations governing the evolution of the microstructural parameters in terms of the applied loading are derived and their integration in time is discussed. Void growth results in a global softening of the stress-strain response of the material. A simple model for the prediction of void coalescence is proposed which can serve to predict the overall ductility of polycrystalline porous materials under the combined action of thermal dilatation and internal pressure in the voids

Ductile damage of porous materials with two populations of voids

International audienceThis note presents an upper bound and an estimate for the yield yield function of a material with a rigid ideally plastic matrix and two scale cavities. The results are compared to numerical simulations. The laws of evolution of the two porosities are determined

D’une crise à l’autre

Les stratégies des grandes entreprises françaises cotées sont prises depuis deux décennies dans un cycle financier déflationniste. La variation des cours sur les marchés financiers s’accompagne de fluctuations de l’investissement productif, qui peuvent être expliquées à partir de la notion de fragilisation endogène des bilans de Minsky. Un échantillon de 215 groupes non financiers est créé afin d’étudier leurs comptes de résultat, bilans et tableaux de flux de trésorerie. L’article se propose alors de montrer que la contrainte inhérente à la primauté donnée à la valeur actionnariale, et qui pèse sur les stratégies des groupes, doit enrichir la notion de fragilisation endogène des bilans. En introduisant le principe du risque de système, on aboutit à la définition d’un certain nombre d’enchaînements communs dans le comportement des grandes entreprises au cours des deux dernières crises financières occidentales.The strategies of French major quoted companies have been caught up for two decades in a deflationary financial cycle. The prices variation on financial markets is accompanied by productive investment fluctuations, which can be explained starting from Minsky’s concept of endogenous weakening of the balance sheets. A sample of 215 non financial groups is created to study their income statements, balance sheets and flows of funds accounts. The article then proposes to show that the inherent constraint to the shareholder value primacy, that have a decisive influence on groups’ strategies, must improve the concept of the endogenous weakening of balance sheets. By introducing the risk of system principle, one leads to the definition of a certain number of common sequences in the major companies’ behavior during the two last Western financial crises

Effective flow surface of porous materials with two populations of voids under internal pressure: II. full-field simulations

International audienceThis study is devoted to the effective plastic flow surface of a bi-porous material saturated by a fluid. Highly irradiated uranium dioxide is a typical example of such a material. In part I of this study, a GTN-type approximation of the effective plastic flow surface has been derived. In this second part, the predictions of this new model are compared with full-field numerical simulations performed with a numerical method based on Fast Fourier Transforms. This method is successfully applied to voided materials with a Gurson matrix where the voids are subjected to internal pressure. Different microstructures containing a large number of spherical or ellipsoidal voids are investigated. The deviation from isotropy of their mechanical response is measured by a new criterion