Showing papers by "Paris West University Nanterre La Défense published in 2012"

When avoiding failure improves performance: Stereotype threat and the impact of performance goals

Abstract: We examined the impact of inducing performance-avoidance and approach goals (versus no goal) on women’s math performance in stereotype threatening versus nonthreatening situations. Two experiments showed that inducing either stereotype threat (versus no-threat) or a performance-avoidance goal (versus no goal) alone led to decreased math performance. However, inducing both stereotype threat and a performance-avoidance goal increased women’s performance and challenge appraisals. These findings are consistent with the theory of regulatory fit. Performance and challenge appraisals increased when there was a fit between the motivation associated with stereotype threat (avoid failure) and the induced goal (avoid performing worse than others). Implications for stereotype threat, achievement goals and regulatory focus theories are discussed.

Diffusion tensor imaging tractography parameters of limbic system bundles in temporal lobe epilepsy patients.

Abstract: Purpose: To investigate changes in diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measures in limbic system white matter of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) using diffusion tensor tractography. Materials and Methods: DTI metrics including fractional anisotropy (FA), λ1, λ2, λ3, and trace (Tr) coefficients were obtained from tractography for bilateral fornix, superior and inferior cingulum fibers in 18 patients and 10 healthy controls. Hippocampal signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) quantitative analysis was performed in order to confirm the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) hippocampal lesion presence or absence in TLE patients. Results: Nine patients presented unilateral hippocampal sclerosis (TLE+HS) and nine patients had no signal abnormalities on conventional MRI (TLE−HS). On the ipsilateral seizure side, all three investigated tracts showed significant DTI indices abnormalities in both patient groups when compared with controls, most marked on the inferior cingulum. Contralateral to the seizure side, the three tracts presented significant DTI parameters in only the TLE+HS group when compared with controls. Conclusion: The DTI abnormalities found in the TLE−HS group may suggest that in the inferior cingulum the structural integrity is more affected than in the fornix or superior cingulum white matter bundles. The eigenvalues taken separately add complementary information to the FA and Tr metrics and may be useful indices in better understanding the architectural reorganization of limbic system tracts in TLE patients without HS. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2012;36:561–568. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Rehabilitating the Role of Active Management for Pension Funds

Abstract: Pension fund return s can be decomposed into different sources, including market movements, asset allo-cation policy, and active portfolio management. We use a unique database covering the asset allocations of US defined-benefit pension funds for the perio d 1990–2008, and we test the role of each factor in explaining their return s. Our results shed new light on pension funds’ sources of performance. While the previous literature emphasized that policy allocation accounts for the bulk of returns, leaving little room for active management, we show that taking explicit account of market movement can change the results significantly. Although active management plays a minor role in global asset allocat ion, its role is predominant in explaining returns to individual asset classes, whether traditional or alternative. This paper rehabilitates the contribution of active managem ent as a source of performance for pension funds, at least at the asset class level.

Index Trading and Agricultural Commodity Prices: A Panel Granger Causality Analysis

Abstract: Since the 2008 global food crisis, and with the new price surge in 2010-2011, agricultural commodity markets have been at the heart of the world economic concerns. It is likely that several fundamental factors (crop failures, extreme weather events, biofuel development, emerging economies growth, monetary instability) have played a role, but there are also reasons to suspect that financial markets could have been partly responsible for the price increase. Indeed, at the same time prices of commodities rose substantially, financial investments in agricultural commodities soared. This increase was mainly driven by index-based investments, that led to the 'financialization' of agricultural commodity markets.Several studies have examined the causality between commodity prices and positions on futures markets. Overall, they generate no evidence that index trading had an impact on price changes (see Irwin and Sanders (2011) for a survey). However, as stated by Sanders and Irwin (2011b), the power of the standard statistical tests might be too low. Accordingly, they suggest to consider SUR estimations to take cross-sectional dependence across markets into account. In this paper, we aim to contribute to the literature by using the panel Granger causality testing approach recently developed by Konya (2006). More precisely, we consider SUR estimation and bootstrap specific critical values. This approach does not suppose homogeneity in the panel and does not require preliminary tests for unit roots and cointegration.Our causality tests are applied to the relationship between index-based positions and futures prices on weekly data for twelve grain, livestock and other soft commodity markets (cocoa, coffee, corn, cotton, feeder cattle, live cattle, lean hogs, soybeans, soybean oil, sugar, wheat-CBOT and wheat-KCBT) over the period 2006-2010. Our results confirm the absence of direct effect between index-based trading and commodity prices.

Noncooperative Oligopoly in Markets with a Continuum of Traders: A Limit Theorem

Abstract: In this paper, in an exchange economy with atoms and an atomless part, we analyze the relationship between the set of the Cournot-Nash equilibrium allocations of a strategic market game and the set of the Walras equilibrium allocations of the exchange economy with which it is associated. In an example, we show that, even when atoms are countably infinite, Cournot-Nash equilibria yield different allocations from the Walras equilibrium allocations of the underlying exchange economy. We partially replicate the exchange economy by increasing the number of atoms without affecting the atomless part while ensuring that the measure space of agents remains finite. We show that any sequence of Cournot-Nash equilibrium allocations of the strategic mar- ket game associated with the partially replicated exchange economies approximates a Walras equilibrium allocation of the original exchange economy

Energy Price Transmissions during Extreme Movements

Abstract: This paper investigates price transmissions across European energy forward markets at distinct maturities during both normal times and extreme fluctuation periods. To this end, we rely on the traditional Granger causality test (in mean) and its multivariate extension in tail distribution developped by Candelon, Joets, and Tokpavi (2012). Considering forward energy prices at 1, 10, 20, and 30 months, it turns out that no significant causality exists between markets at regular times whereas comovements are at play during extreme periods especially in bear markets. More precisely, energy prices comovements appear to be stronger at short horizons than at long horizons, testifying an eventual Samuelson mechanism in the maturity prices curve. Diversi cation strategies tend to be more efficient as maturity increases.

Is the European Sovereign Crisis Self-Fulfilling?- Empirical Evidence About the Drivers of Market Sentiments

Abstract: We assess the nature of the European sovereign crisis in the light of a model borrowed from the second generation of currency crises. We bring the theory to the data to empirically test the presence of self-fulfilling dynamics and to identify what may have driven the market sentiment during this crisis. To do so we estimate the probability of default of five European 'peripheral' countries during January 2006 to September 2011 with a panel smooth threshold regression. Our estimation results suggest that 1/ both the fundamentals and 'animal spirit' ignited the European sovereign crisis; 2/ the sovereign Credit Default Swap market (CDS), the rating agencies and the CDS of the banking sector have played dominant roles in driving market sentiments.

Characterizing South-East Asian Stock Market Integration through Time

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION Economic Integration is, first of all, the gradual elimination or abolition of economic barriers which impede free movement of goods, services, capital and people among a group of nations. Today we can distinguish a variety of economic integrations in the world from different perspectives such as "degree", "size" and "diversity". With respect to the "size" of Economic Integration, we can separate regional Economic Integration from the Global Economic Integration, like lowering tariffs in the framework of the rounds under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and World Trade Organization (WTO). There are more than 150 regional economic integrations around the world, in which the EU, the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the emerging South East Asian Economic integration are the three biggest regional integrations with respect to their economic size. These regional trade agreements result in part from a greater openness of the member countries, and a desire to become more competitive in the world market by mobilizing their joint efforts and synergies. However, the links between global and regional integration are not the same in each area. In some regions, international integration preceded the regional one, as happened in Asia, whereas the reverse approach is seen in other areas such as Latin America. Moreover, the speed of this financial integration process may vary over time, and differs from one region to another. So Globalization and financial integration in particular, can enable emerging markets to achieve better diversification of their risks, efficient allocation of capital, and offers great potential for economic growth. But on the other hand, this may have undesirable effects, including an increase in financial vulnerability due to external shocks, and disparities in their commercial exchanges with developed countries (Levine and Zervos, 1996; Stiglitz, 2002; Bekaert et al., 2002). An assessment of the level of financial integration of these markets is thus crucial, since the latter seems to be inevitable and the source of all the complexities affecting international asset pricing and regional economic-cooperation policies. Studies conducted on this topic can also shed light on other aspects, including the current trend of financial integration, its determinants, and its effects on the risk premium and the cost of capital in an international context. Although previous studies have provided a general understanding of the global integration process of individual emerging markets over the recent decades (Errunza and Losq, 1985; Bekaert and Harvey, 1995; Jong and Roon, 2005; Carrieri et al., 2007; Pukthuanthong and Roll, 2009), little attention has been paid to the dynamics of the integration of emerging market regions into the world market, which has now become an undeniable trend. Moreover, on the methodological level, the potential time-varying shifts in the integration process that governs stock-market return dynamics, resulting from the structural reforms undertaken by emerging countries, have rarely been considered. This then leads to a biased assessment of the degree of financial integration. This study contributes to the existing literature by developing a dynamic international capital asset pricing model (ICAPM) allowing for smooth transition between different integration regimes. Specifically, expected returns may move from a perfectly-segmented regime to a perfectly-integrated one, or vice versa, depending on a certain number of national and international factors that are likely to drive the process of regional integration. Our study differs from past studies in that we investigate the integration of emerging market into a regional market, rather than individual emerging markets, using actual real exchange rates as a common source of risk, in addition to regional and domestic sources of risk. Our results show that the degree of integration in South East Asian emerging market region varied widely through time over the period 1996-2008. …

The East model: recent results and new progresses

Abstract: The East model is a particular one dimensional interacting particle system in which certain transitions are forbidden according to some constraints depending on the configuration of the system. As such it has received particular attention in the physics literature as a special case of a more general class of systems referred to as kinetically constrained models, which play a key role in explaining some features of the dynamics of glasses. In this paper we give an extensive overview of recent rigorous results concerning the equilibrium and non-equilibrium dynamics of the East model together with some new improvements.

The Interrelationship between Formal and Informal Decentralization and its Impact on Sub-Central Governance Performance: The Case of Vietnam

Abstract: Formal and informal institutions are often viewed as complements or substitutes in empirical and theoretical works. However, no evidence of complementarities or substitutes is found in our empirical analysis of the interrelation between formal and informal decentralization across 64 provinces of Vietnam. This paper finds that the formally decentralized system of public service supply is accommodating the informal one, but informal decentralization in public order provision tends to compete with the existing ineffective formal system. This implies that the central government needs to reorganize the system of decentralizing the provision of public goods/services and public in order to make informal institutions complementary rather than rival or free-riding on formal ones.

Austerity - the trigger for waves of contention in romania

Abstract: This paper deals with the international media coverage of the Romanian protests from January-February 2012. The purpose is to analyze whether the events managed to transcend the borders of national representation in the media. Our hypothesis is that, due to the fact that Romania is not considered to be a major player in world politics and economy, the representation of the social protests in foreign publications will be mainly informative, describing the series of events as a consequence of the economic hardship and integrating this social movement in the wave of protests which occurred all over Europe, after the economic crisis of 2008. Results of a combined approach to the analysis of newspaper content integrating both qualitative and quantitative methods suggest that the international media depicts endemic corruption and public discontent as the underlying profound causes for the protests, where austerity was the trigger.

Valuing patents using renewal data: an inquiry into the feasability of an automated patent scoring method

Abstract: In this paper, we address the problem of patent valuation. With this aim in view, we focus on the feasibility of a patent rating system. This leads us to develop a structural model of patent renewal decisions based on real options that links patent renewals and patent value and to estimate it on micro level data. Results for a sample of European patents show that unobserved heterogeneity is too high to efficiently discriminate among patents and cast some doubt on the possibility to develop a reliable rating system based only on patent metrics.

Capital Allocation and International Equilibrium with Pollution Permits

Abstract: Since the Kyoto Agreement, the idea of setting up pollution rights as an instrument of environmental policy for the reduction of greenhouse gases has progressed significantly. But the crucial problem of allocating these permits in a manner acceptable to all countries is still unsolved. There is a general consensus that this should be done according to some proportional allocation rule, but opinions vary greatly about what would be the appropriate proportionality parameter. In this paper, we analyze the economic consequences of different allocation rules in a general equilibrium framework. We first show the existence and unicity of an international equilibrium under the assumption of perfect mobility of capital and we characterize this equilibrium according to the dotations of permits. Then, we compare the economic consequences of three types of allocation rules when the permit market is designed to reduce total pollution. We show that a rule which applies some form of grandfathering simply reduces production and emissions proportionally and efficiently. In contrast, an allocation rule proportional to population is beneficial for developing countries. Finally per capita allocation rules induce size effect and can reverse these results.

F-LARSP: A Computerized Tool for Measuring Morphosyntactic Abilities in French

Abstract: The version of LARSP that has been adapted for use for French-speaking children has followed the lead of Bol and Kuiken (1990) for Dutch in accu- rately linking stages of language development with chronological ages. Their approach used two criteria for determining whether a given structure should be included on the chart, and, if so, at which stage: the structure should be used by at least 50% of the population at a particular stage; and the median of the frequency with which a structure is used should have a value of at least 1.0. For the French adaptation (F-LARSP), a large corpus of child language in French was analysed to determine at what stage structures should be placed on the new chart and how many of these structures should be included. Further details of the adaptation can be found in Maillart et al. (in press). In the present chapter, we focus on the design and implementa- tion of a computerized system for accurately carrying out F-LARSP much more quickly than is possible with current manual methods.

International Similarities of Bank Lending Practices and Varieties of Insolvency Laws: a Comparative Analysis of France and Germany

Abstract: Economic theory conjectures complementarities between the ranking of creditors in formal insolvency proceedings and the use of collateral in bank loan contracts as well as the existence of relational compared to arm’s length lending. In this paper we seek evidence for these hypotheses taking France and Germany as examples which differ significantly concerning the ranking of in particular secured creditors. On closer scrutiny of empirical studies as well as statistical information we can neither confirm that a high priority for se-cured lenders explains an excessive use of collateral in bank loans nor that a priority for inside collateral promotes relational lending. Regarding relational lending we point to variables lying outside the insolvency law, like culture and history.

Dettes souveraines : limites du traitement keynesien d'une crise structurelle

Abstract: Why were several years of stimulation of demand by very large fiscal deficits not sufficient to allow the economies of the old centres (the United States and Europe) to recover their autonomous capability to grow? From this lack of capability results the contradictory character of the present situation On the one hand, the deficits are still required in order to maintain the general level of activity; on the other hand, the unbounded growth of government debts seems impossible to prolong This impasse manifests the “structural character” of the crisis, one of the large phases of perturbation that, every thirty or forty years, punctuate the history of capitalism and compel it to transform itself in fundamental respects, into what we denote as new “social orders” The resolution of the circumstances of the present crisis requires much more than macro policies Involved are economic institutions, the management of enterprises, the function of the financial sector, industrial policies and international relations The crisis highlights the negative impact of neoliberal practices, leading to the deindustrialization of the economies of the centre, establishing a new configuration of growth around the globe Leaving aside certain obvious singularities, the peripheries are now growing more rapidly than the centre

Les hausses récentes des cours des matières premières traduisent-elles l'entrée dans un régime de prix plus élevés ?

Abstract: Dans cet article, nous cherchons a verifier si les hausses des cours des produits primaires, et notamment des produits alimentaires, constatees recemment traduisent un changement de regime vers des niveaux de prix plus eleves. Pour repondre a cette question, nous etudions, dans le cadre du filtre de Kalman et d’un modele a changement de regimes markoviens, la dynamique des termes de l’echange des produits primaires et des produits primaires alimentaires sur la periode 1900-2010. Nos resultats appuient l’hypothese selon laquelle les termes de l’echange des produits primaires et des produits alimentaires seraient entres a partir de 2006 (2008 pour les produits alimentaires) dans un nouveau regime dynamique, caracterise par un niveau moyen des prix superieur de plus de 50 % a celui ayant prevalu sur la periode 1986-2005 (1986-2007 pour les produits alimentaires).

Collective action and innovation in rural areas: an efficient dialogue. A case study of Greece

Abstract: According to some theories (Putnam 1993; Williams 1998) external risks incentivize small businesses to seek cooperation and synergies with one another in order to cope with those risks and improve their position. It is argued that social capital is a necessary condition for the organisation of collective action (Kazakos, 2006; Bianchi, 2001), and that existing social networks (that are closely linked to social capital) promote this evolution and facilitate these new synergies. However, in the case of Greek agriculture, even where the above conditions are present, no such evolution is observed. In order to explain the hesitation of Greek farmers to co-operate and to investigate further farmers’ attitudes towards entrepreneurship through the creation of collective socio-professional associations, we carried out a research among 110 farmers, in the prefecture of Kilkis in the North of Greece through questionnaires and personal interviews. In parallel, we studied two forms of collective actions where producers of the prefecture are involved in order to answer the question of whether it is the need for innovation that leads producers to collective actions or the other way round. The central conclusion of the field research is that causality can operate in both directions if there is a broker who is strong enough to mobilize the producers.

Think Global, Invest Responsible: Why the Private Equity Industry Goes Green

Abstract: The growth of socially responsible investment on public financial markets has drawn considerable academic attention over the last decade. Discarding from previous literature, this paper sets up to analyze the Private Equity channel, which is shown to have the potentiality to foster sustainable practices in unlisted companies. The fast integration of the Environmental, Social and Governance issues by mainstream Private Equity investors is unveiled and appears to have benefited from the maturation of socially responsible investment on public financial markets and the impetus of large conventional actors. Hypothesis on the characteristics and drivers of this movement are proposed and tested on a unique database covering the French Private Equity industry in 2011. Empirical findings support that Private Equity responsible investing is characterized by shareholder activism and strategically driven by a need for new value creation sources, increased risk management and differentiation. In particular, results show that independent funds, which need to attract investors, are more likely than captive funds to develop responsible practices. Evolution of the movement and future research paths are proposed.

Mood-misattribution effect on energy markets: a biorhythm approach

Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between emotion and European energy forward prices of oil, gas, coal and electricity during normal times and periods of extreme price movements relying on the biorhythm approach. To this end, we use the Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) variable to study the impact of emotion on energy market dynamics. Estimating OLS and quantile regressions, we find that seasonal patterns have a significant impact during extreme volatility periods only. Further investigations reveal that the SAD affect is significant during periods of price decrease, but insignificant during priceincrease. The out-of-sample predictive ability properties are also investigated and show that our "SAD model" outperforms significantly the pure "macroeconomic one".

Más reliquias teotihuacanas en ofrendas de Tenochtitlan

Abstract: Recientes descubrimientos del Proyecto Templo Mayor confirman el gran interes que los mexicas tuvieron por las ruinas de Teotihuacan y por recuperar la cultura material de esta civilizacion del pasado por medio de la imitacion y la reutilizacion de sus antiguedades.

Integer Programming and Nondictatorial Arrovian Social Welfare Functions

Abstract: Following Sethuraman, Teo and Vohra ((2003), (2006)), we apply integer programming tools to the analysis of fundamental issues in social choice theory. We generalize Sethuraman et al.'s approach specifying integer programs in which variables are allowed to assume values in the set {0; 1/2 ; 1}. We show that there exists a one-to-one correspondence between the solutions of an integer program defined on this set and the set of the Arrovian social welfare functions with ties (i.e. admitting indifference in the range). We use our generalized integer programs to analyze nondictatorial Arrovian social welfare functions, in the line opened by Kalai and Muller (1977). Our main theorem provides a complete characterization of the domains admitting non- dictatorial Arrovian social welfare functions with ties by introducing a notion of strict decomposability.

Ricardo And Lemke

Abstract: We study the economic mechanism which sustains the substitution of a marginal method for another when demand increases, in the presence of scarce resources In those Ricardian dynamics, it is shown that the outgoing method is determined by the quantity side of the problem, the incoming method by the value side That discrepancy explains both the possible failure of the dynamics and the possible occurrence of multiple equilibria Conditions for existence, uniqueness and the working of the dynamics are stated A parallel is drawn with the parametric Lemke algorithm used to solve linear complementarity problems

Les hausses récentes des cours des matières premières traduisent-elles l'entrée dans un régime de prix plus élevés?

Abstract: In this paper, we seek to determine whether the recent increase in commodity prices, and especially in prices of food products, reflects a regime switch towards higher price levels. Accordingly, we use a Kalman filter and a Markov-switching model in order to analyze the evolution of terms-of-trade for commodities and food products over the period?1900-2010. Our results support the hypothesis that the commodity terms-of-trade have moved, since?2006 (2008?for food products), to a new regime characterized by an average price level about?50% higher than the one that prevailed over the period?1986-2005?(1986-2007?for food products). (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

A sociologia: ciência e ofício

Abstract: The author analyses the main aspects of the evolution of the sociologist profession. She does it on the ground of her experience in a sociology located between education and work and on the inventory of a very important corpus of archives from different sources. She rebuilds the history of the sociology of work in France from the 1950s to the 1990s with an analytic schema that could also be used by the sociology of education. She puts that history in its social and intellectual context. She recalls the scientists' actions to define theories, get them recognised and impose scientificity norms for the new generations. She also looks into a set of questions about the sociologist profession: how can one combine autonomy of thought and involvement in their own society? Will the expert image take over of intellectual, specific of the 1950-1960s?

Portfolio Value at Risk Bounds Using Extreme Value Theory

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to apply a semi-parametric methodology developed by Mesfioui and Quessy (2005) to derive the Value-at-Risk (VaR) bounds for portfolios of possibly dependent financial assets when the marginal return distribution is in the domain of attraction of the generalized extreme value distribution while the dependence structure between financial assets remains unknown. However, These bounds are very sensitive to location changes and depend heavily on the actual location. Modified VaR bounds are derived through an extension of the Vermaat, Does and Steerneman (2005) contribution on quantile estimation of large order to a multivariate setting which enjoy the interesting property of location invariance. Empirical studies for several market indexes are carried out to illustrate our approach.

On the algebraic numbers computable by some generalized Ehrenfest urns

Abstract: This article deals with some stochastic population protocols, motivated by theoretical aspects of distributed computing. We modelize the problem by a large urn of black and white balls from which at every time unit a fixed number of balls are drawn and their colors are changed according to the number of black balls among them. When the time and the number of balls both tend to infinity the proportion of black balls converges to an algebraic number. We prove that, surprisingly enough, not every algebraic number can be ''computed'' this way.

The Ricardo-Lemke parametric algorithm on oddity and uniqueness

Abstract: The parametric Lemke algorithm finds an odd number of solutions to the linear complementarity problem LCP (q, M), for a matrix M with zero blocks on the diagonal and vector q within a certain domain. A criterion for monotonicity and uniqueness is given. The algorithm applies to the determination of a long-run equilibrium in the presence of scarce resources, and its first description can be traced back to the nineteenth century economist David Ricardo.