By Jérôme Creel

“The size of many multipliers is large, particularly for spending and targeted transfers.” Who today would dare to write such a thing? suite…»

By Gérard Cornilleau

Health is one of the key concerns of the French. Yet it has not been a major topic of political debate, probably due to the highly technical nature of the problems involved in the financing and management of the health care system. An OFCE note presents four issues that we believe are crucial in the current context of a general economic crisis suite…»

By Henri Sterdyniak

Sarkozy has cost France 500 billion. This is the central point of the book Un quinquennat de 500 milliards d’euros [A 500 billion euro five-year term] by Melanie Delattre and Emmanuel Levy. According to the authors, out of the 632 billion euro rise in France’s debt between late 2006 and late 2011, only 109 billion can be attributed to the crisis, while the remaining 523 billion are the price of the five-year reign of Nicolas Sarkozy. Of this total, 370 billion is said to be due to a failure to correct past mismanagement and 153 billion to wasteful decisions taken during his 5-year term in office. Should we take these figures seriously? suite…»

By Hervé Péléraux

Here is the leading indicator for the French economy, updated to 30 January 2011.

The February forecasts of the leading indicator significantly worsened the outlook for the French economy at the turn of 2011 and 2012. suite…»

By André Grjebine and Francesco Saraceno

It is certainly possible to question whether the role acquired by the rating agencies in the international economy is legitimate. But if in the end their message must be taken into account, then this should be done based on what they are really saying and not on the economic orthodoxy attributed to them, sometimes wrongly. This orthodoxy is so prevalent that many commentators are continuing to talk about the decision by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) to downgrade the rating of France and other European countries as if this could be attributed to an insufficiently strong austerity policy. suite…»

By Jean-Luc Gaffard

The simultaneous increase of inflation and unemployment in the 1970s indicated that Keynesian theory and policy had run into a wall. No longer was it simply possible to arbitrate between the two evils and fine-tune economic activity by acting solely on aggregate demand through the budget channel. This failure together with the persistence of high inflation eventually convinced policymakers of the need and urgency of prioritising the fight against inflation. suite…»

By Hélène Périvier

Working time has made its appearance in the presidential campaign, and the idea that people work less in France than elsewhere is gaining ground. This is the subject of a report by COE-Rexecode, which unfortunately does not take into account the sexual division of labour. suite…»

By Eric Heyer and Mathieu Plane

 Do people work less in France than in the rest of Europe? Is France the only country to have reduced working hours in the last decade? Is the 35-hour work week really dragging down the French economy? The report published on 11 January by the Coe-Rexecode Institute provides fresh material for answering these questions.

We have produced a note on the main conclusions of the report, which can be summarized as follows: suite…»

By Sandrine Levasseur

In the wake of the Swedish and German models, should Europe now adopt the Estonian model? Despite Estonia’s success story, the answer is no. Here’s why. suite…»

By Jean-Luc Gaffard, Sarah Guillou, Lionel Nesta

The current election campaign is lending weight to simplistic proposals like the slogan “buy French”, which evokes the need for France to re-industrialize. And to accomplish this, what could be simpler than to convince the population to buy native products designated with a special label? This is also more politically correct than advocating a straightforward return to protectionism. suite…»