Publications:


Among the ten countries with the highest carbon intensity, six are natural resource-rich countries. This suggests the existence of a carbon curse: resource-rich countries would tend to follow more carbon-intensive development paths than resource-poor countries. We investigate this assumption empirically using a panel data method covering 29 countries (OECD and BRIC) and seven sectors over the 1995-2009 period. First, at the macroeconomic level, we find that the relationship between national CO2 emissions per unit of GDP and abundance in natural resources is U-shaped. The carbon curse appears only after the turning point. Second, we measure the impact of resource abundance on sectoral emissions for two groups of countries based on their resource endowments. We show that a country rich in natural resources pollutes relatively more in resource-related sectors as well as all other sectors. Our results suggest that the debate on climate change mitigation should rather focus on a comparison of resource-rich countries versus resource-poor countries than the developed-country versus developing-country debate.

This paper provides new empirical evidence of the impact of shale gas revolution on manufacturing output and trade in the United States. The shale gas boom has resulted in pronounced and sustained regional differences in natural gas prices between the United States and the rest of the world. The results show that the decline in natural gas prices in the United States compared to natural gas prices in Europe led to an increase in industrial activity of nearly 3%. In addition, we provide empirical evidence of structural breaks in the relationships between natural gas prices and imports or exports. Finally, we conclude that while the shale gas revolution has helped some industries to expand, it has not had a strong impact on the manufacturing sector as a whole.


This article analyses the immediate consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on financial markets in some of the hardest-hit countries. We first show that stock-market index returns reacted strongly and negatively to the COVID-19 pandemic. We then assess the impact of the demand-side accompanying economic measures, such as in- come support to cover salaries and debt relief for households, in mitigating this effect. Countries that introduced more generous income-support policies were better able to counter the pandemic's short-term harmful effects on financial markets. We calculate the potential country-level financial losses due to COVID-19 over the five first months of 2020 to have been between -40% and -26%. Once the mitigating effects of economic policy are taken into account, the actual financial loss is estimated at between -5% and -7% for France, Germany and the UK. These financial losses are higher elsewhere, with some exceeding -30%, especially in countries without income-support policies.


Working papers:

This paper analyzes the impacts of both natural-resource abundance and natural-resource volatility on economic growth. We apply the panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) approach of Gonzalez (2004), which is more flexible than the standard fixed-effects model, to data on 87 countries over the 1989-2015 period. Our results suggest that: (i) greater natural-resource abundance significantly raises economic growth, contrary to the resource-curse paradox; (ii) the impact of natural-resource abundance, investment and human capital on GDP growth rate per capita is non-linear, and varies by the level of natural-resource abundance volatility; and (iii) the subsequent GDP growth loss may reach 17 percentage points per year for countries with the highest natural-resource abundance volatility, compared to those with the lowest natural-resource abundance volatility. Volatility in natural-resource revenues and poor governmental responses then seem to drive the resource-curse paradox, instead of natural-resource abundance as such.

In this paper, we investigate the financial performance of 580 socially responsible (SR) indices relative to their respective (non-SR) benchmarks over two decades. Our results show that SR indices have generally outperformed their benchmark, especially during bear market conditions or crises, and predominantly in developed countries. However, when we use appropriate controls, our results become insignificant with respect to the outperformance of SR indices. As a result, we do not identify a "true SR effect", showing that investors do not punish companies that do not have good SR scores.


Work in progress: