Antoine Parent

Clio-Combinatorics: A Novel Framework to Analyze Military Logistics Choices Using Operations Research Techniques

The Handbook of Research on Military, Aeronautical, and Maritime Logistics and Operations compiles interdisciplinary research on diverse issues related to logistics from an inclusive range of methodological perspectives. This publication focuses on original contributions in the form of theoretical, experimental research, and case studies on logistics strategies and operations management with an emphasis on military, aeronautical, and maritime environments. Readers:This chapter proposes to apply combinatorial optimization to past military conflicts with the aim of producing quantitative data that help explaining history. To do this, we can go beyond the classical “problem solving” vision of operations research that focuses on algorithmic development and computation analysis to privilege solution analysis and the needs of matching the obtained solution to the reality we aim to represent, study and analyze. In particular, we propose an iterative logic search method that aims to identify and analyze military strategic logic in terms of logistics. Then, to illustrate it, an application to the French troop assignment plan (Plan XVII of Joffre, 1932) is made to analyze which could be the subjacent logic behind the defense plan of French troops and state on the consequences of the optimization choices in terms of regional distribution of troops. A discussion of the proposed framework and the directions to generalize it will be presented as a conclusion.

Liquidity Trap and Stability of Taylor Rules

We study a productive economy with safe government bonds and fractional cash-in-advance constraint on consumption expenditures. Government issues bonds and levies taxes to finance public expenditures, while the Central Bank follows a feedback Taylor rules by pegging the nominal interest rate. We show that when the nominal interest rate is bound to be non-negative, under active policy rules a liquidity trap steady state does emerge besides the Leeper (1991) equilibrium. The stability of the two steady states depends, in turns, upon the amplitude of the liquidity constraint. When the share of consumption to be paid cash is set lower than one half, the liquidity trap equilibrium is unstable. The stability of Leeper equilibrium too depends dramatically upon the amplitude of the liquidity constraint. Policy and Taylor rules are thus theoretically rehabilitated since their targets, by contrast with a vast literature, may be now stable. We also show that a relaxation of the liquidity constraint is Pareto-improving and that the liquidity trap equilibrium Pareto-dominates the Leeper one, in view of the zero cost of money.

What Form did Global Financial Integration Take from 1960 to 2015? A Topological Analysis

We propose an original analysis of the second globalization era, using an alternative range of equity prices integration indicators based on the topological structure of world equity markets. The sample includes 32 countries over the period 1960-2015. Particular importance is given to the study of the major stylized fact in the literature, the Lucas paradox, in its different forms including the “allocation” puzzle within emerging economies. This original methodological approach highlights that the second globalization era is characterized by an increasing unpredictability of the structure and dynamics of the system. First, at the end of the study period the most integrated countries are split between advanced economies and emerging economies while some advanced economies are among the least integrated. Secondly, the structure of the network changes from a linear network to a star network, implying a shortening of transmission chains and thus a facilitated diffusion of international price shocks.