Éloi Laurent

The Irish Tiger and the German Frog: A Tale of Size and Growth in the Euro Area

In this paper, we try to relate country size to economic performance in the Euro area, focusing on the second smallest Euro area country, Ireland, and the region’s largest economy, Germany, from 1995 to 2005. In the institutional context of the EMU, we show that Ireland smallness was a major factor in its spectacular success, while the growth strategy of Germany was not in line with its size and thus produced poor overall results. We argue that while Ireland needs to rethink its growth strategy with the arrival of the Eastern small states in the EU and the Euro area, Germany’s economic extraversion – choosing external competitiveness over domestic expansion and resorting to social and tax competition – could be re-oriented towards intensive domestic growth with benefits, not only for the country, but also for the Euro area as a whole.

Eurozone: the high cost of complacency

The first decade of Eurozone economic policy is marked by complacency, passivity and ultimately failure, as seen by Eloi Laurent.

Carbon Tax: The French Connection

In early 2010, France will introduce a carbon tax, becoming the largest economy in the world to do so. According to Éloi Laurent, the introduction of a carbon tax in France is a good example that ecologically efficient and socially fair solutions do exist to curb climate change, but that it takes public pedagogy, sound economic reasoning and above all political courage to bring them into being.

Au-delà du PIB, en-deçà du PIB. Mesurer le bien-être territorial dans l’OCDE

Nous proposons dans cet article les premiers resultats d’un nouvel agenda a la fois de recherche et de politique publique « Au-dela du PIB, en-deca du PIB », qui consiste a mesurer le bien-etre pour l’ameliorer la ou il est vecu : au niveau territorial. Apres avoir expose les raisons principales qui justifient cet agenda, nous presentons la methodologie et les donnees du projet « Comment va la vie dans votre region ? » mene dans le cadre de l’OCDE sur le sujet. Nous concluons sur les enjeux et les perspectives a venir de nos travaux, au plan politique, analytique et empirique en insistant sur la question de la resilience territorial.

Introduction. Le bien-être en trois dimensions

Le e PIB, comme les indicateurs economiques conventionnels dont il est l’etendard, perd a grande vite sse sa pertinence dans notre debut de 21e siecle pour trois raisons fondamentales. Tout d’abord, la croissance economique, si forte dans les decennies d’apres-guerre (1945-1975), se dissipe peu a peu dans les pays developpes et devient en consequence un objet de poursuite de plus en plus vain pour les politiques publiques (comme l’illustre la reprise poussive en France et en Europe). Ensuite, les bien-etre objectif et subjectif – c’est-a-dire ce qui fait que la vie vaut la peine d’etre vecue – sont de plus en plus deconnectes de la croissance economique. Enfin, la croissance du PIB ne nous dit rien de la soutenabilite en vironnementale, c’est-a-dire de la compatibilite entre notre bien-etre d’ aujourd’hui et la vitalite a long terme des ecosystemes dont nos societes dependent en dernier ressort, alors que c’est a coup sur l’en jeu majeur de notre siecle

The Democratic Paradox of the EU

While the EU has been a driving force for the expansion of civil liberties, political rights and human rights, making Europe the most democratic continent in the world, democracy is in crisis within nation states because of the very nature of European integration that structurally relies more on output than input democracy (discussed below). The European crisis of efficiency in the course of and the aftermath of the “great recession” has logically turned into a crisis of trust with respect to the European project itself that must be fixed if Europeans want to curb the rise of anti-EU populism.

Introduction: Fitoussi’s Fruitful Economics

When it comes to generosity, Jean-Paul Fitoussi is ultra-liberal. When it comes to economic analysis and policy, not so much. Here are summed up the private and public man. But Jean-Paul Fitoussi is also in between private and public, a great friend and thinking partner. This is why “fruitful economics” well describes to our eyes to what branch of our discipline Jean-Paul Fitoussi belongs.

The EU “Beyond GDP”

The year 2014 marks the 70th anniversary of the reign of Gross Domestic Product (GDP): conceived in the 1930s by Harvard development economist Simon Kuznets, it was crowned king of all economic data at the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944, when western nations embraced it as their common power and success currency. It will take time to complement it and eventually replace it by indicators able to yield true and lasting policy change. But the revolution of new indicators of well-being and sustainability is under way and the European Union (EU) has been an important force in driving this revolution since 2007 when it organized the “Beyond GDP” conference.

Domestic Inequality in the European Union

The state and dynamic of global inequality are complex to assess and not easy to describe, let alone analyze, with general assertions. At the very least, two types of inequality have to be distinguished: international and domestic inequality, or inequality “between” and inequality “within” countries.

The EU as a Global Ecological Leader

The EU, a unique experience of pooled sovereignty and cooperative regionalization, has become a global ecological leader: What happens in the EU regarding environmental policy now matters globally (be it on climate change, biodiversity or chemicals regulation). This chapter tries to understand how the EU has managed to develop this prominent position in the world, which is a distinct feature of the European model in our globalization.