Jean-Louis Combes

Are there spillover effects between coastal and noncoastal regions in China

The evolution of regional policy between the Mao era and the Deng era generated much debate concerning inter-provincial disparities and the trade-off between efficiency and equity. The aim of this paper is to explore the existence of regional growth spillover effects looked for Deng’s policy. Indeed, the main objective was the spread of coastal provinces’ growth onto inland provinces’ growth. After reviewing the theoretical underpinnings of such effects, their existence is tested with panel data, for the period 1981-1998. Moreover, the hypothesis of an equal distribution of these effects over all the inland provinces is also tested. A relative failure to boost development of the western provinces from the coastal provinces’ growth is observed. Hence, it would seen to be an error to wait for spillover effects to be sufficient to reduce disparities between Chinese provinces in the short run.

Commodity Price Volatility, Vulnerability and Development

This paper examines the meaning and consequences of the developing countries economic vulnerability to the volatility of commodity prices. It first considers how to define and measure this vulnerability, which has three components, shocks, exposure and resilience, and focuses on the two first ones in order to identify the structural vulnerability, distinct from the vulnerability linked to the policy. Second, the main channels through which the vulnerability to commodity prices influences economic growth are presented on the basis of several previous cross-sectional growth regression, supplemented by a test given in an annex. Finally, policy implications are drawn related to development aid, its allocation and its design as well.

A multilevel analysis of the determinants of willingness to pay to prevent environmental pollution across countries

Abstract This paper discusses the extent to which individual and contextual level factors influence the likelihood of individuals’ willingness to pay (WTP) to prevent environmental pollution. A multilevel probit regression framework was set up to explain WTP to prevent environmental pollution. We use data from the World Values Survey (WVS), which contains socio-economic and socio-demographic information, and merged it with country level covariates. Compared to many previous studies, our dataset encompasses a more indepth set of individual level covariates. We find that rich people, individuals with higher education, as well as those who possess post-materialist values are more likely to be concerned about environmental pollution. This study reveals that in developed countries, 90% of country variation in WTP to prevent environmental pollution can be explained by individual characteristics. This portion reduces to 80% in the case of developing countries. An interesting feature in our study is the ability to investigate the effect of contextual factors on individuals’ willingness to contribute for the environment. We observe that both democracy and government stability reduce individuals’ intention to donate to prevent environmental damage mainly in developed countries.