Nadine Levratto

Small firms finance in France

The data concerning interest rates paid by small and medium sized firms on credit and financial markets as well as the available balance-sheets confirm the idea that firms have difficulties to get financial resources. This paper tries to put in light the financial disparities among firms when a discrimination resting on size characterises the functioning of credit market. The first section presents the main financial characteristics of French SMEs: the low level of equities, the heaviness of short term debts and the over use of payment delays. Section 2 shows how French and European authorities reacted in order to improve the financial situation of SMEs and to reduce their liquidity constraint, changing tax policy and promoting the creation of new means of financing.

The Determinants of Growth for SMEs - A Longitudinal Study from French Manufacturing Firms

This paper investigates the structural and strategic determinants of firm growth using a unique data set for French firms employing between 10 and 250 employees in 1997 and active over the period 1997-2007. Starting from the idea that firm growth is not only a random process but that some regularities may be emphasized, we consider a growth model that combines different elements presented as determinant in the firm’s growth path. Results based on two families of multinomial logit model do not confirm the conclusions about the exclusive role played by the previous size. In addition, thanks to the references to legal structure, market share and localization, one observes these variables shape strongly the individual growth path. However environment and structural elements are not the only elements to focus on in order to provide an explanation of the employment growth rate at the firm level. Strategic factors matter too. In particular we demonstrate the crucial role of labor costs and financial structure as explanatory variables of firm growth.

Become Independent! The Paradoxical Constraints of France’s Auto-Entrepreneur Regime

The aw on conomic odernization of ugust 4, 2008, introduced a new form of individual entrepreneur, the “auto‐entrepreneur,” the goal being to enhance the competitiveness of the rench economy by promoting entrepreneurial spirit. This paper proposes to discuss the “auto‐entrepreneur” model with reference to the fundamentals of the theory of the firm and the legal variants of the “auto‐entrepreneur.” The argument will be structured around the criterion of independence, and its various interpretations, which will be used to put the auto‐entrepreneur model to the test. Three forms of autonomy are given precedence: productive, concerning the availability of sufficient financing and material to provide professional services; managerial, which measures the ability to assume the risks inherent to business, regarding both interested and third parties; and financial, or the chances of earning enough money to subsist upon. The result, highlighted in the conclusion to this paper, is that the “auto‐entrepreneur” regime is contrary to every referenced approach to the firm. This business model appears best adapted as a means of supplementing income from another, unrelated activity or in retirement.

The Emergence of Ecological Opportunities and Firms’ Behaviour

This unique and informative book highlights the relationship between crisis, innovation, and sustainable development, and discusses the necessary conditions required to seize the ecological opportunity. The authors study the strength of change for building a new society, and the theoretical origins and political aspects of environmental concerns. They also sketch the outlines of a global governance system seeking to promote sustainable development.

L'auto-entrepreneur, au risque de l'entreprise

La creation et la popularite du regime de lauto-entrepreneur reposent sur labsence de risque associee a ce regime. En conditionnant le paiement des cotisations sociales a la realisation dun chiffre daffaires, le legislateur a pense eliminer tout risque de deficit. Or, des ses tous premiers stades, la theorie de lentrepreneur insiste sur la dimension risquee de la creation dune entreprise alors que, plus recemment, le caractere multiforme du risque dentreprise a ete mis en avant. A partir de cette grille, et sur la base dune approche sociologique du droit, nous proposons danalyser un corpus de 104 decisions de justice impliquant des auto-entrepreneurs. Nos resultats mettent en lumiere trois familles de risques qui peuvent se combiner. La premiere est engendree par lactivite elle-meme, la deuxieme decoule de larticulation avec le salariat et la troisieme resulte de la complexite des regles. Ne beneficiant de la protection ni de la personnalite morale, ni de la responsabilite limitee, les auto-entrepreneurs sont donc confrontes a des risques importants que le plafonnement de leur revenu ne parvient finalement pas a compenser. Mots clefs : auto-entrepreneur, risque, theorie de lentrepreneur, sociologie du droit Codes JEL : L21, L26, L53 The autoentrepreneur regime and the entrepreneurial risk

Does Network Economics Allow To Enlighten Banking Organization

Free banking theory aims at showing that competition is the most efficient system as far as compensation between banking institutions is concerned. Private moneys could then exist simultaneously. Such a point of view seems to be at variance with a general tendency consisting in concentrating payment systems under the authority of a Central Bank. It also contrasts with the creation and development of centralized electronic payment systems resting upon new communication means in order to prevent systemic risk. Four main aspects are thus developed to understand the way monetary systems are organized. The first one consists in examining in what extent central money has to be considered as a specific good, whose existence rests upon the security of transfer mechanisms in which irrevocability appears to be an important element. We demonstrate how the technical organization of inter-bank payment system may limit the potentially disruptive contagion effect of an individual failure leading to collapse of other banks when nothing is done to prevent it. The second section gives a presentation of compensation mechanism resting upon network economics. From the typology established by Katz and Shapiro (1985) we demonstrate that talking about externalities is pertinent whenever a quite small number of agents are involved in the same payment system. We then wonder if one compensation system is preferable or not to several ones. The third section presents a model resting upon the so-called club-goods, i.e. intermediate goods that are neither public goods, nor private goods. We then focus on the clubs or networks size owing to the idea according to the utility that an agent receives from its consumption depends on the number of other persons with whom he must share its benefits. We show that pure competition is not an optimal solution but that monopoly can be sub-optimal too for reasons dealing with congestion more than with cost. In the last and conclusive section we present normative considerations concerning compensation systems and the way to regulate them using technical means. We thus demonstrate the need for monetary authorities to have at their disposal several means of action in order to grant the security and durability of the payment systems.