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31.More information
AbstractIn this paper, we examine how precautionary saving reacts to increases in future income risks when the return on savings itself is random. We show that results obtained with a sure rate of return on assets carry over to the uncertainty case under a set of not too restrictive assumptions.
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32.More information
The evolution of collective bargaining in France since the mid-1990s reveals major transformations in the French System of industrial relations. Remarkable progress in firm-level bargaining has accompanied the proliferation of agreements on employment, which have become a major concern for social partners. These agreements, which link the quantitative management (job creation and social programs, managing fluctuations in both internal and external markets) with the qualitative management of employment (work time management, organization, skills management), are associated with the emergence of a new social compromise, based on the trade-off between employment and multiple forms of flexibility. The French context is traditionally organized along industry lines and characterized by highconflict situations in which actors rebel against local compromises and contractual arrangements. These shifts in the actors' strategies reflect, therefore, a considerable innovation which is examined in this article. Is this change related to new economic imbalance in contractual relations resulting from the decline of workers' power? Or does the employment crisis foster the development of new negotiating practices through which the social partners can explore other levels of action ?Based on a French-Quebec comparative study, this article examines the reconfiguration of social relations in France, drawing on the analysis of employment agreements and observation of real negotiating practices in firms. Our analysis has three main components: (1) examination of the characteristics of these kinds of agreements and their specificity with regard to traditional agreements; (2) examination of the process which leads to these social compromises and its impact in terms of social regulation; (3) understanding the process of mobilization and legitimation through which union actors make sense of these new practices. The firm-level collective agreements on employment are an expression of a series of practical and symbolic shifts in collective bargaining. They are the result of decentralized confrontation/concertation which are closest to local realities; they reflect greater interdependence among social partners in regulating production activity; and they are evolving toward more contractual arrangements. In the French cultural context, the state's influence plays a significant role in this reorientation of collective bargaining practices by legislating measures which encourage and then compel the parties to negotiate about local reorganization of work time. A content analysis of these negotiations supports the hypothesis of a "recodifying of the employment relationship" characterized first by an extension of contractual relations. The issue and exercise of "joint regulation" — in the sense proposee by A. Fox and put into theoretical terms by J.D. Reynaud — focus on the workplaces themselves, inciting union actors to break the "management taboo" in order to turn the productive order into a "negotiated order." The result of this type of negotiation can be defined as the joint elaboration of local legal regulations which link the management of production to the management of the internal labour market. While not ruling out the risk of a power imbalance in which employment bargaining can be a pretext for supporting the introduction of multiple forms of flexibility, the authors highlight the need to be sensitive to the leaming effects associated with this new negotiating dynamic. It gives social partners the opportunity to experiment with new roles within the firm, which then becomes a more political place in which social debate is conducted.The second part of the article addresses the question of the legitimation of these kinds of agreements when they are not directly associated with improvement, to the point of sometimes being equivalent to agreements to "manage sacrifices." Here, the analysis focuses on the way in which the social and symbolic mobilization for employment by union actors is carried out. In particular, it considers the problems encountered by the signatory unions in legitimating their position vis-a-vis their membership. The challenge here is how to reinsert the meaning of their action into the traditional or pertinent symbolic spheres of union action. The rhetoric of solidanty does not have a real significance unless it is embedded in the communities to which workers belong (firm, local area, professional community, etc.). To mobilize workers, the "defence of employment" must be oriented toward a victory, the inverse of a logic of sacrifice which offers much less mobilizing potential. In this way, it is able to re-establish the traditional meaning of union action. Although, for the time being, union leaders are succeeding in constructing the collective meaning of action for employment, the problem of union representation and legitimacy will continue to exist beyond the agreement. As standard bearers for a logic of flexibility and differentiation within work communities, the employment agreements also contribute to the growth of divergent interests and perceptions among the different categories of workers, making it all the more difficult in the end to aggregate and organize interests in such actions.
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33.More information
ABSTRACTThe theory of the optimum currency areas—OCA—has been, for forty years, an unavoidable framework regarding the choice of the exchange's mode. Of Keynesian inspiration, it initially supplements the friedmanian plea in favor of the generalized floating exchange rate mode. Improved, then deeply renewed by taking into account time inconsistency and the theory of credibility—the new theory of the optimal currency areas—, Mundell's construction is still robust and topical. The OCA theory maintains all its relevance at a time of rising regional unions, it is currently being used to help Canada determine the optimal mode of exchange vis-a-vis the currency of the United States—float, dollarization, monetary union—, or to help the Asian countries tempted by the peg and by regional solutions.
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34.More information
For the last fifteen years, in France, one has seen a clear tendancy toward prospective studies that are meant for planners. Those studies may be classified into three categories: sectorial, "transversal" and general. Because of the fact that these types of works are of different nature it seems interesting to consider them separately for discussion purpose.
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38.More information
Historically connected with trade associations, cooperatives of artisans were modeled locally after agricultural cooperatives. The law of July 20, 1983 provided a legal framework and new tax and financial incentives for setting up cooperatives of family-owned businesses. The situation today is uneven. There are only a few cooperatives in some industries and increasingly powerful cooperative groups that are geographically concentrated. This article shows the contradictions of the cooperative movement in this sector, which is trying on one hand to ensure the survival of traditional artisanal practices centered on the trade and on the other hand encourage the development of a more commercially oriented model.
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39.More information
AbstractAs it is most often conceived, the theme of "sustainable development" refers to a wide range of changes to be carried out in all spheres of society. For this reason, it is logically in line with a tone of general mobilization. It frequently leads to a call for renewed procedures in the organization of community life, in order to encourage all the cooperation that could be useful. A common problem on the procedures to be put in place to reconcile, or at least make them think and discuss, actors with potentially divergent interests has thus formed around the issues of sustainable development and governance. In a sense, "sustainable development" is, more or less explicitly, to be taken as an incentive to rethink the question of the practical experience of democracy and of the institutions from which it is supposed to operate. It is even a form of equation that tends to be almost raised between "sustainable development" and democracy, with a relationship of dependency between the two terms. Such an assumption is an invitation to ask more precisely to what extent the goal of "sustainable development" may lead or contribute to a redefinition of democracy, both in its principles and in its practices. What kind of progress towards democracy is drawn? What assumptions are articulated? What proposals arrive in the discussions? To what devices do these proposals tend to lead? What kind of practices is taking shape and to what extent do they come as a continuation of what seems to be a renewed programme of government? This contribution tries to answer these questions, principally in the European and French context.
Keywords: développement durable, gouvernance, démocratie, participation, sustainable development, governance, democracy, participation