Documents found
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41.More information
Do we do enough for the future? This question is related to many different current issues, from the reduction of sovereign debt in Europe, to the pension reform, the fight against climate change, the preservation of natural resources, the level of public investment in infrastructure, or the fiscal treatment of long-term savings for example. Our social responsibility towards future generations is decentralized through the choice of the discount rate, which determines the tradeoff between present sacrifices and future benefits. How should we define the efficient level of long-termism? In this paper, I summarize the most important evolutions in the economic analysis of this question in recent years. Given the strong uncertainties that prevail concerning the long term evolution of our society, I recommend to use a discount rate ranging from 2 times the anticipated growth rate of consumption for short time horizons, going down to 1 % for time horizons above 100 years. The systematic risk premium should also have a term structure, starting at around 1 % for short maturities to 3 % for extra-long ones.
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43.More information
AbstractTraditionally, management of biotechnological risks was accomplished according to the principles of managerial rationality, which constrained the role of scientists, managers and politicians. The recent scandals about contaminated blood and mad-cow disease have not only contributed to concerns about these notions of managerial rationality but have also prompted more attention to the concept of a democratization of risk management. This article provides two different models for managing risk in the area of genetically modified foods (GMO), as well as a hybrid case. The first model is found in Canada, and does little to undermine managerial rationality, even if its supporters deploy a rhetoric of democratization. The second model is found in France, and is more faithful to critiques of managerial rationality. The United Kingdom is the hybrid case. This third alternative allows the author to conclude that one can accept managerial rationality only in an institutional configuration that incorporates strict political control over discourse about risk management.
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45.More information
SUMMARYContrarily to the past, the new single parent family is in most cases the result of a voluntary disruption of the household, or of a birth outside marriage; its head is mostly—and increasingly—the mother; and it concerns an increasingly younger population, among parents as well as children. After analysing the evolution of the level and age structure of female single parent families in Quebec, the authors describe the socio-economic profile of these families (labor force participation rate, mean income and housing), for each of the metropolitan regions of Quebec.
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46.More information
ABSTRACTExclusion is an omnipresent notion in social and political analysis. But despite all efforts, it remains a vague concept, testifying to the difficulty of understanding reality and taking effective action. Government policies are at the heart of this process of inventing new means of regulating social cohesion in post-industrial society. Public action has shown a particular degree of uncertainty in light of the powerful resurgence of liberal options and the belief in the primacy of market forces. An inability to reexamine the state's role in view of changing political intervention at the local level and the need to revitalize a democracy emphasizing citizen involvement and genuine debate is a further obstacle to renewal of the state's role necessitated by a growing perception of the global economy and its underlying power relationships as natural. Behind the many faces and individual portraits of the excluded, the social link is unravelling before our eyes, and we are as yet unable to identify the new approaches and means of social régulation now taking shape.
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47.More information
ABSTRACTConventional analyses of retirement plans in terms of funding are inadequate to understand the emerging discrepancies between the functioning of social security institutions and the realities they are supposed to manage. One has the pervasive impression that attempts are being made to manage new situations based on rules designed for earlier, outmoded situations. From this perspective, analysis of the age risk is especially revealing. The management and reforms of retirement programs are based on the old idea that the end of working life coincides with the obtaining of a pension and the onset of age-related disabilities, whereas this is no longer true. Prior to retirement is a new risk, the "end of career" risk, which is triggering a complete restructuring of the various functions of retirement and social security. These changes are linked to the evolution of working careers, of social stages and ages of life in a society where people increasingly pursue multiple activities at all ages and enjoy longer life spans.
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48.More information
SummaryUnder what conditions can procedures for observation and analysis account for social changes in progress ? Delays in recording and modes of general statistic analysis make their use impossible. Less complex instruments also pose problems: "AGORAMETRIE" reduces social change to changes in public opinion; " SEMIOMETRIE " builds normative typologies based on psycholinguistic presuppositions ; DELPHI limits change to the consequences of technological innovation. Contemporary phenomena as observed are complex and heterogeneous : the study of social transformation in progress is still to be constructed.
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50.More information
The meat industry, being confronted to the economic crisis, goes on concentrating. Firms develop volume strategies and try to diversify their production in order to reinforce their efficiency on a rather stagnating and keenly competitive market. In terms of industrial and financial development, groups first insist on external growth and internationalisation. Small and middle-sized firms which are deeply rooted in local production networks are looking for micromarkets. Supermarkets, and more generally downstream pressure is now stronger on the meat products channel: processing industries specialise, finished products and new products present a high safety and hygiene quality. SMEs must anticipate on this industrial dynamic for which the constraints are more and more pressing.
Keywords: Stratégie entreprise, PME, Produits carnés, Industrie, Gestion, Filière, Distribution des produits alimentaires