Philippe Adair

Algeria, Africa's largest country (2.4 million km² and over 46 million inhabitants), has historically been one of the world's leading importers of agricultural and food products. Its dependence on cereal imports, and wheat in particular, is a structural fact. This dependence appears less financially constraining compared to other major importers of agricultural commodities, due to revenues from exports of fossil fuels, gas, and oil, which provide the country with 95% of its export earnings. Dependence on agricultural and food imports costs Algiers an average of $10 billion each year... Le plus grand pays d’Afrique qu’est l’Algérie (2,4 millions de km2 et plus de 46 millions d’habitants), figure historiquement parmi les plus importants pays importateurs mondiaux de produits agricoles et alimentaires. Sa dépendance aux importations céréalières, et en blé plus spécifiquement, constitue une donnée structurelle. Une dépendance qui apparaît moins contrainte financièrement comparativement à d’autres grands importateurs de denrées agricoles, du fait des recettes tirées des exportations d’énergies fossiles, gaz et pétrole, qui procurent au pays 95% des recettes d’exportations. La dépendance aux importations agricoles et alimentaires coûte en moyenne chaque année 10 milliards de dollars à Alger...

Mykhaylo Tuhan-Baranovsky (1864-1919), a prominent Ukrainian economist and social scientist, deserves an assessment for his contributions to the History of Economic Thought. We provide a selection of Tuhan-Baranovsky’s main works. The starting point is his contribution to microeconomics, addressing Austrian marginal utility theory. Next, we focus on his contribution to macroeconomics, namely his theory of industrial crises, which includes a theory of markets and a theory of production built upon the Marxian schemes of reproduction and accumulation. His endogenous, real business cycle theory proved influential upon some major economists during the first quarter of the twentieth century until the Great Depression, from Lescure and Aftalion to Robertson and Bounatian, and from Spiethoff to Hayek and Keynes. Last, we examine Tuhan-Baranovsky’s shift from Marxism towards non-Marxian socialism, namely ‘cooperativism’, and his theory of cooperatives inspired by Proudhon that stands opposite to Chayanov’s theory. Conclusion sketches two research avenues. One could address the congruence of the labour costs theory and utility theory in Tuhan-Baranovsky’s microeconomics and furthermore its consistence with psycho physics theory (Weber-Fechner’s law). The other one could link Tuhan-Baranovsky’s theory of markets and his theory of production and building-up a comprehensive model including micro-foundations to his macroeconomic business cycle theory.

Longstanding evidence in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries shows a high prevalence of unemployment and informality among a large fraction of population, and at the same time gender disparities in labour force participation and occupational mobility. Why is there such persistent labour‐market segmentation? What is the impact and potential of various formalisation policies? An overview of the informal economy across three middle‐income MENA countries (Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia) is provided with respect to taxonomy, coverage and drivers. Transition matrices and multinomial logistic regressions are applied to longitudinal microdata from Labour‐Market Panel Surveys, focusing on workers' occupational mobility in relation to their previous status, age cohort, gender and other demographics. Persistent segmentation and low occupational mobility in all countries suggest that informal employment is not driven by choice on the labour supply side but by structural constraints on the demand side. Existing formalisation policies based on distinct stick and carrot strategies, and targeting of existing businesses and workers achieve rather modest impacts. One recommendation to supplement policies for decent jobs creation is to promote social and solidarity enterprises and extend microfinance to informal enterprises.

Why is there persistent labour market segmentation as evidenced by gender patterns in employment and occupational mobility? What are the impact and potential of various formalisation policies in MENA countries? An overview of the informal economy across MENA countries is provided with respect to taxonomy, coverage and drivers. Transition matrices and multinomial logistic regressions are applied to longitudinal microdata from Labor Market Panel Surveys (in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia), focusing on workers’ occupational mobility regarding their pre-existing status, age cohort, gender and other demographics. Persistent segmentation and low occupational mobility in all countries suggest that informal employment is not driven by choice on the labour supply side but by structural constraints on the demand side. Existing formalisation policies encapsulating distinct stick and carrot strategies, and targeting business versus workers achieve rather modest impacts. Promoting social and solidarity enterprises and extending microfinance to informal enterprises are promising policies for the creation of decent jobs.

Factors detrimental to funding females or micro‐entrepreneurs arise both from the demand side of businesses, such as the absence of funding need versus self‐selection despite account holding, and from the supply side of financial institutions, such as deficient financial infrastructure and discrimination towards loan applicants. A sequential model addresses both the demand and the supply sides, prior and during the COVID‐19 pandemic, upon four MENA countries, namely Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. Probit regressions use two distinct though comparable sub‐samples of micro‐enterprises from the 2020 World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) and the Economic Research Forum (ERF) COVID‐19 Monitor in 2021. Prior the pandemic, micro‐enterprises are prone to self‐selection vis‐à‐vis loan application in Tunisia (ERF) and in all North African countries (WBES). During the pandemic, no self‐selection vis‐à‐vis government support affects either female or micro‐entrepreneurs. Prior the pandemic, females or micro‐entrepreneurs face no loan discrimination (WBES). During the pandemic, females face no discrimination regarding government support, whereas Moroccan micro‐entrepreneurs do (ERF). Prior the pandemic, financial inclusion runs opposite to both self‐selection and discrimination (WBES), but not for self‐selection (ERF), whereas it proves insignificant during the pandemic with respect to self‐selection or discrimination, whatever the sub‐sample.

The banking system in Tunisia suffers from non-performing loans, fuelling the aversion of banks to credit risk and hindering the financing of SMEs. The research question tackles the ‘transactional lending’ versus ‘relational lending’ relationship between a sample of 10 Tunisian banks observed over 2005–2017 and its clients, and its impact on non-performing loans. The econometric analysis first tests a linear model between non-performing loans and the determinants (Size, Ownership and Proximity) of the lending relationship, which suggests that banks are poorly committed in collecting soft information from their clients. Second, the estimation of a (conditional) threshold effect in a non-linear model between these main determinants, distinguishes two regimes, one above and one below the threshold. Three robust outcomes emerge, the (large) size of most banks in the sample constitutes a barrier to meeting loan applications from SMEs, and enhancing tighter customer relationship with a higher number of branches as well as foreign participation in the share capital of these banks would enable to meet these demands.

The purpose of the paper is to emphasize the contribution of Mykhaylo Ivanovych Tugan-Baranovsky to Business Cycle theory and its legacy among French economists.Tugan-Baranovsky (1864–1919), a prominent Ukrainian economist was a cycle theorist who was inspired by some French or francophone economists whose language he mastered. His theory of industrial crises proved influential upon some major economists during the first quarter of the twentieth century until the Great Depression, from Spiethoff to Hayek and Keynes.We present both the history and analytical content of industrial crises in the French version of Tugan-Baranovsky’s masterpiece. We provide an overview of Tugan-Baranovsky’s intellectual legacy as for his French-speaking followers, namely, Lescure, Aftalion, Robertson and Bouniatian. The ebb and tide of Tugan-Baranovsky’s i fluence can be understood throughout two episodes: the shift from real to monetary cycles in the interwar period and the revival of real business cycles alongside New Classical Economics in the 1980s, which proves relevant again in the context of the current Great Lockdown Recession. JEL classіfіcatіon: B14, E32, N13