Essays on the Paris Club, Gibrat's Law and the history of the Banque de France.

Summary This dissertation is a synthesis of publications made between 2005 and 2012 as well as working papers. It is organized around three axes: issues related to the Paris Club, articles about the Gibrat law and works around the History of the Banque de France. The first axis includes two papers published in the Bulletin de la Banque de France: one on the evaluation of the HIPC initiative (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, Mechanisms and Elements of Evaluation, Bulletin N°140, August 2005) and the second on the modeling of debt buybacks within the Paris Club. The latter paper was in two forms (general public: Modélisation et analyse des mécanismes du Club de Paris de rachat de créances par prépaiement, with Laurent Daniel, Bulletin N° 152, August 2006, and research: Pricing the implicit contracts in the Paris Club debt buybacks with Laurent Daniel, working paper, December 2007). The second axis concerns the validation of Gibrat's law, with the publication of three articles (French butchers don't do Quantum Physics in Economics Letters, Vol. 103, May 2009, Pp. 101-106 .