ARRONDEL Luc

This issue of Connaissance de l'emploi is based on a book (Arrondel and Duhautois, 2020) and shows how women's soccer is in the process of structuring and moving towards professionalization. While men's soccer has reached a certain level of equilibrium in its functioning, in terms of its competitions, both national and international, and its clubs, the same cannot be said of women's soccer for the moment: its structures are still evolving. Some major soccer countries have only recently started to professionalize their women's leagues: in Europe, England in 2018 and soon Italy and Spain (from 2022). In these countries, the most famous men's clubs are only now discovering women's soccer. Even if France has the highest average salaries for female players, professionalization in the strict sense - managed and organized by a league - is not on the agenda because the French Football Federation (FFF), which manages women's soccer at the highest level, does not seem to want to give up its governance. In Asia, the Japanese federation has also created a professional women's soccer league in 2021 and Australia, in 2019, has taken a big step towards this structure. In South America, the professionalization of women's soccer began a few years ago, but it was in North America that it all started 20 years ago.

In the last round of the FIFA World Cup group stage, games for which the outcome does not affect the selection of the qualified teams are played with little enthusiasm. Furthermore, a team that has already qualified may take into account other factors, such as the opponents it will face in the next stage of the competition so that, depending on the results in the other groups and the scheduling of the next stage, winning the game may not be in its best interest. Even more critically, there may be situations in which a simple draw will qualify both teams for the next stage of the competition. Any situation in which the two opposing teams do not play competitively is detrimental to the sport, and, above all, can lead to collusion and match-fixing opportunities. We here develop a relatively general method of evaluating competitiveness and apply it to the current format of the World Cup group stage. We then propose changes to the current format in order to increase the stakes in the last round of games of the group stage, making games more exciting to watch and, at the same time, reducing any collusion opportunities. We appeal to the same method to evaluate a “groups of 3” format which will be introduced in the 2026 World Cup edition as well as a format similar to the one of the current Euro UEFA Cup.

This article looks back over the different dimensions of financial literacy: theoretical, methodological, empirical and political. The theoretical foundations of the notion of financial literacy are presented with reference to recent contributions by psychological or behavioural economics: "household finance" refers to the concept of financial literacy based on the empirical dead-ends of standard saver theory. This raises the fundamental question as to how to measure and evaluate financial literacy. Here, we are especially interested in the empirical robustness of a standard measure of financial literacy based on three straightforward questions (interest calculations, notion of inflation and risk diversification). Is this measure adequate or do other definitions need to be developed? We use original data from a survey conducted in 2017 that proposes alternative measures. Our results show that the measure in most studies seems a good proxy for a more global measure based on a larger battery of similar questions. Nevertheless, the global measure improves the statistical quality of the measure even though this more sophisticated measure does not statistically significantly improve behavioural regressions.

Between 2004 and 2014, the number of shareholders in France fell by approximately 50%. The over-cautiousness of savers observed after the crisis now seems less topical, especially since 2017 was marked in France by a tax reform designed to support shareholding: the implementation of a flat tax and the abolition of wealth tax, replaced by property wealth tax. We therefore analyze the risky portfolios of French households from the last two waves (2014-2015 and 2017-2018) of the INSEE's "Life History and Wealth" survey, which have the advantage of being panelized. Although the 2017-2018 survey comes a little early to analyze the full impact of these reforms, this paper provides an original analysis of the dynamics of households' risky portfolios over the last three years, just before (and shortly after) the implementation of these policies. We show first that the demand for risky assets depends strongly on the level of household wealth and expectations of returns on the stock market, two variables that have likely been affected by the recent reforms. These data also make it possible to assess the extent to which the announcement of the recent tax reform has led to changes in securities holdings.

This doctoral thesis focuses on the economics of aging. It examines in greater detail the determinants of individual decisions in terms of retirement, health prevention and the purchase of long-term care insurance. Chapter 1 starts from the observation that financial incentives to encourage individuals to delay their retirement have relatively limited and heterogeneous effects. It explores the role of another potential determinant of the retirement decision: the time inconsistency bias. Using French survey data, the econometric analysis shows that individuals exhibiting time inconsistency are much less likely to delay their retirement in order to benefit from a pension bonus (surcote). Chapter 2 examines the causal effect of retirement on preventive and risky behaviors within couples. This article is the first to take into account coordination between spouses and the effects of asymmetrical externalities of behaviour in this type of evaluation. The econometric results on European survey data reveal heterogeneous effects depending on the behaviors studied, but also on the status of the pre-retirement job and the order of retirement within the couple. Chapter 3 examines the nature of the relationship between prevention effort and the demand for LTC insurance, in the context of the introduction of a prevention program by an insurer. The equilibrium predictions of a theoretical insurance model show that the prevention program does not lead to a reduction in self-protection effort, but does have an ambiguous effect on the choice of insurance coverage rate. The results of the associated econometric analysis on French survey data show a positive effect of the intention to participate in the programme on the prevention effort and on the insurance decision, thus rejecting the existence of an eviction effect. They also indicate the existence of advantageous selection in the French LTC insurance market.

In 29 fact sheets, this book offers students who are not specialists in economics an accessible work that allows them to understand the most important theories and mechanisms in sports economics. Synthesis of the history of modern sport, from the 19th century to the present day Professional sports clubs Professional sports championships: organization, competitiveness and demand Financing of professional sport The labor market of professional sportsmen Rationality and irrationality in sport.

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If the idea of familiarizing individuals with savings is an old one, it is especially since the early 2000s that the economist's modern concept of financial literacy has been the object of particular attention. The literature, essentially empirical, has developed considerably since then. It is during this period that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched its Financial Literacy Programme. The objective of this chapter was to describe financial literacy and financial education programs in Western Europe: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. A first observation concerns financial literacy: to varying degrees, the residents of these countries are far from financially literate. A second observation concerns the heterogeneity of financial literacy. In all countries, financial literacy depends on age, education, and gender (higher among men, older people, and graduates). Some determinants appear to be more specific to the culture of each country (for example, political opinion in France, political past history in Germany (West vs. East), or language area in Switzerland). Finally, it appears that financial education programs have been in Western Europe since the mid-2000s, probably offered more systematically in centralized countries.

There have been many studies of the impact of manager turnover on club performance, especially in European leagues. The methodology used and the measures for performance do not seem to affect the results of the different studies. However, studies using a control group have generally had inconclusive results (Scelles and Llorca, 2019). Our paper examines the impact of within-season manager change on club performance using information from the French Ligue 1 over the period 1998-2018. The clubs that change their manager have different characteristics from clubs that do not. Some may be observed (as points before dismissal), and others remain unobservable in the data. We use an empirical method that takes observable differences between clubs into account (through exact matching) and corrects for unobserved characteristics (through difference-in-differences). Our results show that the overall effects of a change of manager on team performance are insignificant, except in the short term where they are positive and statistically significant for the majority at the 10 % level. Decomposing between home and away games, the effect is only positive and significant for home games, suggesting that this would be more the consequence of fan pressure (through satisfaction with a board decision) than any difference in quality between the old and the new manager.

This article looks back over the different dimensions of financial literacy: theoretical, methodological and empirical. First, the theoretical foundations of the notion of financial literacy are presented with reference to recent contributions by psychological or behavioural economics: “household finance” refers to the concept of financial literacy based on the empirical dead-ends of standard saver theory. This raises the question as to how to measure and evaluate it. Is the “standard” methodology, based on a few straightforward questions (interest calculations, notion of inflation and risk diversification), adequate or do other definitions need to be developed? As is often said, are the French really “useless at finance” ? Is their financial behaviour, in terms of their portfolio choices, affected by it ? And last but not least, how effective are economic education programmes and is a public financial literacy policy required?.

Since Feldstein’s pioneering article (1974), the impact of a pension system on the level of savings has been the subject of numerous studies, with sometimes controversial results. According to the standard life-cycle hypothesis, someone who anticipates a loss in living standards upon retirement should, all else being equal, save more. This is the issue examined here. To this end, we consider that individuals anticipate their replacement rate (based on their wage profile) more satisfactorily than the amount of their pension at the time of retirement. We then study the effects of an anticipated variation in this replacement rate on household financial savings, taking into account both expected career changes and pension reforms. We use the 2012 wave of the PAT€R survey of the French population, which provides a wealth of information at the individual level on pension expectations. Our econometric estimates show that a lower (respectively, higher) expected replacement rate is significantly related to a higher (respectively, lower) financial savings rate.

There is nothing in the 17 rules "kept" by the IFAB (International Football Association Board) since 1886 that says women cannot play soccer. Some sources document the first women's soccer match in 1881 in Edinburgh between an English and a Scottish team. However, the history of women and soccer is far from being a long and quiet one: although it had its moments of glory after the First World War, women's soccer fell into anonymity until the mid-1960s before becoming again the object of much interest, not only in sports, but also in politics and economics. Beyond its popular success in stadiums and on television, the last World Cup in France in 2019 may have been a turning point in the history of women's soccer. For now, compared to its male counterpart, women's soccer remains a very small "business" and it is probably too early to assess the economic legacy of this global tournament. This study aims to provide analytical tools and statistical data to better understand the current women's soccer ecosystem and in particular to shed light on the issue of the level of remuneration of female footballers, which has caused controversy in the media. - - - - - - - - -.

In this article, we analyze the penalty shootouts during soccer matches in three competitions:.

Since Feldstein's pioneering article (1974), the impact of a pension system on the level of savings has been the subject of numerous studies, the results of which are sometimes controversial. According to the standard life-cycle hypothesis, an individual who anticipates a loss of standard of living in retirement should, all other things being equal, save more. This is the issue we are interested in here. To do this, we consider that individuals anticipate their replacement rate (based on their wage profile) more satisfactorily than the amount of their pension at the time of retirement. We then study the effects of an anticipated change in this replacement rate on households' financial savings, taking into account both anticipated career changes and pension reforms. We use the 2012 wave of the PAT€R survey of the French population, which provides a wealth of information at the individual level on pension expectations. Our econometric estimates show that a lower (resp. higher) expected replacement rate is significantly related to a higher (resp. lower) financial savings rate.

It is widely assumed that celebrities are imbued with political capital and the power to move opinion. To understand the sources of that capital in the specific domain of sports celebrity, we investigate the popularity of global soccer superstars. Specifically, we examine players’ success in the Ballon d’Or—the most high-profile contest to select the world’s best player. Based on historical election results as well as an original survey of soccer fans, we find that certain kinds of players are significantly more likely to win the Ballon d’Or. Moreover, we detect an increasing concentration of votes on these kinds of players over time, suggesting a clear and growing hierarchy in the competition for soccer celebrity. Further analyses of support for the world’s two best players in 2016 (Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo) show that, if properly adapted, political science concepts like partisanship have conceptual and empirical leverage in ostensibly non-political contests.

The back cover states: "The nerve center of capitalism is finance, whose raison d'être is to make money with money. Regularly shaken by crises, it poses a threat of instability to our societies. Above all, this capitalism is responsible for the explosion of social inequalities and the destruction of the planet's resources and climate, major ruptures that endanger the survival of future generations. The challenge of this book is to show that we can "civilize capitalism". By reintegrating the economy into social relations and restoring the commons, we can put capitalism back on the path to inclusive and sustainable growth. This book lays the conceptual foundations for this transformation, which requires participatory democracy in order to articulate social justice and political ecology. A fundamental book to think differently and in the long term about the relationship between finance, growth and climate".

It is widely assumed that celebrities are imbued with political capital and the power to move opinion. To understand the sources of that capital in the specific domain of sports celebrity, we investigate the popularity of global soccer superstars. Specifically, we examine players’ success in the Ballon d’Or—the most high-profile contest to select the world’s best player. Based on historical election results as well as an original survey of soccer fans, we find that certain kinds of players are significantly more likely to win the Ballon d’Or. Moreover, we detect an increasing concentration of votes on these kinds of players over time, suggesting a clear and growing hierarchy in the competition for soccer celebrity. Further analyses of support for the world’s two best players in 2016 (Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo) show that, if properly adapted, political science concepts like partisanship have conceptual and empirical leverage in ostensibly non-political contests.

The success of Thomas Piketty’s 2013 book, Capital in the 21st Century, has put the theme of inequality at the heart of economic policy debates. In addition, the financial crisis of 2008 has changed the behavior of savers, who now favor prudence in their portfolio. Spatio-temporal comparisons of the distribution of wealth and its composition therefore appear essential for analyzing these public policy issues.The European Household Finance and Consumption Survey collects information on household wealth, revenue and consumption habits. Those data enable a better understanding of savings and indebtedness behaviors, as well as an evaluation of financial weaknesses and monetary policy effects.The 2014-2015 wave shows that the concentration of financial assets is higher than that of real estate. Risky and long-term savings are essentially held by wealthy households, but stockholdings remain low.On average, French households claim to have 268,000 euros of assets gross. Half are indebted, on average up to 37,000 euros. The decile of the richest French holds about 46% of the total wealth, the richest percentile, about 15%. Increasing indebtedness essentially concerns wealthy people. Hence, the household situation does not reveal any major risk on financial stability in France.

This paper studies the heterogeneity of the marginal propensity to consume out of wealth based on French household surveys. This heterogeneity is driven by differences in both wealth composition and wealth levels. We find a decreasing marginal propensity to consume out of wealth across the wealth distribution for all net wealth components. The marginal propensity to consume out of financial assets tends to be higher compared with the effect of housing assets, except at the top of the wealth distribution. The marginal propensity to consume out of housing wealth increases with debt pressure and depends on debt composition.

The paper analyses sequences of penalty kicks during football shoot-outs in French cup competitions. We consider in detail the psychological effects to which the kicker is subject: the fear of winning, the fear of losing, the expected outcomes and how much is at stake. Our main conclusion is that the performance (the probability of scoring) is negatively affected by both what is at stake (the impact of my scoring on the expected probability that my team will eventually win) and the difficulty of the situation (the ex ante probability of my team eventually losing). We find no advantage for the team that takes the first kick.

In this paper, we assess how the factors explaining stockholdings have evolved through the financial crisis. We rely on the data collected in surveys conducted among French households during the period 2004-2014. There are three main modes for investing in stocks: buying shares directly. purchasing them through mutual funds. and finally taking out unit-linked life insurance. Obviously, these three ways to invest in stocks do not involve the same investment behaviours since, besides the risk and return characteristics, they differ in their transaction costs, management fees and taxation. As a result, there is no a priori reason to consider that portfolio choice decisions by households on these modes of stockownership are equivalent and correspond to the same individuals’ characteristics. We show that the holding of risky assets and of individual direct shares decreased during the period, and especially between 2009 and 2014. The estimation of a simultaneous model shows the specific characteristics of stockholders depending on the chosen support (direct, indirect or on life insurance): those who invest directly in stocks are richer, more educated and less risk averse. those who hold mutual funds are a little richer but more risk averse and do not appear the most educated. finally, for ownership in stocks on life insurance contracts, the position in the life cycle plays an important role as well as the social category.

The question of heritage transmission has recently been at the center of media and academic news.

On October 26, 1863, at the Freemasons' Tavern at Lincoln's Inn Fields in London, seventeen representatives of English public schools met to unify the rules of soccer, which then varied from one college to another. These representatives were unaware that they were writing one of the important chapters in modern popular history. Thirteen representatives voted in favor of the thirteen laws that unified the rules of association soccer, including the divisive Rule 11: "One player may not pass the ball to another by hand" (the four voting against would later help create rugby). Did these precursors imagine that a century and a half later, the whole world would be watching a World Cup final? How did we go from a sport intended for the training of future English elites, or in France to a patronage practice, to this "universal business"? This book focuses on soccer in the so-called "post-modern" era, which began in the 1990s with the Bosman ruling, the explosion of TV rights, and the arrival of billionaires and states in the world of football. The objective is to shed light on the debate on soccer money by getting away from the conventional wisdom. The amount of transfers and salaries of footballers during the summer of 2017 have indeed not failed to generate strong criticism and catastrophic comments: the transfer "bubble" will explode . the economic "boom" of soccer will lead to the "crash" and "crisis" . the economic model of soccer is not "sustainable" ... Are these criticisms and fears founded? Is it really the end of soccer as some people claim?

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Financial Literacy is a specific component of human capital which allows individual to deal with fundamental financial issues so as to take adequate financial decisions. After presenting the theoretical foundations of this notion, establishing its definition and reviewing the empirical literature, this paper presents recent studies about the link between financial literacy and financial decisions of the population in France using an original survey. The results suggest that financial literacy varies across the population. It is correlated with education but also with gender, age and political affiliation. This last point could reflect differences in opinion regarding the role of welfare state and individual responsibility. Finally, the link between financial literacy and some financial behaviors (the propensity to formulate a specific financial plan in the long run on the one hand and the propensity to own stocks on the other hand) is evaluated: in both cases positive correlations with financial literacy variables are found. We conclude with a reflection on the relative status of financial education to explain the investments of households and judge the effectiveness of training programs in the economic culture.

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This text offers a survey of the various studies concerning the degree of intergenerational wealth mobility. The set of measurements established by the various authors makes it possible to judge the magnitude of wealth inequality transmission in different societies. Beyond any material intergenerational transfers (inheritance and gifts), some studies take into account the transmission of other characteristics: Education, income, preferences, genes, etc. to explain the degree of mobility. Most econometric studies of intergenerational wealth mobility reveal that parents' wealth has a significant effect on their offspring’s wealth. The extent of this immobility depends on the country, time period, and data used, but also on the levels of wealth. The intergenerational elasticity of wealth is probably higher among the rich (around 0.70), than in the rest of the population, where it rarely exceeds 0.50. In other words, having parents twice as rich as their generational average allows a child be 50% more wealthy compared to their own.

This thesis addresses several questions related to the economics of education and the economics of teams. In the first chapter, based on a collaboration with Laurent Rossignol, we focus on school guidance. We highlight the existence of orientation biases in the French educational system: the orientation of students does not depend only on their academic performance but also on their gender and social background. Our main contribution is to distinguish the impact of students' aspirations from the impact of teachers' ratings and recommendations on these orientation biases. The second chapter, co-authored with Antoine Chapsal, aims to understand some of the incentives and psychological effects associated with teamwork, using data on squash team championships. We show that players value participating in the success of their team, which partly explains why incentives to exert effort are stronger in collective contexts than in individual contexts. The third chapter, stemming from initial work with Rodrigo Lopez-Kolkovsky, aims to develop an estimation procedure to measure individual team productivity, using data on European soccer. We then confront this measure with the market value of players and show that Black players are discriminated against in the market.

The paper studies sequences of penalty kicks during football shout-outs in French cup competitions. We seek to analyze in detail the psychological effects to which the kicker responds: fear of winning, fear of losing, expected outcomes or how much is at stake. The main conclusion of our study is that the performance (the probability of scoring) is impacted negatively by both what is at stake (the impact of my scoring on the expected probability that my team eventually wins) and by the difficulty of the situation (the ex ante probability of my team eventually losing). We find no advantage for a team to take the first kick.

In this paper, we assess how the factors explaining the holdings of stocks have evolved through the financial crisis. We rely on the data collected in surveys conducted among French households during the period 2004-2014. There are three main modes for investing in stocks: buying shares directly. purchasing them through mutual funds. and finally taking out unitlinked life insurance. Obviously, these three ways to invest in stocks do not involve the same investment behaviours since, besides the risk and return characteristics, they differ in their transaction costs, management fees and taxation. As a result, there is no a priori reason to consider that portfolio choice decisions by households on these modes of stockownership are equivalent and correspond to the same individuals’ characteristics. We show that the holding of risky assets and of individual direct shares decreased during the period, and especially between 2009 and 2014. At the end of the period, the profile of direct equity holders was refocused towards profiles with greater risk tolerance. Other factors of direct stockholdings include: better education, gifts and inheritances, parents holding securities, singles, high-wealth households and high-income groups. Conditionally on holdings, the proportion of risky assets increases with risk tolerance and the holding of securities by parents. It also decreases at the end of the period. Our paper also shows that shareholders have gradually moved towards preferential ownership of shares in life insurance rather than direct share ownership, especially between 2009 and 2014. The estimation of a simultaneous model shows the specific characteristics of stockholders depending on the chosen support (direct, indirect or on life insurance): those who invest directly in stocks are richer, more educated and less risk averse. those who hold mutual funds are a little richer but more risk averse and do not appear the most educated. finally, for ownership in stocks on life insurance contracts, the position in the life cycle plays an important role as well as the social category.

Demographic ageing, the joint consequence of declining fertility and longer life expectancy, is likely to influence household savings behaviour upstream, particularly in a context of reform of the public pension system and a policy of "activating" individuals. Moreover, the wealth of an aging population will have a particular structure, probably less focused on risky assets. An underlying question then concerns the availability of this wealth to finance the economy: this is the meaning of the reform sought by the recent Pacte law, aiming in particular to direct retirement savings towards equity products (shares) rather than interest rate products (euro funds). It is therefore worth studying how the level and structure of wealth differ according to the age and generation of households. Insofar as these choices are also likely to depend on the institutional environment (pension system in particular) and the tax corpus, concerning capital gains, financial products and also inheritance, it is important to place this reflection in an international context. This paper focuses on France, but proposes comparisons with the main European economies. The data show that the distribution of wealth, both total and financial, has been distorted over the past 30 years to the benefit of the older generations. Moreover, since 2008, the structure of French savings has become more and more cautious, less and less oriented towards risky assets. From a macroeconomic point of view, these elements call for a better allocation of individual savings towards products that are more likely to finance the economy, one of the objectives of the recent Pact law.

Objectives: (1) To explore and analyze individual perceptions of all-cause cancer risk and environmental factors. (2) To investigate the links between these perceptions and the adoption of health behaviors. (3) To identify and analyze the determinants of these perceptions. Methods: Reviews of the empirical and theoretical literature, qualitative study with people with and without a history of cancer, quantitative study with a representative sample of the French population. Results: (1) Cancer risks related to environmental factors are a matter of concern. A significant proportion of participants perceived themselves to be at risk of developing cancers related to air pollution, pesticides and stress. (2) Health behavior adoption is sometimes associated with risk perceptions but is more often associated with adherence to prevention beliefs and time and risk preferences. Taking endogeneity into account has a strong impact on the significance of associations between perceptions and behaviors. (3) Adherence to cancer-related beliefs and salience of environment-related cancer risks determine perceptions more strongly than affect and availability heuristics, knowledge, perceived control and perceived willingness to accept risk exposures, personal health history, and sociodemographic characteristics. Discussion: Our results, consistent with the literature, provide a better understanding of individual risk perceptions and can be used to support the development of targeted public health policies.

In this thesis, we focus on the relationship between economics and its social representation, between science and its common sense. In a first, theoretical chapter, we show that the social representations of lay people play a role in economic modeling and in the implementation of economic policies. In a second, empirical chapter, we first describe the social representation of the 2008 economic crisis in France and show that the differences in representation may be due to the perception of personal financial threats. The latter lead to different types of actions to cope (or not) with the economic crisis. In a third, empirical chapter, we study the possibility of a cognitive adjustment between lay representations of economic theories that explain economic crises and these economic theories. We also study the influence of sociodemographic and psychological differences (such as political opinions and belief in a just world) on these economic theories. Finally, in a last empirical chapter, we examine the social representations of the euro and discuss the notion of monetary illusion as well as the perception of European monetary policies in France.

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The economic crisis has affected French savers, who are less inclined to take risks in their financial behavior. How can we explain these changes? Standard theory makes savers' investments depend on three fundamental determinants: current resources . expectations of asset returns and risks, but also of labor income . and finally, the agent's preferences, particularly with respect to risk. We use French data from the Pater panel conducted in 2007 and then in 2009, 2011 and 2014. We show that the downward revision of expectations regarding expected stock returns and shocks to current resources helps explain why French people's investments are less and less invested in risky assets. On the other hand, risk preferences have remained stable. However, the return to optimism among savers in 2014 was not reflected in the facts, as the number of shareholders continued to decline. A new conundrum?

The economic crisis has impacted French savers, now less willing to take risks in their financial decisions. What is the explanation behind these changes? According to “standard” theory, savers’ investments rest on three fundamental determinants: present resources. expected risk and returns on assets, as well as expectations on earned income. and lastly, individual preferences, especially risk preferences. We use French data from the Pater panel, a survey collected in 2007 and again in 2009, 2011 and 2014. We show that it is the downward adjustment in the expected return from shares and negative impacts on current resources that help explain why the French are investing less and less in risky assets. Risk preferences, however, have remained stable. In contrast, the resurgence in optimism shown by savers in 2014 did not play out in reality, as the number of shareholders has continued to decrease. A new puzzle to be solved?.

Speaking about the 2008 financial crisis and the knowledge of economists, who some believe were unable to predict the crash, Paul Krugman stated in an evocatively titled article in the New York Times (How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?, 2009): "...even during the golden age of the efficient market hypothesis, it seemed clear that many real-world investors were not as rational as the standard models assumed." Since the 1980s, many have questioned the foundations of the rational agent theory (homo oeconomicus) and turned instead to the competing "paradigm" of psychological economics, proposing to abandon neoclassical finance for behavioral finance.

In France, there are bastions of psychological resistance to certain taxes and reforms. In their study on savings and life expectancy, Luc Arrondel and André Masson attack one of them: inheritance tax. "Tax on death, tax on virtue", there is no shortage of adjectives to criticize this ill-tolerated tax, while progressive and regular taxation of capital, including the ISF, has become the norm.

This thesis proposes to study the existence of obstacles to the development of the private LTC insurance market in France. We study three candidates in turn to explain this weak development: individual preferences, self-insurance behavior and agents' myopia. To do so, we use the "Preferences and Wealth vis-à-vis Risk and Time" and "Health and Social Protection" surveys, both of which have introduced specific LTC modules in the waves of surveys used in this thesis. Our econometric analyses confirm the role of these three determinants of LTC insurance demand as barriers. While the existence of a poor perception of LTC risk argues for state intervention in the relationship between the French and the planning of their loss of autonomy, the role of individual preferences and self-insurance behaviour highlighted in this thesis reveals an economically rational choice not to take out LTC insurance.

This thesis studies the formation of expectations and their influence on the consumption and portfolio choices of French savers. First, we study the wealth effect, i.e. the effect of changes in financial and real estate assets on household consumption. During the 2008-2009 crisis, which affected wealth and expectations, households that suffered losses on their real estate or financial wealth were more likely to reduce their consumption. Next, we address the heterogeneity of expectations about stock returns. Specifically, we show that personal experience plays a key role in the formation of expectations. Indeed, those who have experienced a gain on their financial assets in the past anticipate a higher stock return. However, the results also highlight the importance of financial knowledge in the formation of expectations. Finally, we examine the extent to which heterogeneity in expectations can explain differences in portfolio choice. In this context, we show that individuals who anticipate a higher stock market return hold a larger share of stocks in their wealth. Nevertheless, the effect of expected risk is not significant, contrary to the predictions of standard portfolio choice theory. Finally, the imprecision of responses, which we interpret as an indicator of the respondent's confidence in his or her own expectations, is negatively correlated with the share of stocks in wealth.

Do couples share the same values? The social sciences have mainly concentrated on comparing the socioeconomic characteristics of spouses, but rarely consider their attitudes to risk and time. In this paper, we use conventional measurements and an original method of scoring. We find that spouses are very similar in their savings preferences, even when we control for the individual characteristics. Our results suggest that most of this relationship comes from marital sorting. These conclusions are decisive in explaining the decision process within households and its implications for wealth inequalities between households since homogamy causes a divide in the population.

Using the first wave of the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS), a large micro-level data set on households’ balance sheets in fifteen euro-area countries, this paper explores how households allocate their assets. We derive stylized facts on asset participation as well as the portfolio shares of asset holdings and investigate the systematic relationships between household characteristics and asset holding patterns. Real assets make up the bulk of total assets. Whereas ownership of the main residence varies strongly between countries, the value of the main residence tends to be the major asset for homeowners and represents a signif- icant part of total assets in all countries. While almost all households hold safe financial assets, a low share of households holds risky assets. The ownership rates of all asset categories generally increase with wealth (and income). The significance of inheritances for homeownership and holding of other real estate is remarkable. We tentatively link differences in asset holding patterns across countries to differences in institutions.

This article investigates the possible explanations of the stockholding puzzle by focusing on housing and other uninsurable risks (associated with income, health and business). Taking the French household wealth survey (Patrimoine 2004, French National Statistical Institute), we find that the share of financial wealth invested in stocks depends on transaction and information costs, risk aversion, exposure to real estate risk and, to a lesser extent, labour market risk. These results are obtained by controlling for endogenous home ownership status.

This article investigates the possible explanations of the stockholding puzzle by focusing on housing and other uninsurable risks (associated with income, health and business). Taking the French household wealth survey (Patrimoine 2004, French National Statistical Institute), we find that the share of financial wealth invested in stocks depends on transaction and information costs, risk aversion, exposure to real estate risk and, to a lesser extent, labour market risk. These results are obtained by controlling for endogenous home ownership status.

Health behaviours often imply intertemporal trade-offs. In this context, individuals may feel more or less concerned by the health of their future selves. “Psychological connectedness” is the extent to which we feel connected with our future selves, in terms of similarity of character and life projects. We here propose to decompose time preference into three components: impulsivity. planning.

This paper studies the heterogeneity of the marginal propensity to consume out of wealth using French household surveys. We find decreasing marginal propensity to consume out of wealth across the wealth distribution for all net wealth components. The marginal propensity to consume out of financial assets tends to be higher compared with the effect of housing assets, except in the top of the wealth distribution. Consumption is less sensitive to the value of the main residence than to other housing assets. We also investigate the heterogeneity arising from indebtedness and from the role of housing assets as collateral.

We use an original household survey to study the links between stockholding, financial literacy and acquisition of financial information within the French population. Controlling for subjective expectations on stock market returns and for risk aversion, we find that stock market participation is positively related to basic financial literacy and financial information acquisition through the press reading and the family financial context during childhood. We also find that basic financial literacy is not correlated with the share of stocks in financial assets conditionally on stockownership, while the correlation with information acquisition is significant.

For several years, households have been facing a process of increasing financial responsibility. In this context, do individuals have sufficient financial skills to make informed decisions about financial planning, wealth accumulation, debt and retirement? What solutions can be considered to mitigate the negative effects of lack of financial literacy? This thesis contributes to answering these two questions through an assessment of financial education in France and its links to financial behavior and through the study of the determinants of financial education over the long term and potential solutions to the lack of financial education. I show that financial education levels in France are within the international average with heterogeneous levels between population subgroups. I also document the fact that financial education can influence financial behavior, notably by promoting participation in financial markets and long-term financial planning. I also question the role of financial advisors as an alternative to financial education and show that they are not a substitute for it. Finally, I establish that late life education is significantly related to certain educational and cognitive factors in early life but also to financial fragility over the life cycle. This last result has important implications for the development of targeted financial education programs.

During the crisis, French savers are turning even more towards safe, short-term assets or real estate and away from more risky and long-term financial investments. This state of affairs is a cause of concern to some analysts, who are looking for ways to encourage households to take more risks and put more of their savings into productive investment. Theoretical and statistical analysis show that this reluctance to invest in the stock market comes as much from the supply side – transaction costs in the broad sense, relatively unfavourable taxation that reduces the expected return – as from the demand side – lack of financial education among savers, aversion to risks perceived as being too high, exposure to other risks (income, unemployment, family, health, housing, human capital). In this article, after analyzing financial behaviours in France and Europe, we propose a number of propositions for redirecting savings towards more risky investments.

This paper studies the heterogeneity of the marginal propensity to consume out of wealth using French household surveys. We find decreasing marginal propensity to consume out of wealth across the wealth distribution for all net wealth components. The marginal propensity to consume out of financial assets tends to be higher compared with the effect of housing assets, except in the top of the wealth distribution. Consumption is less sensitive to the value of the main residence than to other housing assets. We also investigate the heterogeneity arising from indebtedness and from the role of housing assets as collateral.

The impact of the value of wealth on household consumption is generally studied at the macroeconomic level. The analysis of this wealth effect is particularly important for economic policy in the recent context of high asset valuations. On aggregate data, estimates for France show that an additional euro of wealth would lead to an increase in consumption of 0.8 to 1 euro cent, with this effect being more important for financial wealth than for real estate. Our study uses data from the 2010 Wealth Survey to assess this same link based on individual data. It uses differences in wealth composition and level to identify heterogeneities in consumption behavior. The results confirm that the marginal propensity to consume wealth is low overall, at 0.5 euro cents per euro of additional wealth. However, it depends on the nature of the assets and shows strong non-linearities along the wealth scale. Thus, the marginal propensity to consume financial wealth is more than 11 cents per euro of additional wealth for households whose net wealth is below the median, while it is zero for households in the richest decile. This wealth effect is much lower for the main residence: 1.1 cents for net wealth below the median and 0.7 cents for the richest decile. Given the concentration of wealth, the average wealth effect mainly reflects the behavior of the richest households. But the more pronounced effect observed for less well-off households is a result to be taken into account by monetary and fiscal policies. These policies will not have the same impact on demand and growth depending on which asset classes and household categories they affect the most.

In France, the wealth gap is growing between the older and younger generations, who are also inheriting more and more at a later age. Various tax measures have attempted to address this imbalance. In 2007, for example, the deduction on transfers to children was multiplied by three and raised to 150,000 euros. Since then, it has been reduced to 100,000 euros. Several studies show that parents are sensitive to the tax advantages granted to donations. Nevertheless, one may wonder about the impact of such transfers: how are donations, especially early ones, used? This article reminds us of the growing importance of transfers and wealth inequalities between generations in France. Data from the Insee Patrimoine 2010 survey are then used to study the impact of different forms of transfers (inter vivos or at death) on two key behaviors of the younger generations: the purchase of a primary residence and the creation of a business. We show that the probability of starting or taking over a business is higher when a gift has been received but not if an inheritance has been received. The probability of buying one's home increases with both forms of transfer. We propose several measures of the intensity of the link between transfers and investments. The link is stronger when the recipient of the transfer is young. The increase in real estate prices in the 2000s is said to be accompanied by a strengthening of the link between gifts and home purchases. Finally, we address the question of the causal effect of the gift: does the gift promote the decision to buy a home or does it accompany a decision that has already been made? We use the fact that the probability of receiving a donation decreases with the size of the siblings to show that the causal effect of the donation turns out to be higher than the effects previously identified.

Today's savers are sailing on stormy seas: the financial and economic crisis is making the environment more uncertain, there is a macroeconomic risk linked to the future of the social protection system, tax reforms, and "individual activation" policies that seek to make individuals more responsible for their own future... As a result, French savers are today, even more than in the past, favoring safe, short-term assets (increased deposits in passbook accounts, lower net life insurance inflows, etc.) and real estate over risky, long-term financial investments.) and real estate to the detriment of risky, long-term financial investments. This state of affairs worries some actors who are looking for ways to encourage households to take more risk and to favor productive savings1. Before entering into this debate, we will conduct a statistical "audit" of the asset situation of French and European savers. To do so, we will use the full range of available data: both those of the National Accounts and those of the household surveys conducted by INSEE (wealth surveys) and the European Central Bank (HFCS). These data will allow us to see that this "risk premium enigma" on risky financial assets is not a purely French phenomenon but is generalized to the euro zone. We will then review the explanations for this empirical "puzzle" by putting on the glasses of the economist, whether he or she is a follower of orthodox theories or those of behaviorists: the lack of appetite for stock market investments is due to both the supply side - transaction costs in the broad sense, relatively unattractive taxation that reduces the expected return - and the demand side - lack of financial education among savers, risk aversion deemed too high, exposure to other risks (income, unemployment, family, health, housing, human capital). From the demand side, individuals' portfolio choices depend on three main components: their preferences (risk aversion, time preference, etc.), their resources that are more or less available or risky, and their expectations regarding returns and risk vis-à-vis the stock market and labor income. The "natural" experiment that is the current financial and economic crisis provides an ideal observatory for judging the importance of each of these factors. The unique longitudinal data from the PATER surveys allow us to study the reactions of savers during the "great recession", to see "what has changed" to explain the increased risk aversion of investors: increased risk aversion, reduced resources, pessimistic expectations? We will thus be in a better position to judge the relevance of certain proposals aimed at redirecting savings towards riskier products.

Relying on an original household survey (PATER survey), we document how the 2008–9 crisis affected households’ wealth, expectations, and consumption plans in France. We then show that households experiencing losses relating to their housing or their financial wealth were more likely to change their plans by reducing consumption expenditure. Moreover, our results suggest a certain degree of heterogeneity in consumption reaction across individuals depending on their level of wealth, on the composition of their consumption basket, and on the type of shocks experienced (gains/losses). Besides the direct wealth effect, our results also provide evidence of the role played by changes in expectations on consumption plans (confidence channel).

Using French survey data, we explore empirically whether earnings uncertainty and borrowing constraints decrease households demand for risky assets, consistent with theoretical predictions. A major empirical problem is the potential endogeneity bias of income risk, as more risk averse households may simultaneously choose safer occupations and invest less in risky assets. Even if we control for households risk preferences, we find that households respond by increasing their stockholdings in response to earnings uncertainty but not to liquidity constraints. We show that these empirical findings are consistent with an occupational risk return trade-off, whereby less risk averse households choose riskier occupations and hold riskier portfolios. Keywords. portfolio choice, uninsurable earnings, occupational choice, risk aversion, temperance.

The publication of this special issue of Economics and Statistics on wealth comes at a time when the success of T. Piketty's book, Capital in the 21st Century, has reawakened the interest of the academic world and the general public in the theme of wealth accumulation and the challenge posed by the growth of wealth inequalities. The publication of this special issue is timely for another reason. The economic and financial crisis we have been experiencing since 2008 has not "spared" savers. It is therefore essential to study what has changed in their asset management behavior. Like its predecessors, published in 1996, 2005 and 2008 respectively, this fourth issue of Économie et Statistique, which is devoted entirely to the economic analysis of household wealth, contains several articles which, for the most part, are based on the data collected by the wealth surveys conducted by INSEE every six years since 1986. Like them, it intends to contribute to the economics of household wealth, understood as that part of the economic discipline that endeavors to describe the processes by which households accumulate (or decumulate) savings, and whose importance has become increasingly apparent over the past three decades.

This article aims at linking the household wealth and income distributions for 15 European countries using the Household Finance and Consumption Survey. We study the role played by the household’s location in the income distributions in determining its location in the wealth distribution. A generalized ordered probit model is estimated to explain the role played by the position in the income distribution and by intergenerational transfers on the probability to be in a given wealth decile in each country. As expected, we obtain that a rise in income distribution or having received gifts and inheritances increases the probability to be in higher wealth deciles. Most importantly, we find evidences of heterogeneity in accumulation behaviours along the wealth distribution in France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Slovakia and Spain. The effect of income or inheritance on wealth accumulation varies, depending on the rank of the households in the wealth distribution. We also highlight some specificity in the top of the wealth distribution.

Recent research has separately uncovered that stock ownership strongly correlates with both expectations and realizations of stock market returns, as well as with measures of financial literacy, ability or trust. This paper reconciles all, and reports new findings from a unique survey containing individual level data on both expectations and (knowledge of) realizations for a representative sample by age and wealth. Stock market participation monotonically increases with the conditional expectation of a positive stock market return, even among the a­ uent and the young. Information is very heterogeneous, increases with age and own past experience, andidentifies a causal effect of expectations on stock ownership.

n today's world, savers are navigating a stormy sea: the financial and economic crisis has made the environment more uncertain, there are macroeconomic risks linked to the future of the social protection system, tax reforms, and "individual activation" policies that seek to make savers more responsible for their own future... As a result, French savers today prefer safe, short-term assets even more than in the past (increase in deposits in passbook savings accounts, decline in net life insurance inflows, etc.) and real estate to the detriment of risky, long-term financial investments.) and real estate to the detriment of risky, long-term financial investments. This state of affairs worries some players who are looking for ways to encourage households to take more risk and to favour productive savings1.

No summary available.

With its five waves from 1998 to 2011, which include a strong panel dimension, the Pater data corpus provides complementary information to INSEE's wealth surveys on more subjective and qualitative aspects of wealth behavior. Each questionnaire includes a series of preference measures obtained using different methods. In addition to the "usual" measures proposed by the empirical literature, they are derived from an original approach, based on a scoring procedure developed in 1998 and perfected since then: questions covering various areas of life make it possible to evaluate ordinal, synthetic and coherent indicators concerning the attitudes of each respondent towards risk and uncertainty, his or her degree of family altruism and the priority he or she gives to the present. The data lead us to retain in each of the five waves only one "score" for risk and one for altruism, but to distinguish two distinct scores for the priority given to the present: the degree of impatience in the short term and the time preference in the long term. In addition to this robust result, our method appears to be superior to other preference measures in terms of the statistical properties and explanatory factors of the four identified scores, as well as in terms of the correlations between these different scores or their effects on wealth and asset demands. Allowing the same savers to be tracked during the crisis, the Pater data, like other sources, show that the French are less inclined to take risks in their savings or their portfolio choices. However, this change in behavior is not explained by a change in savers' preferences, which have remained statistically stable since June 2007, but rather by increasingly gloomy expectations regarding the return and risk of financial assets.

In this second part of the reflection begun in this issue on public and private transfers between generations in France, Luc Arrondel and André Masson look at ways to make French society less patrimonial. After a brief discussion of the reality of the intergenerational imbalance between today's seniors and their children, the authors analyze the elements that testify to the increasingly patrimonial character of French society: the growing share of transfers in national resources and the increased concentration of wealth in the hands of the elderly. They point out that for at least the last 30 years, French society has been placing more and more weight on wealth, inheritance and annuities, and that wealth inequalities are increasing between ages, but also, at a given age, between heirs and non-heirs, between owners and tenants, etc.

Today, savers are sailing on stormy seas: the financial and economic crisis is making the environment more uncertain, there are macroeconomic risks linked to the future of the social protection system, tax reforms, and "individual activation" policies that seek to make savers more responsible for their future. As a result, savers today prefer safe, short-term assets more than ever, which worries some actors who, on the contrary, want to favour long-term productive savings. Using individual data, we show that this observation does not concern the entire population: the wealthy and older segments of the population hold risky, long-term products more frequently and to a greater extent. Moreover, the increased caution of savers during the crisis is explained more by downward expectations (income, stock prices, labor market) than by an increase in risk aversion during the crisis.

There is a capital taxation puzzle in most developed countries. Since the 1960s, revenues from wealth transfer taxation have been especially low and decreasing as a percentage of GDP, even to the extent of disappearing in quite a number of cases. by contrast, lifetime wealth or capital taxation generates much higher revenues and shows no decreasing trend. The full tax puzzle is certainly not easy to explain. Many usual explanations of the aversion to wealth transfer taxation also imply limited lifetime capital taxation: they cannot justify the very strong collective preference for lifetime capital taxation observed in most countries. On the other hand, capital market imperfections may explain higher levels of lifetime capital taxation, but not the diverging trends of the two components of capital taxation. We think that a key explanatory factor of the tax puzzle in general and of the growing unpopularity of wealth transfer taxation in particular stems from the rising role of family values and links: the family appears to be the only safe investment nowadays in the face of risky globalized markets and the feared retrenchment of the welfare state. Any realistic reform must take this social and political constraint into account. Most reformist economists think that lifetime wealth or capital taxation could act as quite an efficient substitute for too unpopular taxes on wealth transfers. We offer an alternative solution which recommends heavier and more progressive taxation on family inheritances (only) while allowing for various legal loopholes to avoid the tax. It could hence prompt parents driven by family altruism to increase (early) inter vivos transfers to their progeny and people driven by social altruism to make more charitable gifts and bequests, and would bring in additional and welcome revenues.

The influence of parents' savings behaviour on that of their children has often been remarked. This paper attempts to explain this "poids d'Anchise" via a unique French dataset collected by DELTA and TNS-Sofres in 2002 (Pat€r survey), which contains both savings and subjective information for two or three generations of the same family. Parents' and children's risk and discounting preferences are significantly positively intergenerationally correlated. The correlation coefficients are around 0.25, so that the two preferences are nonetheless far from identical. In addition, the elasticity of children's wealth with respect to that of their parents is around 0.22. This correlation is corrected for the influence of age on wealth, and concerns only co-existing generations, that is before the most significant intergenerational transfers have taken place. The analysis of the raw correlations with a series of explanatory variables reveals that over 40 % of this elasticity can be explained by the permanent incomes of the two generations. Each of education and preferences separately account for about 20 %, and previous intergenerational transfers for about 13 %. When permanent income is controlled for, the contribution of savings preferences is around 13 %. The transmission of preferences therefore plays a non-negligible role in the intergenerational transmission of wealth inequalities, but is far from being the most important factor.

Measuring individual preferences of savers have two main motivations: to reduce the share of non-observed heterogeneity in explaining households' wealth behaviors, and to construct more accurate tests of the theories of savings and portfolio choices. For France, we have constructed a unique data set, the PAT€R surveys (PATrimony and Preferences vis-à-vis Time and Risk), with the first survey made in 1998 by interview with Insee, and the following surveys conducted by Tns-Sofres via postal questionnaires: PAT€R-2002 focused on the transmission of preferences between parents and children. the three subsequent waves, PAT€R-2007-2009-2011, were conducted in May 2007 (before the crisis), June 2009 and November 2011, on more than 3600 households representative of the French population, with an important panel dimension - about 2000 households were interviewed at least twice, and nearly 1100 households were present in all three waves. Almost each survey replicates direct measures of risk attitudes as well as time preference found in the literature, such as the hypothetical lottery on income of Barsky et al. (1997), selfreported 0-to-10 scales concerning the willingness to take risks in various contexts (Dohmen et al., 2011), or even experimental measures. Yet these measures, based upon a limited number of questions, suffer from serious drawbacks that are analyzed in the paper. This is why we have developed an alternative method of scoring in order to measure three types of preferences, towards risk, time, and offspring (altruism) : synthetic and ordinal scores of preferences are derived from the responses given to a large number of (mainly) simple real-life questions covering different life domains of life (consumption, leisure, health, investments, work, retirement, family). No single question is satisfactory by itself, but the idea is that if a number of questions possess a common dimension, towards risk for instance, this dimension will be isolated by aggregating the replies, beyond framing effects, measurement errors, etc.: the score obtained will then show enough internal consistency, as measured by psychometric tests. Ultimately, the data will thus determine how many indicators - if any - should be introduced for each type of preference. On the five surveys, this scoring method has proved very consistent and robust. Derived from some 60 questions, one single score of preference towards risk was sufficient in each wave (with Cronbach's alpha near 0.7). As regards time depreciation, two scores were each time necessary, marking the contrast between the short term and impulsive choices ("short-term impatience") on the one hand, and the long term and more reasoned decisions "time preference" over the life cycle) on the other. One single score of altruism was retained. he contents of these four scores are very similar from one wave to the next, as well as their individual determinants, their individual correlation over time, the degree of correlation between scores, etc. Finally, the effect of these scores on the level and composition of wealth are similar across surveys, in line with theoretical predictions, and more significant than those obtained for alternate measures of preferences which suffer, moreover, from endogeneity biases.

No summary available.

We study financial literacy in France using the PATER survey and following the Lusardi and Mitchell (2011c) approach. We find that some subpopulations are less financially literate than others: women, young and old people as well as less-educated people are more likely to face difficulties when dealing with fundamental financial concepts such as risk diversification and inflation and interest compounding. We also find some differences in financial knowledge depending on the political opinion of the respondents. Finally we show that these differences in financial knowledge are correlated with differences in the propensity to plan: people who score higher on the financial literacy questions are more likely to be engaged in the preparation of a clearly defined financial plan.

Like father, like son: is the bequest behavior of children “inherited” from that of their parents? Most economic models (altruistic, paternalistic or exchange models) postulate that bequest behavior does not depend per se on parents’ behavior. Yet because of data limitations, few empirical studies have analyzed the link between bequests left and inheritances received. In this paper, we evaluate the effect of inheritance relative to lifetime income on the amount that individuals bequeath, in the case of France. This study uses original historical data including wealth genealogies covering the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries for the Loire Inférieure département. Empirical evidence suggests that the propensity to bequeath is much greater for inheritance than for human resources: a deceased having inherited twice the average wealth leaves 35–60 % more to his own heirs that the average for his generation. In nineteenth century France, bequests are explained more by inheritance received than by personal savings per se.

Do couples share the same values? The social sciences have mainly concentrated on comparing the socioeconomic characteristics of spouses, but rarely their preferences to risk and time. In this paper, we use conventional measurements and an original method. We find that spouses are very similar in their savings preferences, even when we control for the individual characteristics. These conclusions are decisive in explaining wealth inequalities between households, since homogamy causes a divide in the population. However, if the correlation between preferences and wealth is clear when measured at the household level, spouses with opposite attitudes tend to be richer for some parameters.