Publications of the Chair

What are the Drivers of Corporates’ climate transparency? Evidence from the S&P 1200 Index

2023
Authors :
Jeanne Amar, Samira Demaria et Sandra Rigot

Climate transparency through firms' disclosures is often considered a prerequisite for the redirection of investments toward low-carbon economy. In order to provide effective incentives to improve this transparency, it is therefore crucial to identify its drivers.

Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from the cattle sector: land-use regulation as an alternative to emissions pricing

2023
Authors :
Maxence Gérard, Stéphane De Cara, Guy Meunier

The cattle sector, both emissions- and land-intensive, represents a great opportunity for mitigation through reforestation. In this paper, we study the efficiency of land-use regulation. Our analytical results indicate that the subsidy is the best alternative policy to emissions tax, provided that the elasticities of land use and emissions to cattle feeding are close. Interestingly,...

Decarbonization with Induced Technical Change: Exploring the Niche Potential of Hydrogen in Heavy Transportation

2023
Authors :
Albin Kasser, Elodie Le Cadre Loret, Guy Meunier, Jean-Pierre Ponssard, Mures Zarea

Electric batteries and fuel cells (hydrogen) are competing technologies for the energy transition in heavy transportation. This paper shows that the existence of a market niche for fuel-cell electric buses (FCEBs) can be obtained depending on the values of a limited set of key parameters.

Do French firms follow a transparent or climate-friendly path?

2021
Authors :
Jeanne Amar, Samira Demaria, Sandra Rigot

Our analysis of the Climate Risks and Opportunities Index (CRORI) and the CDP climate score reveal a parallel improvement of these indices with different sectoral disparities over the 2015–2019 period. While our results are encouraging, they need to be put into perspective because these firms are still far from being carbon neutral.

Mineral Resources and the Salience of Ethnic Identities

2023
Authors :
Nicolas Berman, Mathieu Couttenier, Victoire Girard

Our findings suggest a new dimension of the natural resource curse: the fragmentation of identities, between ethnic groups and nations.

The design flaw in Sustainability-Linked Bonds

2023
Authors :
Julien Lefournier

We examine in this paper sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) whose issuance now totals more than USD 200 bn. There is a structural design flaw in the SLB mechanism: setting a significant coupon step-up does not suit the issuer’s nor the investors’ interests, considering conditionality. This creates a no win situation for the issuer and investors alike and explains the “benign”...

Crop prices and deforestation in the tropics

2023
Authors :
Nicolas Berman, Mathieu Couttenier, Antoine Leblois, Raphael Soubeyran

Understanding the mechanisms of deforestation is necessary in order to slow or arrest its progress. To accomplish this requires rigorously estimating the demand for deforestation. We contribute to this endeavor by estimating the effect of crop prices on the demand for conversion of land from forest to agriculture in the tropics during the 21st...

Coordination of sectoral climate policies and life-cycle emissions

2023
Authors :
Quentin Hoarau and Guy Meunier

The present paper addresses the issue of sectoral policy coordination, especially when Pigovian carbon pricing is unavailable. It analyzes the optimal allocation of mitigation effort among two vertically connected sectors, an upstream (e.g. electricity) and a downstream (e.g. transportation) one.

Extending the limits of the abatement cost

2021
Authors :
Guy Meunier, Jean-Pierre Ponssard

The paper examines the relevant cost benefit framework for state agencies investigating the potential of local projects to mitigate climate change. We propose a new metric that incorporates into the analytical framework the dynamic interactions between the project and its continuation.

Quantifying GHG emissions enabled by capital and labor: Economic and gender inequalities in France

2023
Authors :
Antonin Pottier, Gaëlle Le Treut

Many studies have investigated the carbon footprint of households. Here we open a new field by discussing the emissions that individuals enable by providing labor and capital to companies, using the framework of income-based (downstream) responsibility. Our results show that inequalities in emissions do not strongly interact with economic inequality. Yet they are gendered...