Suchergebnisse

This thesis aims at contributing to the recent studies which investigate the short-run effects of fiscal policy on economic activity. More precisely, three main aspects of fiscal policy in the short run are analyzed. First, one major message is that the impact of fiscal policy on the economy depends strongly on the fiscal instrument used by the government. Rising transfers to households, increasing public investment or cutting social protection tax trigger very different effects on key macroeconomic variables and especially on output. Second, one large part of this thesis is dedicated to the analysis of the effects of fiscal policy shocks on the labor market. One main result is that we cannot determine unemployment fiscal multipliers according to the value of the output fiscal multiplier, especially because of the response of the labor force participation to fiscal policy shocks. Third, this is well-known that many elements influence the size of the output fiscal multiplier. Two of these elements are considered throughout this thesis: the position of the economy over the business cycle and the behavior of the monetary policy. The two first chapters of this thesis analyze these different aspects in some closed economy models. The two last chapters extend this study at the case of a monetary union by investigating the spillover effects of fiscal policy between member states but also the stabilizing properties of fiscal transfer mechanisms between member states in order to soften cyclical shocks. ; Cette thèse contribue aux travaux récents sur les effets de la politique budgétaire à court terme sur l'économie. Plus précisément, sont étudiés dans cette thèse trois principaux aspects de la politique budgétaire à court terme. Premièrement, un des messages principaux consiste à dire que l'impact de la politique budgétaire sur l'économie dépend fortement de l'instrument fiscal utilisé. Augmenter les transferts aux ménages, augmenter l'investissement public ou diminuer les cotisations patronales sur les salaires ...

One of the overlooked aspects of political utopianism is the mechanism which brings about the utopia. What brings about the change from the ordinary politics of the present to the utopian state? For Thomas Paine the change is apocalyptic. Paine's later writing testifies to the sudden birth of reason in the world and foresees its sweeping effect over individual human minds and human societies. He describes reason as an irresistible revelation, an apocalypse. Evaluating the American and French revolutions, Paine identifies the mechanism of change as the rational apocalypse itself. On the one hand, this mechanism of change shatters the coherence of Paine's comprehensive thought. On the other, Paine's utopianism is both thought-provoking and cautionary. To what extent can reason enlighten individuals to their true interests in harmony with others? To what extent do utopian plans for society rely on something miraculous or apocalyptic to change human consciousness? Should political utopianism purport to fix the problems of the world now, or is it primarily a device for imagining a better world which future generations might slowly construct?

Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, as a famous rhetor and an infamous interlocutor in the Republic, has experienced a rebirth in the disciplines of political science, history and rhetoric. A major question concerning work in these fields is the extent to which the historical Thrasymachus can be separated from the character of the Republic. In the historical record, Thrasymachus is an opaque figure. Only a single fragment of a speech survives for posterity. From this fragment, research has tried to distil a system of political thought.What did Thrasymachus think of politics? In which political camp did he reside? Attempts to answer these questions run into a formidable wall: the abject paucity of evidence. Given few definitive clues, research into the political thought of the historical Thrasymachus has reached no tenable conclusions. Thrasymachus remains a fairly obscure rhetor most famous for a fictional confrontation with Socrates.