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Texte écrit et traduit pour une revue japonaise ; War has always been present in the history of mankind, but its relations with the economy have always been dangerous. In this context, the economic analysis of disarmament is recent, mainly present since the last quarter of the 20th century, with mixed and often contradictory results. However, many economists have addressed this question directly or indirectly, from Ricardo to Marx, from Veblen to Keynes, from Pareto to Schumpeter. Disarmament has been analysed as a mainly political factor whose macroeconomic consequences must be measured and on the procedures for converting the arms industries, for other economists it is a utopia in the light of imperialism, of the warlike character of the capitalism and economic conflicts still present. The German historical school insists rather on the usefulness of wars just like certain American economic analyses of the military-industrial complex. Arms race models have highlighted the difficulty of disarmament without political mediation. Finally, UN analyses on disarmament for development have highlighted the difficulties inherent in this strategy. ; La guerre a toujours été présente dans l'histoire de l'humanité, mais ses relations avec l'économie ont toujours été dangereuses. Dans ce contexte, l'analyse économique du désarmement est récente, principalement présente depuis le dernier quart du XXe siècle, avec des résultats mitigés et souvent contradictoires. Pour autant, de nombreux économistes ont abordé directement ou indirectement cette question, de Ricardo à Marx, de Veblen à Keynes, de Pareto à Schumpeter. Le désarmement a été analysé comme un facteur principalement politique dont il faut mesurer les conséquences macroéconomiques et sur les procédures de conversion des industries d'armement, pour d'autres économistes c'est une utopie au regard de l'impérialisme, du caractère guerrier du capitalisme et des conflits économiques toujours présents. L'école historique allemande insiste plutôt sur l'utilité des guerres ...

Texte écrit et traduit pour une revue japonaise ; War has always been present in the history of mankind, but its relations with the economy have always been dangerous. In this context, the economic analysis of disarmament is recent, mainly present since the last quarter of the 20th century, with mixed and often contradictory results. However, many economists have addressed this question directly or indirectly, from Ricardo to Marx, from Veblen to Keynes, from Pareto to Schumpeter. Disarmament has been analysed as a mainly political factor whose macroeconomic consequences must be measured and on the procedures for converting the arms industries, for other economists it is a utopia in the light of imperialism, of the warlike character of the capitalism and economic conflicts still present. The German historical school insists rather on the usefulness of wars just like certain American economic analyses of the military-industrial complex. Arms race models have highlighted the difficulty of disarmament without political mediation. Finally, UN analyses on disarmament for development have highlighted the difficulties inherent in this strategy. ; La guerre a toujours été présente dans l'histoire de l'humanité, mais ses relations avec l'économie ont toujours été dangereuses. Dans ce contexte, l'analyse économique du désarmement est récente, principalement présente depuis le dernier quart du XXe siècle, avec des résultats mitigés et souvent contradictoires. Pour autant, de nombreux économistes ont abordé directement ou indirectement cette question, de Ricardo à Marx, de Veblen à Keynes, de Pareto à Schumpeter. Le désarmement a été analysé comme un facteur principalement politique dont il faut mesurer les conséquences macroéconomiques et sur les procédures de conversion des industries d'armement, pour d'autres économistes c'est une utopie au regard de l'impérialisme, du caractère guerrier du capitalisme et des conflits économiques toujours présents. L'école historique allemande insiste plutôt sur l'utilité des guerres ...

Several million people currently have accounts in massively multi-player online games, places in cyberspace that are effectively large-scale shared virtual reality environments. The population of these virtual worlds has grown rapidly since their inception in 1996; significantly, each world also seems to grow its own economy, with production, assets, and trade with Earth economies. This paper explores two questions about these developments. First, will these economies grow in importance? Second, if they do grow, how will that affect real-world economies and governments? To shed light on the first question, the paper presents a brief history of these games along with a simple choice model of the demand for game time. The history suggests that the desire to live in a game world is deep-rooted and driven by game technology. The model reveals a certain puzzle about puzzles and games: in the demand for these kinds of interactive entertainment goods, people reveal that they are willing to pay money to be constrained. Still, the nature of games as a produced good suggests that technological advances, and heavy competition, will drive the future development of virtual worlds. If virtual worlds do become a large part of the daily life of humans, their development may have an impact on the macroeconomies of Earth. It will also raise certain constitutional issues, since it is not clear, today, exactly who has jurisdiction over these new economies.

International audience ; At a time when international tensions between East and West are intensifying, pacifism seems to be reborn Economists highlight the purely economic foundations of war, even if their speeches are heterogeneous, even contradictory. For the pacifists, militarism is often the condition of war, it reinforces the violence of the modes of production and it has harmful effects on the capitalist and socialist economies. In France, the peace movement brings together the fight against capitalism, the rejection of excessive inequality, ecology, the defence of the Third World and the defence of butter against that of the cannon. Disarmament for development covers an even wider population of supporters, which partly explains why the International Disarmament for Development Fund is a project presented and defended by the French government. ; Au moment où les tensions internationales entre l'Est et l'Ouest s'intensifient, le pacifisme semble renaître Les économistes mettent en avant les fondements purement économiques de la guerre, même si leurs discours sont hétérogènes, voire contradictoires. Pour les pacifistes, le militarisme est souvent la condition de la guerre, il renforce la violence des modes de production et il exerce des effets néfastes sur les économies capitalistes et socialistes. En France, le mouvement pour la paix regroupe la lutte contre le capitalisme, le refus des inégalités excessives, l'écologie, la défense du Tiers-Monde et la défense du beurre contre celui du canon. Le désarmement pour le développement recouvre une population encore plus large de partisans, ce qui explique en partie que le Fonds Internationale de Désarmement pour le Développement soit un projet présenté et défendu par le gouvernement français.

International audience ; At a time when international tensions between East and West are intensifying, pacifism seems to be reborn Economists highlight the purely economic foundations of war, even if their speeches are heterogeneous, even contradictory. For the pacifists, militarism is often the condition of war, it reinforces the violence of the modes of production and it has harmful effects on the capitalist and socialist economies. In France, the peace movement brings together the fight against capitalism, the rejection of excessive inequality, ecology, the defence of the Third World and the defence of butter against that of the cannon. Disarmament for development covers an even wider population of supporters, which partly explains why the International Disarmament for Development Fund is a project presented and defended by the French government. ; Au moment où les tensions internationales entre l'Est et l'Ouest s'intensifient, le pacifisme semble renaître Les économistes mettent en avant les fondements purement économiques de la guerre, même si leurs discours sont hétérogènes, voire contradictoires. Pour les pacifistes, le militarisme est souvent la condition de la guerre, il renforce la violence des modes de production et il exerce des effets néfastes sur les économies capitalistes et socialistes. En France, le mouvement pour la paix regroupe la lutte contre le capitalisme, le refus des inégalités excessives, l'écologie, la défense du Tiers-Monde et la défense du beurre contre celui du canon. Le désarmement pour le développement recouvre une population encore plus large de partisans, ce qui explique en partie que le Fonds Internationale de Désarmement pour le Développement soit un projet présenté et défendu par le gouvernement français.

During the transition from central planning to market economies now under way in Eastern Europe, output levels first collapsed by 40 to 50 percent in most countries, then staged a modest recovery in the last two years. Longer-term revival of growth requires a resumption of investment and thus, realistically, of domestic savings. To explore the determinants of household savings rates in transition economies, the authors studies matching household surveys for three Central European economies: Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland. They find that savings rates strongly increase with relative income, suggesting that increasing income inequality may play a role in determining savings rates. Savings rates are significantly higher for households that do not own their homes or that own few of the standard consumer durables - possibly because, with no retail credit or mortgage markets, households must save to purchase houses and durables. The influence of demographic factors broadly matches earlier findings for developing countries. Perhaps surprisingly, variables associated with the households position in the transition process - including either sector of employment (public or private) or form of employment - do not play a significant role in determining savings rates.

J. Meihuizen, Noodzakelijk kwaad. De bestraffing van economische collaboratie in Nederland na de Tweede WereldoorlogThe economy and full-scale warMeihuizen concludes that the interests of the reconstruction had to take precedence over those of an honourable judicial process, as a result of which cases of economic collaboration seldom reached the courts. This essay argues that Dutch firms could not avoid manufacturing goods for the occupying forces because they were often relatively small-scale in nature and organised along the lines of a family business. If this type of firm refused to fulfil a German order and its competitor was willing to accept it, then it ran the risk of being squeezed out by the competition. This is why, in the Netherlands and elsewhere, as soon as a firm made the transition from a smallscale to a medium-sized family business it was inclined to work all-out for the occupying forces. This had nothing to do with free choice, but rather the will to survive. In addition to this, non-military production, even that which was geared towards keeping the people at home alive and healthy, supported the German war effort. In an economy where all military production is systematically maximized and manufacturing geared towards producing civilian goods is pushed back to a level where it can just about survive, all manufacturing becomes economic collaboration, thereby making the notion redundant. Consequently, the question that should have resounded throughout this study ought to have been whether a legal case could have been made against economic collaboration at all or whether this was doomed to fail from the start. Onderdeel van het discussiedossier Noodzakelijk kwaad.

When natural resource revenues provide an important motive and/or means for armed conflict, the transition from war peace faces three challenges: (i) ensuring that the benefits and costs of natural resource exploitation are distributed so as to ease rather than exacerbate social tensions; (ii) channeling revenues to peaceful and productive purposes; and (iii) promoting accountability and transparency in natural resource management. Aid conditionality can help to address these challenges provided that three prerequisites are met: (i) there are domestic parties with sufficient authority and legitimacy to strike and implement aid-for-peace bargains; (ii) donor governments and agencies make peace their top priority, putting this ahead of other geopolitical, commercial, and institutional goals; and (iii) the aid 'carrot' is substantial enough to provide an incentive for pro-peace policies. Case studies of Cambodia, Angola, and Afghanistan illustrate both the scope and limitations of peace conditionality in such settings.

Le 17 août 1998, les autorités russes ont annoncé un défaut sur la dette publique en roubles, un moratoire sur les transactions en devises des banques et un élargissement du «corridor» dans lequel évoluait le taux de change depuis mi-1995 (.).

Le 17 août 1998, les autorités russes ont annoncé un défaut sur la dette publique en roubles, un moratoire sur les transactions en devises des banques et un élargissement du «corridor» dans lequel évoluait le taux de change depuis mi-1995 (.).

Le 17 août 1998, les autorités russes ont annoncé un défaut sur la dette publique en roubles, un moratoire sur les transactions en devises des banques et un élargissement du «corridor» dans lequel évoluait le taux de change depuis mi-1995 (.).

The transition economies were remarkably successful in curbing the inflation that took place after the initial transition and shocks and, more recently, most of the countries have brought inflation down to the levels found in major developed countries.In this paper we review the experiences and show how fiscal discipline, monetary policy and exchange rate policy contributed to the outcome.In addition, we note that the influence of EU accession on institutions and policy may have played an important role.The paper also surveys the literature on the quality of the inflation data, the extent to which necessary relative price adjustments have occurred and the size of the Balassa-Samuelson effect.Case studies of disinflation in four countries are presented: Poland, Romania, Estonia and Russia.

We build a bargaining-theoretic model of an important dilemma inherent in any major political economic transition process. While swiftly removing the old order is a necessary condition for a successful transition, it also leads to widespread social disruption that may threaten the viability of the reform process. This issue lies at the heart of much of the "big-bang/gradualism" debate in the literature. We argue that this dichotomy is overly simplistic. In particular, the debate, as it has been framed, has failed to capture the significance of interest group competition. Interest group competition matters precisely because the political environment during a transition is fluid and malleable and is thus open to manipulation by interests seeking to mold post-transition governance structures to best serve themselves. As different economic and political structures will give rise to different incentives within these interest groups, one might expect that transition strategies will differ across societies. We show this is the case with two interesting examples. First, we consider how transition strategies differ in open and closed economies. We are able to derive a number of strong results, the most striking of which identifies conditions under which closed economies outperform open economies in terms of social welfare. Our second set of experiments examines Krueger's (1993) "vicious and virtuous circles" theory of policy reform. We identify conditions under which societies with political systems that reward rent-seeking behavior enjoy higher social welfare than societies with political systems that reward productive behavior.

International audience ; Summary: The concerted disarmament of the great powers cannot be reduced to a simple reduction in military expenditure, even if it is progressive in time and space. Indeed, it is necessary to destroy the stocks of weapons and to undergo many costs of reconversion of the personnel and the committed investments, before hoping to receive peace dividends, which will moreover rather have to be immediately reinvested. In addition, the verification of agreements, the difficult conversion of national research and development, the control of arms sales and the implementation of specific peace actions must be put in place, to avoid the windfall effects of predation. ; Le désarmement concerté des grandes puissances ne peut pas se résumer à une simple réduction des dépenses militaires, même si elle est progressive dans le temps et dans l'espace. En effet, il faut détruire les stocks d'armes et subir de nombreux coûts de reconversion des personnels et des investissements engagés, avant d'espérer recevoir des dividendes de la paix, qui devront d'ailleurs plutôt être immédiatement réinvestis. En outre, la vérification des accords, la conversion difficile de la recherche-développement nationale, le contrôle des ventes d'armes et la mise en place d'actions spécifiques de paix devront être mis en place, pour éviter les effets d'aubaine de la prédation.

International audience ; Summary: The concerted disarmament of the great powers cannot be reduced to a simple reduction in military expenditure, even if it is progressive in time and space. Indeed, it is necessary to destroy the stocks of weapons and to undergo many costs of reconversion of the personnel and the committed investments, before hoping to receive peace dividends, which will moreover rather have to be immediately reinvested. In addition, the verification of agreements, the difficult conversion of national research and development, the control of arms sales and the implementation of specific peace actions must be put in place, to avoid the windfall effects of predation. ; Le désarmement concerté des grandes puissances ne peut pas se résumer à une simple réduction des dépenses militaires, même si elle est progressive dans le temps et dans l'espace. En effet, il faut détruire les stocks d'armes et subir de nombreux coûts de reconversion des personnels et des investissements engagés, avant d'espérer recevoir des dividendes de la paix, qui devront d'ailleurs plutôt être immédiatement réinvestis. En outre, la vérification des accords, la conversion difficile de la recherche-développement nationale, le contrôle des ventes d'armes et la mise en place d'actions spécifiques de paix devront être mis en place, pour éviter les effets d'aubaine de la prédation.