Bruno DE MENNA (LEREPS, UT1): Exploring Co-operative Banking Diversity – Towards a Typology at the European Level

Theoretical Question & Background Literature

Literature in economics has given an extensive account of the debate regarding corporate governance for several decades (a figurehead of this endeavour is Tirole (2006)). Corporations may have different ways to act depending on their business line and goals assigned. Accordingly, it seems that « banks have unique features that influence and interact with corporate governance mechanisms » (John et al., 2016). These unique features advocate for a special treatment once talking about banking industry.

Some scholars have tried to analyze how corporate governance in banks may differ from that in nonfinancial companies in order to grasp banking special features (see, inter alia, Devriese et al. (2004), OECD (2009), Mülbert (2010), Laeven (2013)). This statement is buttressed when one considers the far-reaching changes occurred in this sector since the 1980’s. Nevertheless, banks don’t behave all the same & provide a wide diversity of models. Co-operative banks are an example of such a diversity in the sector (Groeneveld and de Vries (2009), Ferri and Kalmi (2014)). Mainstream economics usually addressed this diversity through the distinction between Shareholder Value (SHV) & Stakeholder Value (STV) companies (Coco and Ferri, 2010). But are these lenses suitable to understand co-operative banks’ diversity ? Do co-operative banks only belong to SHV/STV models, or could some of them be part of both/other categories ?

After exploring the diversity of corporate governance theory in economics and management science 1, we aim at building a co-operative banks typology at the European level. We hope to contribute to a deeper understanding of the current co-operative banks landscape and thus foster their features. To guide our typology based on the idea of Berglof (2011) there is a variable degree of interdependance between ’macro’ governance system and ’micro’ governance mechanisms, the theoretical question is this paper is :

In Europe, what are the country-specific (macro-level) and size-specific (firm-level) factors influencing corporate governance of co-operative banks models ?

Methodology

The methodological approach includes a threefold interrogation process to build our typology. First, we analyze to what extent economics and management science may provide theoretical background to realize co-operative banking corporate governance diversity. If the first step is not fully conclusive, we analyze to what extent economics and management science may provide theoretical background to realize co-operatives’ corporate governance diversity. Then, we apply the theoretical results of the first two steps to European banking sector in order to lay the groundwork of our typology led by country-specific & size-specific factors.

Major Argument

Co-operative banking is not well known in economics, which usually highlights SHV bank standards. The purpose of this paper is to undertake this perspective bearing in mind banking models diversity may do its fair share to financial stability. Our typology suggests an updated version of the concept of hybrid governance applied to co-operative banks in order to enhance their comprehension. This concept goes together with the idea there is a « similarity spectrum » when it comes to compare co-operative banks to other banks. As « dual-bottom line institutions » (Ayadi et al., 2010) with multiple-goals strategies, it is important to recognize co-operative banks as full members of banking industry. Moreover, as pointed out by the EACB 4, it is necessary to consider their features especially in the design of banking supervision and regulation at the European level, currently embodied by the Banking Union.

Conclusions Expected & Relevance at the International Level

We expect to observe co-operative banks differentiation mainly based on country-specific factors as well as size-specific factors (for instance, banks’ degree of internationalization or lobbying by interest groups affecting investor protection). After the transition to the euro, Banking Union may be the second most important step towards European integration. In a globalized & highly competitive market such as banking industry, it is crucial to analyze co-operative banks at the European (if not international) level in order to report their variety and to determine strengths & weaknesses of each category.

Isabelle BAGDASSARIAN (LEREPS, UT2J) : Dimensions matérielles et immatérielles des communs territoriaux : exemple des commissions syndicales des montagnes basques et béarnaises.

Le développement du concept des communs est issu de l’étude des systèmes médiévaux de gestion de pâturages exploités collectivement dans l’Angleterre médiévale. Ce système a pu se maintenir sur plusieurs siècles lorsqu’il a pu échapper à la privatisation. Dans ces systèmes, la ressource partagée est multiple. Il s’agit en premier lieu de la ressource naturelle qui motive le collectif. Sont également développées des structures nécessaires à l’exploitation de la ressource ainsi que les savoir faires pour leur entretien. Ainsi, dans l’étude d’un « commun territorial », l’inventaire des ressources doit explorer le champ du matériel et de l’immatériel. De plus, l’engagement de chaque commoner repose sur son appartenance à un ensemble social qui partage également des liens interpersonnels, des structures familiales et des règles de transmission du patrimoine.

Aujourd’hui encore, le besoin d’exploitation des espaces d’estives et des forêts, fédère une action collective de gestion. L’existence d’une quarantaine de commissions syndicales sur la chaîne des Pyrénées témoigne de la permanence de ces modes de gestion.

Cependant, la modification des composantes de gestion du bien commun semble aujourd’hui mettre en péril l’existence même du système. La diversification des ressources exploitées (pâturages, forêt, eau mais aussi gibier, station de ski, casinos, subventions…), la raréfaction des commoners, la création d’un statut juridique, l’évolution des techniques de gestion et la modification des systèmes humains supports pourraient expliquer la fragilisation du commun territorial historique.

L’objectif de cet article est de proposer une analyse des composantes matérielles et immatérielles des ressources et du système de gouvernance de commissions syndicales en Pays basque et en Béarn et de leur niveau d’éloignement par rapport à un commun. Des éléments sur la qualification de la capacité collective et sur la pérennisation du mode d’exploitation de ces ressources pourraient alors être avancés.

Delio LUCENA (LEREPS, UT1) : How collaborative incentives in cluster policies influence the structural role of SMEs in regional innovation systems: A network-based analysis of Aerospace Valley in Toulouse – France (2005-2015)

One of the main reasons of the development of cluster policies relies on the growing awareness that network failures have to be merged with traditional market ones in the design of public incentives to foster innovation. Cluster policies aim at strengthening knowledge networks through R&D collaborative incentives in order to stimulate the expected benefits of knowledge spillovers. They rely on two related network failures. (i) The potentialities of knowledge spillovers from science to industry can be inefficiently exploited due to the cultural divide between the two communities. (ii) Entrepreneurship matters in clusters. Their performance can be assessed by SMEs and spinoff birth and entry. The aim of this research is to go more in depth into these policy guidelines, by offering an original view of dealing with the links between the implementation of these public collaborative incentives and the resulting structuring of clusters. We will focus on the Aerospace Valley cluster in Toulouse – France, over a 10 years-period (2005-2015). Our basic starting assumption is related to the fact that in spite of their control on the selection of R&D collaborations at the micro-level, cluster policy practitioners cannot have a perfect control of the structure as a whole. In network theories, these micro-macro scales problems is typical: the “macro-behavior” of the network and its structural properties, both resulting from the aggregation of ties built by agents, largely escape their own intention. Since clusters are networks, such a research can be useful to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of cluster policies.

Sandrine ALLAIN (UMR AGIR, INRA) : When should we spatialize indicators for ex ante assessments and why? An illustration in quantitative water management

Sustainable management of natural resources often involves a governance that is landscape-scale, participatory and future-oriented. In this context, ex ante assessments constitute useful methods to envision the consequences of different management options and to empower local actors with the capability to state their opinion about the management situation and its possible alternatives for the future. Ex ante assessments generally mobilize indicators. An indicator is a variable which value provides information on a specific issue. The information supplied by indicators is both descriptive (indicators are quantifiers or qualifier of a management option’s effects) and normative (indicators are arguments to express a value-judgment about a management option). When the resource is distributed in space (e.g. water, ordinary biodiversity, forest resources) the spatial distribution of management effects may provide a relevant information for the decision-making process, just as much as the range of these effects. Spatializing indicators has a descriptive function that is today well established; however, its normative function has not been studied yet.

We used a set of indicators built to assess scenarios of quantitative water management in an agricultural landscape (the downstream of the Aveyron watershed, South-Western France). We considered together the normative and descriptive functions of spatialization in order to clarify when to spatialize indicators, for what purpose and at which conditions.

The 154 indicators constituting our dataset were included in a database specifying their definition, meaning, estimation method, representation and normative use. For spatial indicators, we specified in addition the spatial extent and resolution at which information is estimated, at which it is represented and if it can be used to differentiate value-judgments across space. We focused on indicators for which the spatial dimensions of estimation, representation, and evaluation do not coincide – e.g. an indicator which estimated value vary in space while judgments based on this indicator should/could only be made for the entire landscape – and tried to explain why.

We found out that spatialization can be used for different purposes – gathering data, bettering knowledge about a scenario’s effect, facilitating the appropriation of information, allowing value-judgments to be differentiated across space – that are independent the one from another. We also suggest that the spatial configuration of the assessed entities, the type of issues indicators are expected to inform and the way indicators reflect real-world processes are key-elements to appreciate the descriptive and normative relevance of spatialization.

Matteo CAVALLARO (CEPN, Univ. Paris 13 et Sciences Po Toulouse) : Different shades of black: a comparative analysis of radical right parties economic policy after 1990

The literature highlights how heterogeneous Radical Right Parties (RRPs) are on economic policy. This heterogeneity is often found in the same party, so that some authors labelled RRPs economic programmes as ‘schizophrenic agendas’. Consequently, the actual relevance of economic matters to RRPs is often discussed. This article studies the evolution of RRPs economic programmes in terms of importance: We explore the evolution of the relevance of economic matters to RRPs to ascertain whether it is still true that economic matters are secondary issues. We also explore the heterogeneity of RRPS with respect to economics matters. We do so by analysing data from the MARPOR project database that has been treated according to Lowe et al.’s (2011) transformation. We cover 35 different RRPs across twenty European countries for a period going from 1990 to 2014. Our findings show that economic issues are still less important in RRPs programmes than in those of other political families. However, the gap has been reducing both in length (RRPs talk more about the economy) and width (RRPs now include more economic items). The article then moves to address heterogeneity. We draw a cartography of the ‘economic policy space’ within the radical right party family. We do so by the means of various statistical methods (PCA, Ward’s method, and Additive trees) applied to manifestos data from the MARPOR project database. We find four dimensions that can describe large part of the differences between RRPs on economic matters. These dimensions all describe the “salience” of a set issues and we labelled them “Welfare”, “Economic Liberalism”, “Economic Management” and “Protectionism”. Our results show that RRPs are still very different in their economic programmes in terms of contents. Despite the existing differences, we show the existence of a trend towards a ‘welfare chauvinist’ appeal, meaning that RRPs are now keener to include pro-welfare pledges (reserved to native individuals) in their stances.

Bastien BEZZON (LEREPS, UT2J) : Coordination du financement des entreprises d’un cluster

Une abondante littérature économique s’est intéressée à la coordination des activités productives notamment dans le cadre des clusters au sens général du terme. En revanche, la littérature s’est moins intéressée à la coordination du financement de ces mêmes activités productives notamment sous son aspect territorial. En effet, les notions de “territoire financier” (BELLETANTE, 1991), ou de “proximity capital” (CREVOISIER, 1997) mobilisent de manière implicite la grille d’analyse des proximités pour analyser le territoire (physique ou organisationnel) dessiné par l’ensemble des acteurs intervenant dans le financement des entreprises étudiées, principalement les PME (Petites et Moyennes Entreprises). Cette analyse très riche adopte un angle d’approche centré sur l’entreprise et ses rapports avec ses financeurs mais peu du rapport qu’ont les firmes industrielles entre elles en termes de financement. En effet, l’analyse financière territorialisée ne s’interroge pas sur le financement des entreprises industrielles (dont l’activité principale n’est pas le financement de l’économie) entre elles, que ce soit au cours du processus de création d’une nouvelle firme ou lors de sa vie (augmentation de capital notamment). On peut se demander si les territoires productifs constituent aussi des territoires financiers, c’est à dire si les entreprises intégrées dans un processus de coordination à caractère productif sont aussi intégrées dans un processus de coordination à caractère financier . Si tel était le cas, les firmes intégrées dans le processus de coordination productif se financeraient entre elles notamment grâce à des participations actionnariales. Les ressources financières générées par le production seraient utilisées à des fins financières au sein du territoire.

La grille d’analyse des proximités (RALLET et TORRE, 2004) sera mobilisée pour savoir s’il existe des proximités entre les membres d’un cluster, le Système Productif Local Mecanic Vallée situé en Midi-Pyrénées. Ces proximités d’ordre géographique, organisationnel et institutionnel existent au niveau productif et une coordination entre acteurs est recherchée pour trouver des solutions collectives aux questions de maîtrise de la technologie, des débouchés commerciaux. On cherchera à savoir si de telles proximités existent également au sujet du financement c’est à dire si les entreprises ont des points communs concernant le gestion de leur capital et si elles recherchent des solutions collectives pour trouver ce capital. Si une telle coordination existait, on serait dans le cadre d’un processus de spécification (COLLETIS et PECQUEUR, 2005) c’est à dire que la coordination entre un groupe identifié d’acteurs sur un sujet est utilisée dans la résolution d’un autre problème productif.

Zafarani UWINGABIRE (LEREPS, ENSFEA Toulouse) : INCIDENCE OF POLLINATORS DECLINE ON THE INTERNATIONAL TRADE: WELFARE AND FOOD SECURITY ANALYSIS

Between 2000 and 2012, the exports value of global agricultural commodities nearly tripled and its volume increased by 60%. Yet, since 2006 there is an important loss in pollinators population which has direct and indirect impacts on agriculture production. In fact, the pollination service contributes heavily to the quantity and the quality of crops production. For quantity concern, the insect pollination service participates up to 67 % of global crop production in volume, representing 35% of cultivated species (Klein et al, 2007). The contribution of this service to the global agricultural sector is estimated at between 153 and 260 billion euros (Lautenbach et al. 2012; Gallai et al., 2009). The quality of the crops is measured in terms of nutrients provision, where, the production of nutrients depending on pollinators worldwide is estimated at 40% (Ellis et al., 2015). Nevertheless, this dependence is observed mainly in countries with high rate of undernourishment (Eilers et al., 2011). Consequently, it is an essential provisioning ecosystem service for the well-being of our society.

Many questions in the scientific literature raised on the consequences of this decline all over the world. Breeze et al. (2014) demonstrated that the supply of pollinators in Europe was becoming increasingly inadequate due to the increase in production itself supported by public policies, including stimulating the production of biofuels. Aizen et al. (2008) demonstrated also that, since 1960, the production of insect pollination dependent crops increase more than non-dependent ones while the quantity of pollinators is decreasing. These results underlie the needs to analyze this decline at the world scale. Various researches value pollinators at a large scale (e.g. Gallai et al. 2009, Lautenbach et al. 2012, Leonhardt et al. 2013) but these studies do not consider the market consequences of the pollinator decline. Indeed, the lower provision of pollination, would lower the yield and consequently increase the marginal cost of production (Winfree et al. 2001). As a consequence, the market equilibrium would change: the market prices will increase while the demand and the production would decrease. These variations in the market equilibrium would impact 1) in the social welfare and more precisely on the consumer and producer surpluses and 2) the provision of nutrients.

Our study proposes an international trade model that integrate pollinators into the production factors of farmers to measure these impact effects. Our findings show that the pollinator decline might decrease the overall crop trade value and exacerbate the food insecurity in less developed regions. Furthermore, it suggests that a country comparative advantage can be created if pollinator management practices are improved and sustained.