The first days of the economy took place in Lyon from November 20 to 22, 2008. With almost a thousand participants, this event was an opportunity to have economists, economic life and the general public dialogue. If finance was the red thread of the three major plenary conferences, very diverse themes were discussed during the many round tables on the program. From the regulation of health expenditure to the economy of happiness, including the deregulation of taxis or the place of statistical indicators in a democracy, The life of ideaspartner of the event, offers you an overview of these days.
Summary :
– Health, at what price ?
Stakeholders from the Round Table, economists but also representing public authorities, gave themselves an overview of our knowledge of the behavior of the various health players and on the sites to be cleared in the years to come. The difficulty in introducing economic questioning in the regulation of the health system was notably underlined.
– Innovation and Society of XXIe century
For some, improving living conditions will no longer go tomorrow through the consumption of new goods but through access to new services. This is the theme of the round table “ Innovation and Society of XXIe century “, As well as interview with Michèle Debonneuil who, after the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors, predicts the advent of the” Quaternary economy ».
– Economic indicators in a democracy
The request for statistical indicators continues to increase, in order to help public decision -making or to guide the choices made by companies. However, we have been witnessing for a few years a growing gap between the public perception of certain economic phenomena and the information produced by statisticians. Failure of the statistical information system or bad apprehension of reality by citizens ? This is the central question addressed by this round table.
– Experimental economy
The experimental economy has been a field of expanding economic science for ten years. It aims to make “ experiences From laboratory to economics, in order to study the behavior of agents by mastering the parameters governing their decision -making. The speakers first presented the educational advantages of the experimental economy and then the role of the experimental economy in assistance in public decision -making, through several Canadian examples.
– Happiness and daily life
It is a new and relatively exotic theme for economists that was discussed during this round table: happiness. Based on data from international surveys where individuals are asked about their well-being, economists try to identify the sources of variation in happiness with macroeconomic and microeconomic levels.
– Shareholders’ supremacy
While John K. Galbraith worried in the new industrial state (1967) of taking power within companies by managers, the last twenty years have been marked by a return in force of capital holders in the business management bodies. Corporate governance is regularly presented as an explanatory factor in the historic financial crisis in the world today. The speakers of this round table therefore register in the immediate news by questioning the “ Supremacy of shareholders ».
– Should we deregulate taxis ?
The debates of this round table focused on the regulation of the number of taxis to meet demand. The case of taxis thus appears as a case of a school of political economy of reform: how to increase the number of taxis without penalizing the craftsmen in place too much ?