Le retour (nouvelle d'Usha Priyamvada trad. du hindi )

Le premier volume de cette nouvelle série a pour ambition de faire découvrir au lecteur la littérature hindi, véritable trésor peu connu du public francophone. Ces dix nouvelles inédites ont pour auteurs des écrivains emblématiques des courants de sensibilité qui ont jalonné l'histoire de l'Inde moderne. Elles donnent un aperçu de l'évolution et de la complexité de la littérature hindi. Une introduction substantielle les situe, et situe leurs auteurs, dans l'histoire politique, sociale et culturelle du siècle écoulé, de l'époque coloniale à l'indépendance et aux défis de la modernité. Une plongée dans un univers poétique et humain à la fois exotique et familier. Ce titre ouvre une nouvelle collection consacrée aux littératures du sous-continent indien.

Essays in equilibrium asset pricing

Introduction This dissertation consists of three essays in equilibrium asset pricing. The first chapter studies the asset pricing implications of a general equilibrium model in which real investment is reversible at a cost. Firms face higher costs in contracting than in expanding their capital stock and decide to invest when their productive capital is scarce relative to the overall capital of the economy. Positive shocks to the capital of the firm increase the size of the firm and reduce the value of growth options. As a result, the firm is burdened with more unproductive capital and its value lowers with respect to the accumulated capital. The optimal consumption policy alters the optimal allocation of resources and affects firm's value, generating mean-reverting dynamics for the M/B ratios. The model (1) captures convergence of price-to-book ratios -negative for growth stocks and positive for value stocks - (firm migration), (2) generates deviations from the classic CAPM in line with the cross-sectional variation in expected stock returns and (3) generates a non-monotone relationship between Tobin's q and conditional volatility consistent with the empirical evidence. The second chapter proposes a standard portfolio-choice problem with transaction costs and mean reversion in expected returns. In the presence of transactions costs, no matter how small, arbitrage activity does not necessarily render equal all riskless rates of return. When two such rates follow stochastic processes, it is not optimal immediately to arbitrage out any discrepancy that arises between them. The reason is that immediate arbitrage would induce a definite expenditure of transactions costs whereas, without arbitrage intervention, there exists some, perhaps sufficient, probability that these two interest rates will come back together without any costs having been incurred. Hence, one can surmise that at equilibrium the financial market will permit the coexistence of two riskless rates that are not equal to each other. For analogous reasons, randomly fluctuating expected rates of return on risky assets will be allowed to differ even after correction for risk, leading to important violations of the Capital Asset Pricing Model. The combination of randomness in expected rates of return and proportional transactions costs is a serious blow to existing frictionless pricing models. Finally, in the last chapter I propose a two-countries two-goods general equilibrium economy with uncertainty about the fundamentals' growth rates to study the joint behavior of equity volatilities and correlation at the business cycle frequency. I assume that dividend growth rates jump from one state to other, while countries' switches are possibly correlated. The model is solved in closed-form and the analytical expressions for stock prices are reported. When calibrated to the empirical data of United States and United Kingdom, the results show that, given the existing degree of synchronization across these business cycles, the model captures quite well the historical patterns of stock return volatilities. Moreover, I can explain the time behavior of the correlation, but exclusively under the assumption of a global business cycle.

Three essays on major trends in a slow clockspeed industry : the case of industrial automation

The motivation for this research initiated from the abrupt rise and fall of minicomputers which were initially used both for industrial automation and business applications due to their significantly lower cost than their predecessors, the mainframes. Later industrial automation developed its own vertically integrated hardware and software to address the application needs of uninterrupted operations, real-time control and resilience to harsh environmental conditions. This has led to the creation of an independent industry, namely industrial automation used in PLC, DCS, SCADA and robot control systems. This industry employs today over 200'000 people in a profitable slow clockspeed context in contrast to the two mainstream computing industries of information technology (IT) focused on business applications and telecommunications focused on communications networks and hand-held devices. Already in 1990s it was foreseen that IT and communication would merge into one Information and communication industry (ICT). The fundamental question of the thesis is: Could industrial automation leverage a common technology platform with the newly formed ICT industry? Computer systems dominated by complex instruction set computers (CISC) were challenged during 1990s with higher performance reduced instruction set computers (RISC). RISC started to evolve parallel to the constant advancement of Moore's law. These developments created the high performance and low energy consumption System-on-Chip architecture (SoC). Unlike to the CISC processors RISC processor architecture is a separate industry from the RISC chip manufacturing industry. It also has several hardware independent software platforms consisting of integrated operating system, development environment, user interface and application market which enables customers to have more choices due to hardware independent real time capable software applications. An architecture disruption merged and the smartphone and tablet market were formed with new rules and new key players in the ICT industry. Today there are more RISC computer systems running Linux (or other Unix variants) than any other computer system. The astonishing rise of SoC based technologies and related software platforms in smartphones created in unit terms the largest installed base ever seen in the history of computers and is now being further extended by tablets. An underlying additional element of this transition is the increasing role of open source technologies both in software and hardware. This has driven the microprocessor based personal computer industry with few dominating closed operating system platforms into a steep decline. A significant factor in this process has been the separation of processor architecture and processor chip production and operating systems and application development platforms merger into integrated software platforms with proprietary application markets. Furthermore the pay-by-click marketing has changed the way applications development is compensated: Three essays on major trends in a slow clockspeed industry: The case of industrial automation 2014 freeware, ad based or licensed - all at a lower price and used by a wider customer base than ever before. Moreover, the concept of software maintenance contract is very remote in the app world. However, as a slow clockspeed industry, industrial automation has remained intact during the disruptions based on SoC and related software platforms in the ICT industries. Industrial automation incumbents continue to supply systems based on vertically integrated systems consisting of proprietary software and proprietary mainly microprocessor based hardware. They enjoy admirable profitability levels on a very narrow customer base due to strong technology-enabled customer lock-in and customers' high risk leverage as their production is dependent on fault-free operation of the industrial automation systems. When will this balance of power be disrupted? The thesis suggests how industrial automation could join the mainstream ICT industry and create an information, communication and automation (ICAT) industry. Lately the Internet of Things (loT) and weightless networks, a new standard leveraging frequency channels earlier occupied by TV broadcasting, have gradually started to change the rigid world of Machine to Machine (M2M) interaction. It is foreseeable that enough momentum will be created that the industrial automation market will in due course face an architecture disruption empowered by these new trends. This thesis examines the current state of industrial automation subject to the competition between the incumbents firstly through a research on cost competitiveness efforts in captive outsourcing of engineering, research and development and secondly researching process re- engineering in the case of complex system global software support. Thirdly we investigate the industry actors', namely customers, incumbents and newcomers, views on the future direction of industrial automation and conclude with our assessments of the possible routes industrial automation could advance taking into account the looming rise of the Internet of Things (loT) and weightless networks. Industrial automation is an industry dominated by a handful of global players each of them focusing on maintaining their own proprietary solutions. The rise of de facto standards like IBM PC, Unix and Linux and SoC leveraged by IBM, Compaq, Dell, HP, ARM, Apple, Google, Samsung and others have created new markets of personal computers, smartphone and tablets and will eventually also impact industrial automation through game changing commoditization and related control point and business model changes. This trend will inevitably continue, but the transition to a commoditized industrial automation will not happen in the near future.

Four essays on economic geography, trade and development

RESUME Cette thèse se situe à la frontière de la recherche en économie du développement et du commerce international et vise à intégrer les apports de l'économie géographique. Le premier chapitre s'intéresse aux effets de création et de détournement de commerce au sein des accords régionaux entre pays en développement et combine une approche gravitaire et une estimation non paramétrique des effets de commerce. Cette analyse confirme un effet de commerce non monotone pour six accords régionaux couvrant l'Afrique, l'Amérique Latine et l'Asie (AFTA, CAN, CACM, CEDEAO, MERCO SUR et SADC) sur la période 1960-1996. Les accords signés dans les années 90 (AFTA, CAN, MERCOSUR et SADC) semblent avoir induis une amélioration du bien-être de leurs membres mais avec un impact variable sur le reste du monde, tandis que les accords plus anciens (CEDEAO et CACM) semblent montrer que les effets de commerce et de bien-être se réduisent pour finir par s'annuler à mesure que le nombre d'années de participation des Etats membres augmente. Le deuxième chapitre pose la question de l'impact de la géographie sur les échanges Sud-Sud. Ce chapitre innove par rapport aux méthodes classiques d'estimation en dérivant une équation de commerce à partir de l'hypothèse d'Armington et en intégrant une fonction de coût de transport qui prend en compte la spécificité des pays de l'UEMOA. Les estimations donnent des effets convaincants quant au rôle de l'enclavement et des infrastructures: deux pays enclavés de l'UEMOA commercent 92% moins que deux autres pays quelconques, tandis que traverser un pays de transit au sein de l'espace UEMOA augmente de 6% les coûts de transport, et que bitumer toutes les routes inter-Etat de l'Union induirait trois fois plus de commerce intra-UEMOA. Le chapitre 3 s'intéresse à la persistance des différences de développement au sein des accords régionaux entre pays en développement. Il montre que la géographie différenciée des pays du Sud membres d'un accord induit un impact asymétrique de celui-ci sur ses membres. Il s'agit d'un modèle stylisé de trois pays dont deux ayant conclu un accord régional. Les résultats obtenus par simulation montrent qu'une meilleure dotation en infrastructure d'un membre de l'accord régional lui permet d'attirer une plus grande part industrielle à mesure que les coûts de transport au sein de l'accord régional sont baissés, ce qui conduit à un développement inégal entre les membres. Si les niveaux d'infrastructure domestique de transport sont harmonisés au sein des pays membres de l'accord d'intégration, leurs parts industrielles peuvent converger au détriment des pays restés hors de l'union. Le chapitre 4 s'intéresse à des questions d'économie urbaine en étudiant comment l'interaction entre rendements croissants et coûts de transport détermine la localisation des activités et des travailleurs au sein d'un pays ou d'une région. Le modèle développé reproduit un fait stylisé observé à l'intérieur des centres métropolitains des USA: sur une période longue (1850-1990), on observe une spécialisation croissante des centres urbains et de leurs périphéries associée à une évolution croissante puis décroissante de la population des centres urbains par rapport à leurs périphéries. Ce résultat peut se transférer dans un contexte en développement avec une zone centrale et une zone périphérique: à mesure que l'accessibilité des régions s'améliore, ces régions se spécialiseront et la région principale, d'abord plus importante (en termes de nombre de travailleurs) va finir par se réduire à une taille identique à celle de la région périphérique.

Une autre vie. Un siècle de nouvelles hindi

Le premier volume de cette nouvelle série a pour ambition de faire découvrir au lecteur la littérature hindi, véritable trésor peu connu du public francophone. Ces dix nouvelles inédites ont pour auteurs des écrivains emblématiques des courants de sensibilité qui ont jalonné l'histoire de l'Inde moderne. Elles donnent un aperçu de l'évolution et de la complexité de la littérature hindi. Une introduction substantielle les situe, et situe leurs auteurs, dans l'histoire politique, sociale et culturelle du siècle écoulé, de l'époque coloniale à l'indépendance et aux défis de la modernité. - Introduction : Nicola Pozza, maître d''enseignement et de recherche en histoire des religions à l'Université de Lausanne - Écrivains hindi: Mumsi Premcand, Jay Shankar Prasâd, Yashpal, Agyeya, Muktibodh, Mohan Râkesh, Manu Bandhari, Usha Priyamvada, Harishankar Parsai, Nirmal Verma.

Une brève histoire littéraire et sociopolitique du hindi moderne

Le premier volume de cette nouvelle série a pour ambition de faire découvrir au lecteur la littérature hindi, véritable trésor peu connu du public francophone. Ces dix nouvelles inédites ont pour auteurs des écrivains emblématiques des courants de sensibilité qui ont jalonné l'histoire de l'Inde moderne. Elles donnent un aperçu de l'évolution et de la complexité de la littérature hindi. Une introduction substantielle les situe, et situe leurs auteurs, dans l'histoire politique, sociale et culturelle du siècle écoulé, de l'époque coloniale à l'indépendance et aux défis de la modernité. Une plongée dans un univers poétique et humain à la fois exotique et familier. Ce titre ouvre une nouvelle collection consacrée aux littératures du sous-continent indien.

Workplace Aggressive Behaviors: Three Essays

Abstract¦This thesis examines through three essays the role of the social context and of people concern for justice in explaining workplace aggressive behaviors.¦In the first essay, I argue that a work group instrumental climate - a climate emphasizing respect of organizational procedures -deters employees to manifest counterproductive work behaviors through informal sanctions (i.e., socio-emotional disapproval) they anticipate from it for misbehaving. A contrario, a work group affective climate - a climate concerned about others' well-being - leads employees to infer less informal sanctions and thus indirectly facilitates counterproductive work behaviors. I additionally expect these indirect effects to be conditional on employees' level of conscientiousness and agreeableness. Cross-level structural equations on cross-sectional data obtained from 158 employees in 26 work groups supported my expectations. By promoting collective responsibility for the respect of organizational rules and by knowing what their work group considers threatening their well-being, leaders may be able to prevent counterproductive work behaviors.¦Adopting an organizational justice perspective, the second essay provides a theoretical explanation of why and how collective deviance can emerge in a collective. In interdependent situations, employees use justice perceptions to infer others' cooperative intent. Even if moral transgressions (e.g., injustice) are ambiguous, their repetition and configuration within a team can lead employees to assign blame and develop collective cynicism toward the transgressor. Over time, collective cynicism - a shared belief about the transgressor's intentional lack of integrity - progressively constrains the diversity of employees' response to blame and leads collective deviance to emerge. This essay contributes to workplace deviance research by offering a theoretical framework for investigations of the phenomenon at the collective level. It organizations effort to manage and prevent deviance should consider.¦In the third essay, I solve an apparent contradiction in the literature showing that justice concerns sometimes lead employees to react aggressively to injustice and sometimes to refrain from it. Drawing from just-world theory, a cross-sectional field study and an experiment provide evidence that retaliatory tendencies following injustice are moderated by personal and general just-world beliefs. Whereas a high personal just-world belief facilitates retaliatory reactions to injustice, a high general just-world belief attenuates such reactions. This essay uncovers a dark side of personal just-world belief and a bright one of general just-world belief, and participates to extend just-world theory to the working context.

Women in leadership: Three essays

GENDER EMPOWERMENT: EFFECTS OF GODS, GEOGRAPHY, AND GDP¦Fenley, M., & Antonakis, J.¦ABSTRACT¦We examined the determinants of women's empowerment in the economy and political leadership in 178 countries. Given the androcentric nature of most religions, we hypothesized that high degrees of country-level theistic belief create social conditions that impede the progression of women to power. The dependent variable was the Gender Empowerment index of the United Nations Development Program, which captures the participation of women in political leadership, management, and their share of national income. Controlling for GDP per capita as well as the fixed-effects of the dominant type of religion and legal origin and instrumenting all endogenous variables with geographic or historical variables, our results show that atheism has a significant positive effect on gender empowerment. These results are driven by the rule of law, which in addition to being a catalyst for economic development, appears to crowd-out the informal regulation of behavior due to religious norms.¦DEVELOPING WOMEN LEADERS: COMPARING A TRANSFORMATIONAL AND A CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP INTERVENTION¦Fenley, M., Jacquart, P., & Antonakis, J.¦ABSTRACT¦Along with a gender imbalance in leadership role occupancy, most leadership interventions have been conducted with samples of men. We conducted an experiment wherein we assigned female participants (n = 38, mean age = 35 years) to one of two conditions: Transformational (i.e., "standard") leadership training or charismatic leadership training. The two interventions were essentially equivalent, except that we also focused on developing the "charismatic leadership tactics" (e.g., rhetorical skills) of participants in the charismatic condition. After the interventions, we randomly assigned participants into problem-solving teams that required extensive interaction. Each team had an equal number of participants having received transformational training or charismatic training. At the end of the team exercises, participants rated each of their team members on a leadership prototypicality measure. Results indicated that those who received charismatic training scored higher (a) on prototypicality (standardized  = .42) and (b) on a test of declarative knowledge of charismatic rhetorical strategies (i.e., a manipulation check, standardized  = .76). Furthermore, the score on the test fully mediated the effect of the treatment on prototypicality (standardized indirect  = .32). We discuss the importance and practical implications of these results.¦CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMEN IN A MALE SEX-TYPE WORK ENVIRONMENT: EVIDENCE FROM A FIELD EXPERIMENT IN EUROPEAN ATHLETICS¦Fenley, M.¦ABSTRACT¦Most sports organizations have a similar gender gap in leadership as do the majority of non-sport organizations. Women's careers sputter somewhere at coaching level positions and few women obtain top leadership positions. Greater awareness of gender inequalities in general, and in leadership in particular, could decrease gender discrimination and increase women's presence at upper levels. The goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of an intervention using an online gender awareness exercise. Participants (n = 1,001 participants, n = 32 countries) were randomly assigned to one of eight conditions in a 2 (a discriminating perspective-taking story or a non-discriminating perspective-taking story) by 2 (gender quiz or no gender quiz) by 2 (diversity quiz or no diversity quiz) factorial design. The results show that the online perspective taking exercise changed initial sexist attitudes. Participants having taken a diversity quiz had less sexist attitudes (as measured by the Modern- and Old-fashioned sexism scale) than did participants who did not take the diversity quiz (irrespective of perspective-taking story). The combination of having taken a diversity quiz with a gender quiz had the biggest impact on attitudes for the non-discriminating story.