The PRIMOFOOD project aims to innovate in modelling the effect of food prices on household purchasing behaviour. It is in line with axis 1.5 of the AAPG2019 "Food and Food Systems". The proposed innovations will allow for a better assessment of the effectiveness and distributive effects of nutritional taxation policies. The identification of price effects can be based either on the econometric analysis of existing market data or on the analysis of experimental data generated in lab. Econometric methods may have limited internal validity, while experimental methods have questionable external validity. Our project therefore proposes to address the respective weaknesses of these two methods and, beyond that, to exploit their complementarities. WP1 will develop innovative experimental analyses of price effects. First, using innovative protocols, we will analyze the effect of large price changes, similar to the levels used in micro-simulations of pricing policies, but much larger than the changes observed in market data. The objective is to identify possible salience and reference price effects, which can induce non-linearities and discontinuities in consumer reactions to prices. We will also test the potential complementarities between pricing policies and nutritional labelling of the NutriScore type. We will also study the effects of social norm, cognitive load, and the existence of opportunity costs. WP2 will develop a structural econometric model of quality and quantity demand under multiple constraints. Beyond the usual budget constraint, the model will include a nutritional intake constraint, with possible extension to multiple linear constraints. The objective is to reflect that the choices of some households are constrained by the need to ensure a minimum of energy intake, or for some potentially addictive goods (alcohol and sugar). This econometric modelling work poses various theoretical and practical challenges. The empirical work will use Kantar WorldPanel scanner data on the consumption of non-alcoholic drinks by French households, and will aim in particular to identify the existence of effects of sugar habituation. WP3 will aim to show the possibility of evaluating the ex-ante evaluation of pricing policies by a micro-simulation of taxation policies based on a model that integrates the outcomes of the two work packages. We will first cross-validate the experimental and econometric methods, comparing the econometric approach with the data generated in the experiments. This will allow us to identify opportunities to improve the specifications of the econometric model, an improvement that will be implemented by a Bayesian method. Finally, we will carry out micro-simulations based on the case of the taxation of sweetened drinks, which has been in place in France since 2012. This will allow us to better characterize the effectiveness of this tax, as well as its distributive and welfare impacts on the various socio-economic segments of the population. PRIMOFOOD provides methodological contributions to the scientific communities and to important public policy issues. The team includes researchers covering the spectrum of issues addressed, from fundamental methodological issues to public policy expertise. The project proposes an international approach, with the ambition of replicating part of the work on American data, with a view to comparing food systems. Finally, the project will produce tools to better understand the links between the long-term dynamics of price changes and the sustainability of food systems.

In the last four decades, China, has experienced exceptional economic growth; its share of global GDP has increased from less than 4% in 1978 to about 20% in 2015. This record growth has moved China from a relatively poor, underdeveloped country to the world’s leading emerging economy. However, due to the lack of national balance sheet data and individual income tax records, relatively little is known about the evolution of income and wealth distribution within China. We know little about how much different sectors or income classes have benefited from China’s growth, as well as the mechanisms driving the inequality trend. Combining national accounts, survey, wealth and fiscal data, this proposed research project aims to address this gaps in literature by: i) providing consistent series on the accumulation and distribution of income and wealth in China in both national and provincial level over the period of 1978-2015, and ii) investigate the potential mechanisms driving the inequality trend. In particular, I will carefully examine three important yet understudied channels which drive the inequality trends in China and its neighboring emerging countries since 1978, namely; privatization, the rising capital share in total income, and the openness of economies to trade and foreign direct investment. This research project follows the literature concerning the long-run evolution of the distribution of income and wealth. In order to be able to compare findings for China with existing inequality studies for other countries, I will build a harmonized framework following the Distributional National Accounts (DINA) guidelines for analyzing aggregated national wealth and inequality. Through four related studies, this proposed project will provide insights into a fundamental question - how can economic growth and inequality be reconciled? The answer for this question could then be used as a reference for any country searching for a better economic development model.

CLIMEX will bring to the market an innovative commercial product based on the research output of the FET research Project DOLFINS, i.e. the “Climate-Finance Stress-testing”. The innovation will narrow the gap between our prior top level research and the market. By delivering a B2B commercial tool for financial risk managers, CLIMEX will allow them to price climate risks in their portfolio management strategies, thus filling in an existing gap on the market. In particular, our innovation will provide detailed quantitative information about the exposure to climate risks of individual firms and financial institutions’ portfolios, thus allowing them to improve their business and environmental performance. To achieve this goal, CLIMEX designs a 12-months Commercialization Roadmap that pursues a patenting and a start-up strategy and a commercialization strategy, and delivers a website and Software as a Service demo, together with targeted dissemination events with key private and public finance stakeholders with whom the CLIMEX consortium has already engaged in a business dialogue. CLIMEX’s disruptive positioning on the market is achieved by combining cutting-edge scientific competence across three domains in which the CLIMEX members are international leaders, (i.e. models of risk and contract valuation in financial networks, environmental economics, Software as a Service demos) and their knowledge and know-how when it comes to implement the methods on actual clients’ portfolios. The consortium will have access to professional advise on technology transfer via a dedicated organization at the coordinator node, as well as support from experienced entrepreneurs in the field of fintech.