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Tunisia has one of the highest unemployment rates within the Middle East and Central Asia. We look at the extent to which institutional factors explain those high unemployment levels. We also assess unemployment cyclicality, by looking at the determinants of labor market sensitivity to the output gap. We find that during the last decade the deterioration of institutional factors that affect labor demand explain not only about a quarter of the unemployment rate increase in Tunisia, but also Tunisia’s excess sensitivity of unemployment to the output gap. Our results suggest that an improved business environment and product market competition, increased labor market flexibility as well as reduced financial constraints and informality would help reduce Tunisia’s unemployment.

North African economies are characterized by a significant share of informal activity and employment. About two-thirds of workers in North Africa operate without any formal arrangement and social protection, and about 30 percent of GDP is estimated to be produced by informal workers and firms. This paper finds that while a few key structural characteristics could explain “normal” informality in North Africa, policy distortions explain a large share of excess informality. Among the structural factors that can lead to high informality, the relatively lower level of human capital and younger population help explain the high informality in the region, as low-skilled and young people generally find it more difficult to operate in the formal sector. At the same time, gaps in a set of policy indicators also explain the relatively high informality in North Africa. In particular, this paper finds that gaps in the quality of governance explain about half of the excess informality experienced in North Africa compared with advanced economies. In this context, the expansion of the informal sector in Algeria and Tunisia from the mid-2000s partially reflects the deterioration in a few indicators of their governance and regulatory frameworks. In contrast, the decline in informality observed in Egypt, Mauritania, and Morocco over this period also reflects improved business regulations, governance, and tax systems, in addition to continued progress in economic development. While informality has traditionally buffered regional labor markets against the impact of recessions, the COVID-19 crisis has been different. North African economies have generally exhibited relatively stable unemployment rates, including during recessions, largely owing to their high levels of informality. However, informal employment has fallen significantly in North Africa during the pandemic, as lockdown measures have particularly affected high-informality service sectors. As the pandemic subsides and the lockdown measures are removed, the recovery of regional labor markets could exhibit a stronger-than-usual rebound of informal employment. Ensuring an inclusive recovery from the pandemic would call for renewed efforts to construct more modern (digitalized), more efficient, and fairer systems of social protection, building on the progress achieved in the region during the pandemic in extending safety nets to informal workers.

Cette thèse est consacrée à l'étude de l'impact des annonces macroéconomiques françaises et américaines, sur le marché d'actions français. La démarche suivie consiste à combiner des approches théoriques et empiriques de façon à mettre en évidence empiriquement les canaux de transmission économiques, par lesquels les annonces macroéconomiques peuvent agir sur les marchés boursiers. Le premier volet consiste à étudier l'impact des annonces portant sur l'économie réelle sur les principales caractéristiques du marché boursier, à savoir la rentabilité et la volatilité. D'après les résultats obtenus, l'impact des annonces macroéconomiques passe par une revalorisation -parfois simultanée- des différentes composantes théoriques des rentabilités boursières. En outre, l'impact des annonces passe non seulement par un effet direct sur le marché boursier français, mais il résulte aussi d'une transmission de la volatilité du marché américain vers le marché français. Le second volet est consacré à l'étude de l'impact des annonces de politique monétaire de la Fed et de la BCE sur le marché boursier français, selon les cycles financiers. D'après les résultats obtenus, la réaction du marché boursier français est plus marquée pendant les périodes de déclin que pendant les périodes de hausse. Il s'avère, en outre, que l'impact de la politique monétaire américaine sur le marché boursier français transite en partie par la prime de risque. La présente thèse a ainsi apporté de nouveaux résultats par rapport à la littérature et a montré que l'impact des annonces macroéconomiques sur les marchés boursiers est complexe et nécessite d'aller au-delà des études d'événements classiques.