Behavioral paradigms
Managers: Nadia MAÏZI, Edi ASSOUMOU, Hélène LE CADRE
François BRIENS is pursuing his thesis, which began at the end of 2011, on the critical prospective analysis of degrowth as a bridging project towards frugal affluent societies. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the supremacy of economic growth as an end in itself or as a condition necessary for “development” seems to be questioned more and more. Sparking growing interest and lively discussions, the ideas of “Degrowth” or “growth opposition” have quickly spread and have acquired a certain notoriety.
The first phase in the research project undertaken within the CMA allowed essential ideas from this “matrix” of alternatives to be extracted, both from a “physical” and “cultural” review of growth. Through an original transdisciplinary but mainly macroeconomic approach, the aim of the project at present is to investigate the possible implications of degrowth scenarios.
We are interested for example in potential obstacles such a process is likely to force on its possible macroeconomic dynamics etc.
As for Thomas LE GALLIC, he began research in December 2013 on exploring advances in lifestyles in energy-climate prospective exercises, under the supervision of Nadia MAÏZI and Edi ASSOUMOU. Here it involves offering a methodological development in view of understanding the socioeconomic reality of disruption hypotheses associated with lifestyle. This will enhance representations of socioeconomic mutations, often lacking in classic prospective exercises, and exploit rarely explored transition hypotheses due to the lack of adapted tools or methods. Because lifestyles depict behaviors that are essential deciding factors of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions (relating, for example, to consumption methods, the relationship to space and time, types of leisure activities, mobility habits or cohabitation habits). This thesis is carried out in partnership with ACTeon, a consulting and research firm in environment policy.
The CMA is continuing its reflections on the issue of the instability of households faced with CO2 emission reduction options in the coming decades. This research was initiated by Jean Michel CAYLA’s work on integrating the behavior of households in the long-term approach, in the context of his thesis defended on March 3, 2011 called “Households under the carbon constraint. Prospective modeling exercise of residential and transport sectors with TIMES". Supervised by Nadia MAÏZI, J-M. CAYLA developed a TIMES type bottom-up optimization model concerning the residential and transport sectors: TIMES-households, and integrating a highly disintegrated representation of households providing a greater reliability than the classic approach based on the representation of an average household. This achievement is based on exploiting an original survey, developed by J-M. CAYLA and conducted with 2000 households, crossing energy consumption behaviors in residential and transport uses for the first time. This research meant constraints endured by households and their trade-offs regarding energy, between cost and comfort could be reported. The effectiveness of establishing a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and its association with targeted subsidies limits the distorted impact on household budgets. This research appeared in several publications.
Carrying on from this research, Elena STOLYAROVA prepared a thesis called “Modeling the energy consumption of households and economic strategies” supervised by Nadia MAÏZI and Hélène LE CADRE, in collaboration with EDF R&D.
The aim of this research is to understand households’ behavior faced with energy management and in particular their economic strategies, individual or national. Elena began her research by analyzing household preferences and their behavior faced with energy choices based on discrete choice econometric models. They should be enhanced by the notion of comfort in the home to take the energy quantity model that each household decides to consume into account. This approach should be deployed in the specific case of the renovation market, a market characterized by the existence of a certain number of small local monopolies whose behavior impedes the realization of policies to promote energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
