The future implications of the current structure of the French economy: A general equilibrium growth accounting framework[Les implications futures de la structure actuelle de l’économie française : un cadre de comptabilité en équilibre général de la croissance]

The consideration of this article is that it is pivotal for economic policy to have a framework that enables first to understand the determinants of growth and their respective weights, and then to examine prospectively the isolated (i.e., all other variables being equal) or aggregate impact of economic policy on potential growth. We have improved the precision of this framework by distinguishing between global, technological and human progress, by considering intermediate consumption (IC), and by dividing French economy into three productive sectors (including the ICT sector). We calibrated the model using a newly constructed dataset researchers may find useful. The results inform that, given its economic characteristics, France's potential growth is stagnant (0,11 %) and essentially (around 2/3) intensive explained by global progress and ICT-sector specific advances. The extensive part is due to capital deepening. Assessing the impact on potential growth of a number of variables that are central to economic policy, we obtain that TFP, whose contribution to potential growth was nil over the period studied, has the highest growth multiplier coefficient (slightly over 1). Within the typology of progress, the one passing through IC has the highest impact on growth (coefficient of 0.2).