Research

 Peer reviewed articles in English

 Peer reviewed articles in French

Chapters in edited volumes

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Working papers

We propose a novel perspective on migration and cultural change by asking both theoretically and empirically - and from a global viewpoint - whether migration makes home and host countries culturally more similar. Our theoretical model derives distinctive testable predictions as to the sign and direction of cultural convergence for various compositional and cultural diffusion mechanisms. We use the World Value Survey for 1981-2014 to build time-varying measures of cultural similarity for a large number of country pairs and exploit within country-pair variation over time. Our results support migration-based cultural convergence, with cultural remittances as its main driver.

A longstanding debate opposes two mechanisms by which labor coercion persists or changes to free labor: a labor demand effect, by which the elite coerces labor when supply is scarce, and an outside option effect, by which labor scarcity and better outside options for the workers undermine coercive arrangements. Using a novel data set of roll-call votes on 1884-1888 emancipation bills in the Brazilian legislature, we find that both mechanisms played a role in building the coalition that eventually abolished slavery. 

We introduce a dynamic model that investigates the persistence and evolution of elite-dominated societies, where inherited political capital determines one's social standing. Our analysis highlights the critical role of the distribution of exit options in the evolution of political inclusiveness across generations. An elite comparatively more mobile than the masses generally entrenches a politically stratified society, whereas a more widespread distribution of exit options can encourage inclusiveness. Under certain conditions differential mobility may still induce political inclusiveness across generations. Exit options across different political entities lead to a joint evolution of local power structures.

 With a global security infrastructure that deters interstate wars, states establish a reputation of resolve by supporting rebellions abroad. Co-ethnicity, in particular, is used as a narrative by states who want to establish their international reputation: i) with more co-ethnic groups in neighboring countries, a state is more likely to support a given co-ethnic rebellion, and ii) ethnic groups whose potential foreign sponsor state count more co-ethnic groups in the neighboring countries benefit from higher political inclusion. The first relationship shows that states intentionally seek to build their reputation and the second result shows that such a strategy is effective. With a data set composed of 280,354 ethnic identity x sponsor state x target state x year observations, our empirical results lend credence to the reputation-building mechanism as a determinant of the support to rebellions abroad.