Covid-19
Current project: COV-POP
Joint with François Ric (Laboratoire de Psychologie de l'Université de Bordeaux, LabPsy), Alice Follenfant (LabPsy), Baptiste Subra (LabPsy), Florence Jusot (Université Paris-Dauphine)
COV-POP: Comportements et bien-être des populations en temps de crise COVID-19
Ce projet, financé par la Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine, vise à comprendre les implications comportementales de la crise, les conséquences en termes de bien-être et le rôle clé des politiques publiques. Il s'agit d'étudier trois types de comportements et la façon dont ils sont affectés par la crise: comportements civiques (et respect de règles sanitaires), comportements de consommation et comportements électoraux. Le projet se décline en trois temps: (1) une nouvelle enquête, COV-POP, qui décrit les comportements, émotions et caractéristiques socio-économiques d'un échantillon d'environ 1000 français; (2) une série d’analyses économétriques sur des données de comportements tirées d’enquêtes larges; (3) des expérimentations en présentiel (laboratoire) ou en ligne (plateforme) pour identifier les mécanismes à l’œuvre dans les modifications comportementales observées et l’effet médiateur des émotions (comme la peur ou la colère).
COV-POP: Behavior and well-being of the population in time of COVID-19 crisis
This project, funded by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region, aims to understand the behavioral implications of the crisis, the consequences in terms of well-being, and the key role of public policies. We study three types of behavior and how they are affected by the crisis: civic behavior (and respect for health rules), consumption behavior and electoral behavior. The project is divided into three phases: (1) a new survey, COV-POP, that measures behaviors, emotions and socio-economic characteristics of a sample of around 1000 French individuals; (2) a series of econometric analyses of behavioral data from large surveys; (3) face-to-face (laboratory) or online (platform) experiments to identify the mechanisms at work in the observed behavioral changes and the mediating effect of emotions (such as fear or anger).
Past projects
(joint with my PhD student Ulugbek Aminjonov)
trust_compliance.pdfTrust and Compliance to Public Health Policies in Time of COVID-19
Published in the Journal of Public Economics
While degraded trust and cohesion within a country are often shown to have large socio-economic impacts, they can also have dramatic consequences when compliance is required for collective survival. We illustrate this point in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. Policy responses all over the world aim to reduce social interaction and limit contagion. Using data on human mobility and political trust at regional level in Europe, we examine whether the compliance to these containment policies depends on the level of trust in policy makers prior to the crisis. Using a double difference approach around the time of lockdown announcements, we find that high-trust regions decrease their mobility related to non-necessary activities significantly more. We also exploit country and time variation in treatment using the daily strictness of national policies. The efficiency of policy stringency in terms of mobility reduction is significantly higher in high-trust regions. The trust effect is nonlinear and increases with the degree of stringency. Finally, we find that the impact of trust on mobility potentially translates in a substantial decrease of the mortality growth rate.
Poverty and COVID-19 in developing countries
Published in World DevelopmentSee live presentation of the paper at UNU WIDER webinar series
Strict containment is hardly achievable in low-income countries, as large parts of population are forced to continue income-generating activities to escape extreme poverty or hunger. To assess the trade-off between poverty and a higher risk of COVID-19 prevalence, we use regional mobility to work and poverty rates across 241 regions of 9 countries from Latin America and Africa. With a difference-in-difference approach around the time of lockdown announcements, we measure the differential time variation in work mobility between high and low-poverty regions. We find that the degree of work mobility reduction is significantly driven by the intensity of poverty. Consistently, human movements vary significantly more between poverty levels when it come to work rather than less vital activities. We also estimate how higher poverty rates translate into a faster spread of COVID-19 cases through the channel of work mobility.
poverty_covid.pdf