Research

WORKING PAPERS

Colonialism on the Cheap: The French Empire 1830-1962 (with Denis Cogneau, Yannick Dupraz, and Sandrine Mesplé-Somps), May 2024

Understanding Socioeconomic Gradient in Patience: Evidence from Higher Education Choices (with Mélusine Boon-Falleur and Coralie Chevallier), April 2024

Closing the Early Childhood Skills Gap for Minorities: Evidence from Parental Investments and Preschool Attendance in Concentrated Roma Communities in Bulgaria (with Paul Gertler, Joost de Laat, and Ricardo Miranda)

The Economic Origins of Cultural Values: Evidence from Self-Discipline in Medieval Europe (with Nicolas Baumard and Léo Zabrocki), June 2022

Cream skimming and the comparison between social interventions: Evidence from entrepreneurship programs for at-risk youth in France (with Bruno Crépon, Esther Duflo, William Pariente, Julien Seban, and Paul-Armand Veillon), July 2021

Emperors without Scepters: Early Colonial Leaders’Personality and Civil Conflicts (with Quoc-Anh Do, Sacha Dray, and Jean-Louis Keene), October 2020


PUBLICATIONS IN PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS

The Power of Personalised Information: Evidence from an Health Behavior Experiment (with Rita Abdel Sater, Mathieu Perona, and Coralie Chevallier), April 2023, forthcoming Behavioral Public Policy [Policy brief: JPAL]

Education, Socio-Emotional Skills, and Employment (with Yann Algan), forthcoming Annual Review of Economics  

The Role of Mindset in Education: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment in Disadvantaged Schools (with Yann Algan, Adrien Bouguen, Coralie Chevallier, and Axelle Charpentier), December 2023, accepted (with minor revisions), The Economic Journal [Policy brief: JPAL in French, JPAL in English]

Schoolgirls Not Brides: Secondary Education as a Shield Against Child Marriage (with Hélène Giacobino, Bastien Michel, and Mathilde Sage), September 2023, forthcoming American Economic Journal: Applied Economics [policy briefs: VoxDev, JPAL, World Bank Gender Inequality Lab]

The cultural evolution of love in literary history  (with Nicolas Baumard, Alexandre Hyafil and Lou Safra), March 2022,  Nature Human Behavior, 6: 506-522(2022).  

Measuring Non-Cognitive Skills in Schools: Simple Questionnaires Outperform Behavioral Tasks (with Mélusine Boon-Falleur, Adrien Bouguen, Axelle Charpentier, Yann Algan and Coralie Chevallier), Scientific Reports, 12: 142(2022). 

Sex, Lies and Measurement: Consistency tests for Indirect Response Survey Methods (with Erica Chuang, Pascaline Dupas, and Juliette Seban), Journal of Development Economics, 148 (2021) 102582.

Biased Aspirations and Social Inequality at School: Evidence from French Teenagers (with Nina Guyon), February 2021, The Economic Journal, 131(2): 745–796.

Financial Incentives, Efforts, and Performances in the Health Sector: Experimental Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo (with Juliette Seban), April 2021, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 69(3): 1115-1164. 

Risk Information, Risk Salience, and Teenagers Sexual Behavior: Experimental Evidence from Cameroon (with Pascaline Dupas and Juliette Seban), January 2018, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 145:151-175.

Willing but Not Able: Short-Term Experimental Evidence on Parent Empowerment and School Quality (with Elizabeth Beasley), June 2017, World Bank Economic Review, 31(2): 531 - 552.

The Black Man's Burden - The Cost of Colonization of French West Africa, March 2014, Journal of Economic History, 74(1): 1-38.

The Impact of European Settlement within French West Africa: Did Pre-colonial Prosperous Areas Fall Behind?, March 2011, Journal of African Economies, 20(2): 263-311.

History Matters: The Long Term Impact of Colonial Public Investments in French West Africa, April 2009, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1(2): 176-215.


BOOKS AND BOOK CHAPTERS

Economie du Savoir-Etre, avec Yann Algan, Les Presses de Sciences Po, coll. « Sécuriser l'emploi », 2022, 144 p., ISBN : 978-2-7246-3930-8. 

Viser la création d’entreprise et accéder à l’emploi : résultats inattendus d’une expérimentation, in Lutter contre les discriminations et les inégalités, ouvrage collectif sous la direction de Aude Kérivel et Samuel James, La Documentation Française, 2019

Entre mérite et inégalité : renouveler la réflexion de la gauche sur l’éducation, in La Gauche du Réel. Un progressisme pour aujourd’hui, collectif Télémaque, Editions de l’Aube, 2019

Les enfants de migrants souffrent d’un handicap à l’école : une idée reçue !, in Migrants et migrations : 50 questions pour se faire une idée, ouvrage collectif sous la direction de Hélène Thiollet, Armand Colin, 2016

Esclavage, colonisation : Quand l’histoire laisse des traces, in L’Etat du Monde 2016, ouvrage collectif, La Découverte, 2015

Transmission de la confiance entre les générations : la formation des ambitions comme facteur de la reproduction sociale, in En Quête de Confiance, ouvrage collectif, Textuel, 2013


POLICY PAPERS 

Mixité sociale au collège : premiers résultats des expérimentations menées en France (avec Julien Grenet et Youssef Souidi), Note CSEN n°9 , mai 2023

Enseignement supérieur : Pour un investissement plus juste et plus efficace (avec Gabrielle Fack), Note CAE n° 68, décembre 2021

Confiance, Coopération et Autonomie : pour une école du XXIème siècle (avec Corinne Prost et Yann Algan), Note CAE n° 48, octobre 2018 [English version here]

Impact de l'Evaluation par Compétences (avec Yann Algan, Samuel Delpeuch, Jean Constantin et Corinne Prost), Focus CAE n° 27, octobre 2018

Prévenir la Pauvreté par l'Emploi, l'Education et la Mobilité (avec Stéphane Carcillo et Yannick L'Horty), Note CAE n° 40, avril 2017 [English version here]

L’impact du programme Energie Jeunes, Rapport intermédiaire 2017 : impact sur les élèves de 5ème (joint with Yann Algan , Adrien Bouguen , Axelle Charpentier , Coralie Chevallier et Anaëlle Solnon), November 2017, Rapport d'évaluation pour le Fonds d'Expérimentation pour la Jeunesse et le Ministère de l'Education Nationale [in French]

Supporting Disadvantaged Children Enter Kindergarten: Experimental Evidence from Bulgaria (joint with Paul Gertler and Joost de Laat), June 2017, Impact Evaluation Report, The World Bank Group

L’impact du programme Energie Jeunes, Rapport intermédiaire 2016 : impact sur les élèves de 6ème (joint with Yann Algan , Adrien Bouguen , Axelle Charpentier , Coralie Chevallier et Anaëlle Solnon), November 2016, Rapport d'évaluation pour le Fonds d'Expérimentation pour la Jeunesse et le Ministère de l'Education Nationale [in French]

Les effets du dispositif Groupements de Créateurs : résultats d'une expérience contrôlée (joint with Yann Algan, Bruno Crépon, and William Parienté), September 2016, Rapport d'évaluation pour le Fonds d'Expérimentation pour la Jeunesse [in French] 

Comment lutter contre la violence et le harcèlement à l’école et au Collège ? Effets du dispositif de médiation sociale France Médiation et d’un dispositif de prise de conscience du niveau de violence (joint with Yann Algan and Nina Guyon), April 2015, Rapport d'évaluation pour le Fonds d'Expérimentation pour la Jeunesse [in French]

Choix d'orientation et origine sociale : mesurer et comprendre l'autocensure scolaire (joint with Nina Guyon), December 2014, LIEPP policy report [in French]

Effets du dispositif d'accompagnement à la création d'entreprise CréaJeunes : Résultats d'une expérience contrôlée (joint with Bruno Crépon, Esther Duflo et William Parienté), April 2014, Rapport d'évaluation pour le Fonds d'Expérimentation pour la Jeunesse [in French]

Evaluation d'impact du projet "Soutien aux Activités Génératrices de Revenus" au Maroc (joint with Bruno Crépon, Dean Karlan et William Parienté), September 2013, Policy Report for the Millenium Challenge Corporation [in French]


WORK IN PROGRESS

This paper provides evidence on the reasons why low-SES students have more modest educational aspirations than their high-SES classmates who have the same academic performance. We use lab-in-the-field experiments with about 6,000 students from 59 French middle schools to test differences in knowledge of the existing academic tracks and in academic self-esteem, as well as stereotype susceptibility and susceptibility to peers. We find that aspiration failures can come from the fact that low-SES students lack knowledge on higher education, that they perceive themselves less performant than their high-SES counterparts, and that they tend to conform to their peers.

This paper provides evidence on the impact of an intervention providing managerial capital to small entrepreneurs in Morocco. Among 1,600 firms which benefitted from access to microloans ex-ante, 700 were randomly selected to receive business training sessions (marketing, accountability, networking, etc., for a total of 40 hours more than in the control group). We find that small enterprises in urban areas did not benefit from this intervention, while agricultural cooperatives benefitted in terms of sales, profits, and personal income. The return to business training may thus be larger in contexts where initial levels of education and training are limited.

Chronic unemployment is a considerable problem in France, particularly in the poor neighborhoods. Across the so-called "Sensitive Urban Zones", 36.2 percent of men and 40.8 precent of women aged 15-24 years are unemployed. While self-employment may be a positive alternative, entrepreneurship is low in France. This paper tests the impact of a national program directed at supporting business creation for young people between ages 18 and 30 from disadvantaged neighborhoods. The program study involved 1500 individuals randomly assigned to the business training. We find no impact on business creation, nor on employment and income, suggesting that providing managerial capital and business information is not enough to encourage self-employment.

The unemployment rate in France is nearly 10 percent, but among young people aged 15-24 this rate is more than doubled. Although many programs exist to provide support labor market participation, in particular  those who have dropped out of school and live in disadvantaged areas, the best ways of supporting youth in creating or finding a job are not clear. Will young people benefit more from general information on the job market and business creation, or development of the autonomy and decision-making skills? We test a national program in which 452 randomly selected young people (out of 902 candidates) explore their motivations, strengths, and weaknesses, and to develop their initiative and autonomy. We find that the program reduced business creation from 8% down to 3%, but increased employment contracts from 31% to 38%. Personal income increased by 22%. Also, the beneficiaries depend less on social and interpersonal transfers, show higher sense of self-efficacy, higher trust in others, and higher levels of wellbeing. Mindset approaches to support labor market participation may thus be a promising avenue for public action.

This paper explores the causal impact of bullying and victimization at school on school outcomes. It uses a field experiment aimed at reducing the prevalence and intensity of violence between students in middle schools. 80 middle schools in 13 French regions took part of the study, half of which were randomly assigned to an anti-bullying program. The program was effective at reducing bullying and victimization, which provides a powerful first-stage to analyse the causal impact of violence on school outcomes.  

Our project is motivated by the increasing socio-economic inequalities in the French educational system. As existing policies have failed to reduce inequalities, it is necessary to develop new tools to tackle the issue of high social inequalities at school. This research project evaluates the impacts of a large desegregation program that has started in September 2016 in France. It relies on a difference-in-difference strategy to assess the effects of the desegregation actions: we compare cohorts benefitting from the program with older cohorts not benefitting, in both participating and non-participating middle schools. Our sample includes 197 middle schools from 20 French académies. We will first assess whether the program effectively increase social diversity at school; second, we will measure the impact of social diversity on average academic performances and social inequality; third, we will assess the impact of social diversity on social skills and perceptions of social fairness.

We measure the impact of programs designed to improve adolescent girls’ human capital in six West African countries (Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Chad), where women face among the starkest gender inequalities in the world. The interventions aim to increase access to secondary education, provide girls with information, or change cultural values related to marriage and fertility. In order to measure the impact of the interventions, we implement randomized controlled trials in collaboration with the local Governments, local NGOs, and the World Bank. We investigate the impact of the programs as well as the different mechanisms through which they can achieve (or not) greater women empowerment.