Research

Research areas


Publications

"Promotion Determinants in Corporate Hierarchies: An Examination of Fast Tracks and Functional Area", 2018, Research in Labor Economics, 46, pp. 73-106, with C. Belzil and M. Bognanno

"Citizens’ Preferences about Voting Rules: Self-Interest, Ideology, and Sincerity", 2015, Public Choice, 164 (3), pp. 423-442, with A. Blais, J.F. Laslier and K. Van Der Straeten

"Updating Beliefs with Uninformative Signals: Experimental Evidence", 2012, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 44 (3), pp. 219-241, with J. Rosaz and B. Roussillon

Alternative version here

"Education and Early Career Outcomes of Second-Generation Immigrants in France", 2010, Labour Economics, 17 (1), pp. 101-110, with C. Belzil

Alternative version here

Working papers

"The (Option-)Value of Overstaying", 2023, CESifo Working Paper No. 10536, with R. Méango


Abstract: The paper is structured around three main contributions. First, it takes advan- tage of a unique survey on Afghan asylum seekers in Germany to provide novel descriptive insights into asylum seekers’ beliefs about their outcomes and the as- sociated intention to overstay. Second, it estimates asylum seekers’ perceived ex ante returns on overstaying, and option values of regularisation, deportation, and experimentation. Third, it assesses and rejects the cost-effectiveness argument for assisted voluntary return policies. Instead, it estimates a sizeable willingness-to-pay of asylum seekers for investments that would guarantee their regularisation.

"Estimating Coherency between Survey Data and Incentivized Experimental Data", 2021, IZA Discussion Paper 14594, with C. Belzil and J. Pernaudet

Last version here
Abstract: Imagine the situation in which an econometrician can infer the distribution of welfare gains induced by the provision of higher education financial aid using survey data obtained from a set of individuals, and can estimate the same distribution using a highly incentivized field experiment in which the same set of individuals participated. In the experimental setting relying on incentivized choices, making the wrong decision can be costly. In the survey, the stakes are null and reporting false intentions and expectations is costless. In this paper, we evaluate the extent to which the decomposition of the two welfare gain distributions into latent factors are coherent. We find that individuals often put a much different weight to a specific set of determinants in the experiment and in the survey and that the valuations of financial aid are rank incoherent. About 66% of Biased Incoherency (defined as the tendency to have a higher valuation rank in the experiment than in the survey) is explained by individual heterogeneity in subjective benefits, costs and other factors and about half of these factors affect the welfare gains of financial aid in the survey and in the experiment in opposite directions. Ex-ante policy evaluation of a potential expansion of the higher education financial aid system may therefore depend heavily on whether or not the data have been obtained in an incentivized context.

"Estimating a Model of Qualitative and Quantitative Education Choices in France", 2018, IZA Discussion Paper 11433, with C. Belzil


Abstract: We estimate a structural model of education choices in which individuals choose between a professional (or technical) and a general track at both high school and university levels using French panel data (Génération 98). The average per-period utility of attending general high school (about 10,000 euros per year) is 20% higher than that of professional high school (about 8000 euros per year). About 64% of total higher education enrollments are explained by this differential. At the same time, professional high school graduates would earn 5% to 6% more than general high school graduates if they both entered the labor market around age 18. The return to post-high school general education is highly convex (as in the US) and is reaped mostly toward the end of the higher education curriculum. Public policies targeting an increase in professional high school enrollments of 10 percentage points would require a subsidy of 300 euros per year of professional high school.

Old research projects

"The Dynamics of Schooling Attainments and Employment Contracts in the Early Career". Version of January 31st, 2010: here.

"Separating Risk Aversion from Psychological Traits in Schooling Decisions", with M. André, C. Belzil and K. Tatsiramos