Work in progress

Post-conflict Land Restitution and Deforestation in Colombia, with Laura Peralta (U. Strasbourg, BETA), Philippe Delacote (INRAE, BETA), Kenneth Houngbedji (U.Paris Dauphine, DIAL, IRD), Julien Jacob (BETA, University of Strasbourg  [Submitted] Link to WP

We examine the environmental impacts of legal provisions to restore land rights for populations displaced by armed conflict, focusing on Colombia’s Land Restitution Law. Leveraging annual satellite data on forest cover loss, detailed records of the timing and location of restitution claims, and a staggered difference-in-differences strategy, we find that land restitution is associated with increased tree cover loss. Importantly, this effect is not driven by deforestation in primary forests, but rather by forest loss in areas formerly used for agriculture. These findings highlight the environmental trade-offs inherent in post-conflict land reforms. While restoring land rights is critical for transitional justice and economic recovery, attention to environmental outcomes is essential to ensure sustainable and equitable reconstruction. 

Norms Behind Closed Doors: A Field Experiment on Gender Norm Misperceptions and Maternal Employment Decisions in Couples , with Monserrat Bustela (IADB), Ana Maria Diaz (U. Javeriana), and Agustina Suaya (IADB), 2025

We study whether pluralistic ignorance about societal and spousal support for maternal employment sustains gender gaps in labor outcomes. We first elicit secondorder beliefs from 1,732 cohabiting couples with young children in Bogotá. Personal support for working mothers is almost universal, yet both men and women substantially underestimate others’ support, particularly that of men. We then implement a randomized controlled trial delivering personalized information on prevailing attitudes toward maternal employment. The intervention narrowed belief gaps —raising women’s estimates of peer support and men’s perceptions of their partners’ views— while leaving first-order attitudes unchanged. Treated men were 7–8 percentage points (16 percent) more likely than men in the control group to nominate their wives for a career-building course rather than take the course for themselves; women, whose baseline demand was already high, showed no further change. Treated women intensified job-search efforts, and treated men expressed stronger preferences for work-family balance. These results reflect short-run adjustments in beliefs and reported behaviors, measured within weeks of the intervention. 

Gender norms, couples’ labor supply decisions, and flexibility in working conditions in Colombia, with Luz Magdalena Salas (U. Javeriana) and Ana Maria Diaz (U. Javeriana), 2024 

Delegation in the Household: Theory and Experimental Evidence with Couples, with Jean-Marie Baland, Catherine Guirkinger, and Roberta Ziparo 

Experiment underway

Trading Off Autonomy: How Girls and Parents Weight Education, Work, and Marriage? Evidence from a Discrete Choice Experiment in Senegal , with Frieda Vandeninden, Joseph Djafon, Mathieu Lefèbvre, 

Field work in May 2025, work in progress

Sharing the Burden or the Burden of Sharing? Intra-Family Redistribution and Personal Savings in Senegal

Social solidarity, especially within the extended family, plays a preponderant role in the context of absent efficient financial markets and low formal public redistribution. This informal redistribution may however induce distortions in resource allocation and accumulation decisions. The present paper investigates the effect of this informal redistribution within the extended family on savings decisions over the life cycle, relying on a rich nationally representative household survey collected in 2006 in Senegal. The intensity of the sharing pressure is captured on the one hand, by the exogenous number of siblings and on the other hand, by the position held among siblings, as measured by the birth rank. Over the life cycle, I find some evidence of delayed reciprocity for firstborn siblings from their younger siblings. For women, this pattern is driven by transfers for ceremonies. Firstborn men achieve lower savings stock even later in life while firstborn women hold more savings the more co-resident sisters they have, but only in savings held outside the household. This is suggestive of a strategic behavior to restrain redistributive obligations.

Sokoura, Mali