Stéphane Carcillo

I am an economist specializing in labor market developments and policies. I conduct research on the role of labor regulations such as employment protection, working hours, labor costs, and unemployment insurance, as well as the impact of employment policies such as hiring subsidies, training, and youth programs.  I recently published a book on discrimination and have ongoing research projects on the same topic.

Current positions:  

• Head of the Jobs and Income Division at the OECD

• Associated Professor and Researcher at Sciences Po, Paris

• Research Fellow at IZA - Insitute of Labor Economics, Bonn

• Chair of the French minimum wage commission

Research interests: Labor economics,  Macroeconomics, Public policy, Microeconometrics

Research publications: Google scholar citations

Contact: stephane.carcillo@oecd.org

Handbook on Labour Markets in Transition: Promoting Resilience in a World in Flux, co-edited with Stefano Scarpetta,.

This Handbook provides an insightful analysis of how long-term transformations are impacting labour markets globally. It argues for a proactive approach to market regulation that promotes mobility by anticipating labour market needs and disruptions before they become crises.

The authors examine the profound impacts of digital, demographic and green transitions within global markets, emphasising the need to address structural inequalities caused by phenomena such as the gender pay gap and the falling labour supply. The Handbook comprises both original empirical analysis and a systematic review of literature, painting a well-rounded picture of historical, current and future labour landscapes. Ultimately, this timely Handbook stresses how crucial it is for educational systems and labour market policies to adapt more dynamically to the rapid pace of change.

Combating LGBTphobia in Schools: Evidence from a Field Experiment in France,  with Marie-Anne Valfort and Pedro Vergara Merino.

This paper presents the first rigorous evaluation of school-based interventions aimed at reducing LGBTphobia. We focus on a classroom intervention that addresses the issue of LGBT harassment through perspective-taking and narrative exchange. Using a field experiment in France with more than 10,000 middle and high school students, we find robust evidence of strong positive effects, with variations across gender, age, and socioeconomic status. We argue that changing perceptions of group norms is a key channel driving these heterogeneous effects. 

The main highlights are the following: 

• Effective School-Based LGBTphobia Intervention: Large-scale randomized trial in France evaluates SOS Homophobie's intervention to reduce anti-LGBT discrimination in schools.

• Impact of Perspective-Taking approach: Classroom sessions using empathy and counter-stereotypic imaging lead to increased awareness and reduced taboos around LGBT issues.

• Social Norms and Attitude Shifts: Findings show that shifting students' perceptions of social norms in the classroom plays a crucial role in the effectiveness of the intervention.

• Gender and Socioeconomic Differences: The intervention showed varying effects based on gender, age, and socio-economic background, with girls and older students benefiting the most.

• Policy Implications for School Programs: Results emphasize the need for repeated interventions and tailored approaches to address peer group dynamics in fighting LGBTphobia in schools.

Low-wage employment in France: A cross-country perspective,  with C. Barreto,  J. Fluchtmann , A. Georgieff, A. Hijzen, D. Pacifico, E.-J. Pearsall, and A. Puymoyen ,OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers No. 313.

This study investigates factors favouring a possible "smicardisation" of French workers - the process of an increasing coverage of workers at the minimum wage. First, the minimum wage is relatively high in France compared with other countries, with the result that a large number of workers are close to it. Second, low wages reflect less the characteristics of firms or sectors than the low skills of workers, the resolution of which requires appropriate education and training policies, effective over the long-term. Finally, an analysis of tax and benefit systems highlights the existence of potential low-wage trap mechanisms, which are particularly significant in France compared to other countries. Nevertheless, analysis of individual trajectories shows that it is no more difficult for low-wage workers to climb the wage ladder in France than in the other selected countries.

Assessing the impact of the compensation scale for unfair dismissal, (Evaluation de l’impact du barème d’indemnisation du licenciement sans cause réelle et sérieuse), with  Pierre Cahuc , Pauline Carry, Flavien Moreau and Bérengère Patault 

This report analyzes the effects of the compensation scale for unfair dismissal introduced in France by Presidential Ordinance in 2017. This scale defines a ceiling and a floor that increase with the employee's seniority. We use a new database obtained by systematically collecting all Court of Appeal decisions from January 1, 2006 to July 31, 2022, i.e. 259,608 decisions. The analysis reveals that the ceiling of the scale was lower than the average compensation before the introduction of the scale for employees with less than 5 years' seniority at the time of dismissal. Following the introduction of the scale, we note a drop in the average amount and dispersion of compensation for this type of dismissal. However, when all secondary indemnities (e.g. for back pay) are taken into account, we no longer see a drop in the total amount of compensation. There is also an increase in the number of dismissals deemed null and void, for which compensation is significantly higher than for dismissals without real and serious cause. This growth in the number of dismissals deemed null and void implies that the average amount of compensation associated with all dismissals without fair cause and null and void did not fall after the introduction of the scale. However, these results may be influenced by composition effects. Indeed, as the reform is recent, a significant proportion of cases involving longer delays have not yet been judged.

Fighting homophobia and transphobia in schools, with Marie-Anne Valfort and Pedro Vergara Merino.

Anti-LGBTI+ harassment in schools is a worldwide problem. Several OECD countries support civil society organisations working directly with students to raise awareness about LGBTI+ inclusion in classroom sessions lasting a few hours. However, a rigorous impact assessment has never been conducted on any of these interventions. This policy brief presents the results of a groundbreaking randomised control trial conducted in the Paris region of France from 2018 to 2022 with over 10 000 students aged 13-18 to measure the impact of sessions by SOS homophobie, the main French association in the fight against anti-LGBTI+ discrimination and violence. The results reveal it is possible to sustainably improve students' receptiveness to LGBTI+ inclusion during two hours of structured but totally open discussion. 

Income support for jobseekers: Trade-offs and current reforms with Emily Farchy, Raphaela Hyee, doardo Magalini, Olga Rastrigna & Andrea Salvatori.

Unemployment benefits (UBs) play a vital role in insuring individuals against income shocks and stabilising aggregate demand during times of crisis. Recent labour market upheavals, as well as new insights emerging from research, have highlighted the need for more tailored benefit systems, able to deliver timely benefits in a worker-centred, recession-ready way.

Judge Bias in Labor Courts and Firm Performance with Pierre Cahuc, Bérengère Patault and Flavien Moreau

This paper documents the existence of judge-specific differences on granting compensation for wrongful dismissal and shows that their consequences are different  for small low-performing firms than for other firms. Pro-worker judge bias reduces job creation for all firms, increases the destruction of permanent jobs in small and low-performing firms but reduces it in large high-performing firms. Pro-worker bias reduces employment and survival for small and low-performing firms but has no significant effects on these outcomes for the other firms. The probability that permanent incumbent workers keep their job in firms judged by a pro-worker judge increases in large and high-performing firms while it decreases in small, poorly performing firms.

The Difficult School-to-Work Transition of High School Dropouts: Evidence from a field experiment, with Pierre Cahuc and Andreea Minea

This paper investigates the effects of the labor market experience of high school dropouts four years after leaving school by sending fictitious résumés to real job postings in France. Compared to those who have stayed unemployed since leaving school, the callback rate is not raised for those with employment experience, whether it is subsidized or non-subsidized, if there is no training accompanied by skill certification. We find no stigma effect associated with subsidized work experience. Moreover, training accompanied by skill certification improves youth prospects only when the local unemployment rate is sufficiently low, which occurs in one fifth of the commuting zones only.

The Effectiveness of Hiring Credits, with Pierre Cahuc and Thomas Le Barbanchon

This article analyses the effectiveness of hiring credits. Using comprehensive administrative data, we show that the French hiring credit, implemented during the Great Recession, had significant positive employment effects and no effects on wages. Relying on the quasi-experimental variation in labour cost triggered by the hiring credit, we estimate a structural search and matching model. Simulations of counterfactual policies show that the effectiveness of the hiring credit relied to a large extent on three features: it was non-anticipated, temporary and targeted at jobs with rigid wages. We estimate that the cost per job created by permanent hiring credits, either countercyclical or time-invariant, in an environment with flexible wages would have been much higher.

The Detaxation of Overtime Hours: Lessons from the French Experiment, with Pierre Cahuc

In October 2007, France introduced an exemption on the income tax and social security contributions that applied to wages received for hours worked overtime. The goal of the policy was to increase the number of hours worked. This article shows that this reform has had no significant impact on hours worked. Conversely, it has had a positive impact on the overtime hours declared by highly qualified wage earners, who have opportunities to manipulate the overtime hours they declare in order to optimize their tax situation since the hours they work are difficult to verify.

Labor Economics, with Pierre Cahuc and André Zylberberg

This graduate-level textbook combines depth and breadth of coverage with recent, cutting-edge work in all the major areas of modern labor economics. It incorporates examples drawn from many countries, and it presents empirical methods using contributions that have proved to be milestones in labor economics.

This edition devotes more space to the analysis of public policy and the levers available to policy makers, with new chapters on such topics as discrimination, globalization, income redistribution, employment protection, and the minimum wage or labor market programs for the unemployed. 

Discrimination at Work: Women, Ethnicity, Religion, Age, Appearance, LGBT, with Marie-Anne Valfort

Winner of the 2020 Prize of the Best Book on the World of Labour (“Experts” category) awarded by Le Toit Citoyen.

Discrimination arises at levels in the labor market.  The causes, cost and extent of discrimination at work are the subject of much academic research worldwide. This innovative book presents a synthesis of their results and identifies programs and policies that work in combating discrimination for a wide range of social groups: women, seniors, LGBT people, ethnic and religious minorities, and people challenged because of their physical appearance.

The Sorting Machine: How France Divides its Youth, with Pierre Cahuc, Olivier Galland and André Zylberberg

The French youth is cut in half, some succeed while others do not. Why ? This break is the result of an elitist system in which school and the labor market serve as sorting machines. As a result, the weakest are relentlessly eliminated. Put aside, they tend to desert the ballot boxes and to renounce the foundations of democracy. This severe diagnosis established by the authors in the two previous editions of The Sorting Machine has unfortunately remained the same: the situation of young French has still not improved. This new and fully updated edition confirms the persistent difficulties of youth, refutes the idea of a destiny common to a generation and sets out a radical revision of our integration model.

Skills for Disadvantaged Youth: Lessons from the U.S.

In France, nearly 120,000 young people leave school early without any qualification for lack of early interventions and adapted methods. Analyzing what, in American policies and programs, from school to work, has proved to be the most lastingly effective, this book proposes a radically new approach to invest in young people.

Improving Unemployment Insurance, with Pierre Cahuc

Compensating at best unemployment spells while limiting their duration: this is the very purpose of unemployment insurance. Far from fulfilling this mission, the French system operates a large-scale redistribution between sectors of activity and salary levels. It is of limited effectiveness, promotes job instability and generates high unemployment. However, we can limit these transfers and the optimization behaviors they encourage. To this aim, the system must strengthen individual incentives to keep stable jobs and accept available job offers, while ensuring a tight coordination between insurance payments and active support for job seekers.

Published by Presses de Sciences Po (2014)