Work in progress

"NATO culture: Political and cultural effects of U.S. military presence" (with Abel François and Pierre-Guillaume Méon)

"US go home! Economic impact of foreign military bases" (with Abel François)

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of foreign military bases on the economy. Leveraging the temporary presence of NATO bases in France and their sudden closures in 1966, we evaluate the short- and long-run effects of this demand shock on dynamics of population growth. Using a panel of 34,473 municipalities, we use a synthetic event-study approach to estimate the dynamic effects of base openings and closures on the population growth of affected municipalities. Our results indicate that municipalities within 25 km of a base experienced a 0.33pp increase in population growth due to base openings while their closure decreased population growth by 0.23pp in the short-run, suggesting that the temporary presence of NATO bases in France had a transitory effect on local economic attractiveness. This result is robust to tests for spatial spillovers, spatial correlation of standard errors, alternative buffer sizes and doubly-robust estimators. Investigating mechanisms, we find that short-run effects are driven by bases that hosted more troops and contributed more to local consumption, while in the longer-run employment effects dominate. The reduction in population growth following base closures is partly explained by an increase in out-migration of employees and blue-collar workers, suggesting heterogeneous labor market impacts.

Other projects

"Does strategic voting payoff? Evidence from the US Senate, 1911-2013"

Abstract: It is often assumed that politicians act strategically to further their political careers, but little is known of the effectiveness of such strategies. In the U.S. Senate, roll calls are held in alphabetical order, which induces patterns of strategic voting. This paper exploits the quasi-experimental setting of the US Senate to estimate the impact of strategic voting on the election outcomes of incumbent senators. Using an instrumental variable strategy where the probability of senators deviating from the party line on roll call votes is instrumented by their relative position in the alphabetical order, this paper examines whether strategic deviations impact the probability of re-election of incumbent senators. The results indicate that on average, strategic deviations have a large negative effect on senators’ chances of re-election. These effects are however predominantly driven by minority party senators, who put their party at greater risk when deviating. Conversely, majority party senators increased their re-election probability through strategic deviations. Adjusting for selection into candidacy, I document a positive effect of strategically deviating on re-election unconditional on running.