Incidence of means-tested subsidies to housing retrofit: Evidence from France (with Paul Dutronc-Postel and Étienne Fize), Draft available upon request

Abstract: We study the incidence of subsidizing housing retrofits on prices. We leverage cross- sectional and temporal variation in the main policy instrument aimed at fostering housing energy efficiency investment by French households. Two effects combine in a nontrivial way. In a difference-in-difference exercise, we show that a massive pro-poor shift in the targeting of the scheme, which becomes means-tested, translates into higher levels of activity but also higher prices overall, plausibly mediated by labor supply shortages. However, the new means- test also introduces an opportunity for price discrimination in locally rationed markets; as a consequence, poorer households who receive discontinuously higher subsidies actually face lower total price for a given renovation step than richer households. The overall incidence therefore depends on the level of local market power, the extent of price discrimination, and labor market tensions.

Hidden distribution in lifetime earnings: the role of differential mortality (with Simon Rabaté and Maxime Tô),  IFS working paper

Abstract: Differences in life expectancy between gender and income groups are large and generate significant implicit redistribution in lifetime earnings through pension systems. We use administrative data on the universe of private sector wage earners in France to quantify these effects. We establish two main results. In terms of between gender redistribution, we find that differential mortality – life expectancy at 55 is 5.7 years higher among women than among men – reduces lifetime income inequality between men and women: absent this differential in life expectancy, the pension gap between men and women would be 72% higher, in a lifetime perspective. Second, within gender, high income earners benefit from hidden lifetime redistribution due to higher life expectancy. We find a life expectancy gradient of 7.2 years between the extremes of the distribution among men, 1.8 years among women. Among men, this hidden redistribution more than offsets the overall progressivity of the pension system.