Research
Working Papers
Toxic Loans and the Rise of Populist Candidacies, First author, with Gianmarco Daniele
Job Market Paper
[Last version] [SSRN]
The role of financial crises in boosting populism has been well documented. Yet the specific mechanisms through which this occurs remain elusive. This paper studies how populist candidacies were fueled by a case of public financial mismanagement that became salient during the Great Recession. Using an instrumental variable strategy, we exploit the leak of a list of French municipalities that contracted “toxic” loans before the crisis. During the subsequent municipal elections, we show that i) the right-wing populist party is the only political orientation experiencing an increase in vote share, while mainstream incumbents' political orientations are electorally punished, ii) both right-wing and left-wing populist candidacies are more likely in municipalities affected by the scandal, leading to a rise in electoral competition, iii) the entry of populist candidates remains persistent over time. Importantly, the findings are not driven by economic deprivation, austerity measures, or pure demand for a political turnover. They suggest that the disclosure of public financial mismanagement contributes by itself to the rise of populism during financial crises via the strategic entry of populist parties.
Financial Shocks on Public Debt and Local Economic Activity
[Last version] [SSRN]
This paper provides evidence of the effects of local public debt shocks on economic activity for highly indebted local governments. It exploits two exogenous shocks on local public debt affecting French municipalities exposed to the Swiss Franc: i) an information shock in 2011 signaling the degree of their debt toxicity, and ii) a sudden rise in their debt repayment following the 2015 unpeg of the Euro/Swiss Franc. Using a difference-in-difference strategy and relying on plant-level data, I first find that negative press coverage on local public debt is sufficient to temporarily decrease the total number of hours worked and the wage bill of plants located in CHF-indebted municipalities. Compared to an information shock, an actual increase in local public debt triggers strong and persistent consequences on local economic activity, by increasing plant closures in highly-indebted municipalities. Overall, these findings suggest that plants forecast a rise in local business taxes or a decrease in public investment in impacted municipalities.
The Increase in Partisan Segregation in the U.S., with Jacob Brown, Enrico Cantoni, Ryan D. Enos, and Vincent Pons
This paper provides novel evidence on trends in geographic partisan segregation. Using two individual-level panel datasets covering the near universe of the U.S. population between 2008 and 2020, we leverage information on individuals’ party affiliation to construct two key indicators: i) the fraction of Democrats among voters affiliated with either major party, which reveals that partisan segregation has increased across geographical units, at the tract, county, and congressional district levels; ii) The dissimilarity index, which measures differences in the partisan mix across distinct sub-units and highlights that partisan segregation has also increased within geographical units. Tracking individuals across election years, we decompose changes in partisan segregation into different sources: voter migration, generational change, older voters entering the electorate, and voters changing their partisanship or their registration status. The rise in partisan segregation is mostly driven by generational change, in Democratic-leaning areas, and by the increasing ideological conformity of stayers, in Republican-leaning areas.
Selected Work in Progress
The effect of corporate taxation on workers: Evidence from France, with Sarah Gharbi, Andreas Lichter, Sebastian Siegloch (Draft available upon request)
Bi-partisan Electoral System and Candidate Political Support
Job Search and The Yellow-Vest Movement, with Esther Mbih
Intermunicipal Cooperation and Firm Mobility Response, with Sarah Gharbi