Research

Working papers :

R&R JEBO

 The way societies respond to global crises has a major impact on individual and collective outcomes. Effective responses depend on populations changing their behaviors and supporting government policies, leading to significant differences in political responses worldwide. This paper analyzes data on population risk-taking, patience, altruism, and trust, and how they relate to the speed (Responsiveness) and intensity (Stringency) of national political responses to the COVID-19 crisis in 109 countries. Our findings show significant and consistent patterns for all preference measures, with significant changes over time. These results improve our understanding of the factors driving countries' policy responses to global crises, and provide support for a behavioral approach to policy-making.


R&R Economics of Education Review

This study empirically examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on university students’ enrollment behaviors using a comprehensive database of university enrollments from 2012 to 2021. Our analysis reveals a 10.6% decline in the probabilty of re-enrollment for the subsequent academic year among the cohort affected by the pandemic. In particular, this effect is particularly pronounced among students pursuing STEM tracks and male students. To further investigate the underlying mechanisms, we employ a natural experiment framework in France, leveraging regional variations in policies adopted in response to the spread of the disease. Our results do not provide convincing evidence that stricter measures had an impact on student re-enrollment or on the likelihood of graduation. These findings contribute to our understanding of the disruptive consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ educational trajectories and highlight the importance of considering policy responses to mitigate adverse effects on educational outcomes.


R&R Education Economics

In this paper, we investigate how soft skills are related to educational achievement. We run a lab in the field experiment with pupils in Middle Schools to ask whether altruism, cooperation, willingness to compete and intrinsic motivation influence educational attainment. We find that willingness to compete is a strong predictor of individual educational achievement, while altruism is on the contrary negatively correlated with pupils’ success. Family background is a strong predictor of educational attainment. After controlling for individual and social preferences, we find that girls outperform boys.


Submitted

In this paper, we examine how social norms, which heavily influence our decision-making processes, can be reinforced by social (dis)approval mechanisms, specifically non-monetary punishments and rewards, among teenagers. We use a lab-in-the-field approach to investigate this question and provide a controlled environment where social norms can be self-constructed within exogenously defined social groups. Our study involves seventh-grade students who play games with their classmates during regular class time. Our results indicate that although cooperation among teenagers remains consistent over time, the availability of social disapprovals significantly improves cooperation, with teenagers being more likely to endorse positive deviations from social norms while punishing relative free-riding. However, we found that the direct impact of both punishments and rewards on individual cooperation is negligible.


L'objectif de cet article est de présenter une revue de littérature des expériences en économie menées auprès d'enfants et d'adolescents. Ces expériences en laboratoire, principalement réalisées sur le terrain ("lab-in-the-field") permettent d'étudier les préférences et les décisions de populations plus jeunes et plus hétérogènes que dans les expériences classiques (auprès de populations étudiantes). Les principaux enseignements de ces études sont que les préférences individuelles et sociales comme l'aversion pour le risque, la coopération et l'altruisme évoluent avec l'âge. Ces résultats soulignent l'importance d'adapter les politiques publiques qui ciblent les enfants et adolescents, en prenant en compte les spécificités de leurs préférences.


Other Publication :

2023 "Reproducibility in Management Science", Management Science, Fišar, M., Greiner, B., Huber, C., Katok, E., Ozkes, A., and the Management Science Reproducibility Collaboration.

Note: Member of the Management Science Reproducibility Collaboration


Selected Work in Progress :


We propose an original approach to test gender identity and gender implicit bias as drivers of teachers' gendered behaviour, using both a theoretical framework and an empirical approach. We first plan to develop a theoretical model to understand teachers' behaviour. We distinguish two hypotheses: one where teachers are purely utilitarian and one where their behaviour is restricted by ethical principles. The idea is to assess whether gendered practices stem from gender differences in preferences---in a purely consequentialist way---or if ethical considerations are at play. We then plan to empirically test the theoretical predictions using an online experiment with high school teachers.

Funding : This project received a grant from the EUR Paris Jourdan Sciences Eco and from the Women in Science Chair from University Paris Dauphine

Funding : This project received a grant from the MSH Paris Nord