Work in progress 

Your Backyard is our Backyard ! The economic effects of land-use planning consolidation

This paper provides new causal evidence on the relationship between government fragmentation, housing supply, and urban sprawl. I compile new data on French intermunicipal mergers to study a reform that required many local governments to transfer urban-planning authority to a broader community level. The findings show that, when given the choice, municipalities strongly prefer to retain control over land-use decisions. However, when consolidation is imposed, it results in effective cooperation on the development of new planning rules. This cooperation leads to increased housing construction while reducing the conversion of natural and agricultural land, suggesting improved efficiency. These effects emerge gradually, following the timeline of new planning documents, in line with the idea that coordinating land-use at a larger scale helps internalize spatial spillovers.

Contested Ground: Exploring Land Use Conflicts in France (with Eulalie Saïsset) 

We build a database on the universe of administrative court decisions in France over the past 25 years. Using LLMs we extract information on the plaintifs, the location of disputed constructions, the nature of the legal claims, court rulings, and the categories of the constructions involved. We perform a rich descriptive analysis to see how this database can then be used to advance important questions in urban and environmental economics, such as the relationship between resistance to densification and economic inequalities, or how ecological arguments are mobilized in land-use conflicts, shedding light on the evolving role of environmental considerations in territorial disputes. This novel approach contributes to a deeper understanding of the challenges associated with sustainable urban development and land conservation goals. 

Are Bigger Jurisdictions Better? The Effects of Local Consolidation (with David Agrawal, Marie Breuillé, Clémence Tricaud)

Fiscal Disincentives: Revenue-sharing, Local Permitting, and Business Attraction in France. (with Thierry Madiès, Eulalie Saïsset, and Albert Solé-Ollé)