My current agenda involves projects revolving around i) investigating long-run determinants of inequality, and ii) endogenizing institutional change, in particular exploring how historical patterns of economic activity contributed to shaping institutions across space. I'm also interested in empirical identification challenges, and in new ways to acquire data allowing to tackle these challenges.
The end of slavery in Brazil: Escape and resistance on the road to freedom (with Arthur Silve). This version: March 2025.
Discussion on Broadstreet.
American Economic Association 2023 Meeting Webcast (timestamp 1:38).
A longstanding debate opposes two mechanisms by which labor coercion persists or changes to free labor: a labor demand effect, by which the elite coerces labor when supply is scarce, and an outside option effect, by which labor scarcity and better outside options for the workers undermine coercive arrangements. Using a novel data set of roll-call votes on 1884-1888 emancipation bills in the Brazilian legislature, we find that both mechanisms played a role in building the coalition that eventually abolished slavery.
Résistance et abolition de l'esclavage au Brésil. Revue d'Économie du Développement, 31.2 (2022): 185-190.
Slavery, political attitudes and social capital: evidence from Brazil. Journal of Historical Political Economy, Vol. 1: No. 3, pp 377-409, 2021.
Discussion on Broadstreet.
This paper investigates the long-term influence of slavery and its abolition on development, social capital and political attitudes in Brazil. I show that slavery and support for coercive institutions - measured by legislators' voting decisions on emancipation-related bills at the end of the 19th century - had a persistent negative effect on development, as measured by GDP, poverty and inequality. Focusing on social capital as a persistence mechanism, I show that the evidence is consistent with slavery and support for coercion having durably negatively affected social capital. In particular, individuals living in historically slavery-intensive municipalities with stronger support for coercive institutions exhibit lower levels of generalized trust today, and are more likely to be less supportive of democracy and to have weaker beliefs on corruption.
Is Canada exploiting temporary foreign workers? Deterrence, punishment, and workers' agency (working paper coming soon!)
In this paper, I provide new quantitative evidence on labor coercion in Canada's temporary foreign worker program. Despite benefitting from the same formal rights as Canadian citizens, temporary foreign workers (TFWs) are placed in an institutional arrangement that strongly limits their outside options and disincentivizes them from resorting to legal remedies against abuse. I find that TFWs are exposed to a wide range of coercion-related incidents, and that this cannot be explained by variation in occupational exposure to coercion. I also evaluate a federal policy implemented to better protect TFWs. Event studies show that deterrence has by itself limited effects, but that punishment does reduce coercion-related incidents. Finally, I investigate the introduction of a special open work permit for workers facing abuse. Because employers are systematically inspected upon delivery of a permit, I find that this functions as a screening device and significantly improves the effectiveness of the compliance regime.
Market integration and development: reefer ships, railroads and the Argentine economy (with Arthur Silve).
Inequality of educational opportunity (2017). With Sandrine Mesplé-Somps.
Drawing on several empirical approaches to the estimation of inequality of opportunity, we build parametric and non-parametric measures of inequality of opportunity in educational attainment and achievement in four low- and middle-income countries. For each country, we study the dynamics of unequal opportunities as they unfold in the course of individuals schooling trajectories, from early childhood and into adulthood. For specific subsamples, we also evaluate the influence of school quality and school supply, treated as exogenous circumstances, on educational inequality of opportunity levels. While the magnitude of unequal opportunities varies both within and between countries, we find that from a fifth to over a third of educational inequality is attributable to morally unacceptable exogenous circumstances. Furthermore, the estimations reveal complex inequality structures within each country, and we analyse these varying patterns using both Shapley-Shorrocks and Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions.
Développement et inégalités d'accès à l'eau: Tarification des services publics en contexte de corruption endémique (2016). With Justin Leroux and Etienne Billette de Villemeur.