Imen Daly
Contact:
INED - Institut national d’études démographiques
Université Paris Saclay Evry
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I am an applied microeconomist working at the intersection of public economics, urban economics, and the economics of the energy transition.
I am currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at INED (Institut national d’études démographiques), working on the ENVER project funded by ANR and ADEME. I am also a Research Associate at Centre d’Économie de l’Université Paris-Saclay.
Publications
Publications
Daly, I. Tax Incentives and Housing Renovation.
Annals of Economics and Statistics, No. 160, December 2025. (PDF)Daly, I. (2024). La valorisation des aménités locales après le COVID-19.
Revue Française d’Économie, Vol. XXXIX(1). (PDF)
Manuscripts Under Review
Daly, I. & Lefebre, M. (2026). Impact of Targeted Tax Incentives for Affordable Housing on Real Estate Market Structure.
Under Review, Regional Science and Urban Economics. (PDF Job Market Paper)
Abstract
Place-based housing subsidies are typically evaluated through construction volumes and price effects. We show that in slack housing markets, adjustment operates primarily through the organization of housing production. We study the French Action Cœur de Ville (ACV) program and the Denormandie tax incentive, targeting declining small and mid-sized cities. Using a novel developer-level dataset linking permits to effective producers, we implement difference-in-differences and event-study designs within low-demand municipalities. Policy exposure increases authorized housing supply by about 45%, but the response is strongly compositional, with a shift toward smaller units. Most importantly, subsidies reorganize local production: treated cities experience entry of professional developers and a reallocation of market shares away from households. Despite these changes, we find little evidence of price capitalization. These findings suggest that in declining markets, housing supply responses are shaped less by price incentives than by changes in market structure. Subsidies appear to facilitate the entry and standardization strategies of professional developers, raising broader questions about the role of policy in reshaping local production systems rather than simply stimulating demand or prices.
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Daly, I. & Chareyron, S. (2025). Property is Theft? The Effect of Local Elections on the French Housing Market.
Under review, Journal of Housing Economics. (PDF)
This paper studies the impact of local political turnover on housing markets. Using close municipal elections in a regression discontinuity design, we find no significant effects on housing prices, transactions, or construction activity. The results suggest limited short- and medium-term impact of local political ideology on housing market outcomes.
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Daly, I. (2025). Building Incentives: How Tax Policies Drive New Housing Construction in Urban Markets.
Revise and Resubmit, Real Estate Economics. (PDF)
This paper evaluates the impact of geographically targeted tax incentives on housing supply. Using a spatial difference-in-differences event-study design around eligibility boundaries, I find no increase in total construction. Instead, the policy operates through compositional and spatial reallocation, shifting investment toward smaller units and eligible areas.
Working Papers
Working Papers
Daly, I. (2025). Threshold-Based Regulation and Redevelopment: Evidence from a Built-Out Metropolitan Market.
Working Paper. (PDF - Job Market Paper)
Abstract
How does threshold-based land-use regulation affect development when urban production occurs through redevelopment rather than greenfield expansion? Standard notch models predict that developers respond to discrete regulatory costs by bunching below thresholds, reducing project scale, or abandoning marginal projects. This paper shows that these predictions are incomplete in built-out markets, where inherited structures make project size lumpy and shift adjustment toward project form. I study the 2019 tightening of the Paris Region's "procédure d'agrément", an administrative approval procedure that increased regulatory costs for large net additions of office and tertiary floor area within a fixed perimeter. Using a border-based difference-in-discontinuities design, I compare municipalities located just inside and just outside the regulated boundary before and after the reform. I find no robust evidence of bunching below the regulatory threshold and little evidence of a sharp contraction in non-residential expansion. Nor does the reform generate systematic housing gains. Instead, adjustment occurs through redevelopment margins: non-residential permits become more likely to involve housing displacement and transformation without extension, while residential permits become more likely to involve works on existing structures, demolition, tertiary transformation, and housing loss. Transaction evidence indicates that non-residential values increase significantly after the reform, whereas residential values remain unchanged. These findings show that threshold-based regulation can bind without generating the canonical quantity responses emphasized in notch models. In dense urban markets, regulatory incidence may operate through the reorganization of inherited built capital rather than through aggregate construction volumes.
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Daly, I. & Ligonnière, S. (2025). Who Gets the Mortgage? Access to Mortgage Credit and Household Inequalities in France.
Working Paper. (PDF)
Abstract
This paper studies how bank credit supply affects housing prices through borrower allocation. Using loan-level data and a shift-share identification strategy, we show that credit shocks disproportionately affect lower-income households and translate into local price changes. The results highlight a compositional channel linking credit supply and housing markets.
Working in Progress
Working in Progress
Daly, I., Segù, M., & Lambert, A. (2026). Gender Gaps in Home Energy Renovation.
Working in Progress.
This paper examines how gender shapes households’ engagement with energy renovation. Using survey data from France, we document systematic differences in reported barriers, motivations, and demand for policy support, highlighting the role of institutional complexity in shaping renovation decisions.
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Daly, I. (2026). Subsidies and Household Energy Renovation Choices: Substitution Effects and Cost-Benefit Implications
Working In Progress.
This paper studies how subsidy schemes shape household energy renovation decisions beyond take-up. I develop a structural model distinguishing participation and technology choice, allowing for substitution across renovation types. Estimated on French data, the model shows that subsidies significantly affect both the decision to renovate and the allocation across technologies. These results highlight the importance of accounting for substitution effects when evaluating the welfare impact of renovation policies.
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