Research
Publications
“Institutions, Attitudes and LGBT: Evidence from the Gold Rush” (with Abel Brodeur)
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, July 2021, Vol. 187, p. 92-110
This paper relates the size of the present-day LGBT population to the discovery of gold during the nineteenth century gold rushes. Comparing the surroundings of gold rush counties to other mining counties, we find that there are currently 15 percent more same-sex couples in former gold rush counties and that residents of these counties have more favorable attitudes toward homosexuality. Gold rush counties were initially isolated, mostly uninhabited and lacked strong formal institutions, which helped shaping pro-LGBT attitudes. Examining channels of persistence, we provide empirical evidence for selective migration and the lack of strong religious institutions.
“Determinants of Family Stress and Domestic Violence: Lessons from the COVID-19 Outbreak” (with Louis-Philippe Beland, Abel Brodeur and Derek Mikola)
Canadian Public Policy, September 2021, Vo. 47, No. 3, p. 439-459
We study the impacts of COVID-19 on domestic violence and family stress. Our empirical analysis relies on a unique survey conducted online, the Canadian Perspective Survey Series, which allows us to investigate the determinants of perceived levels of family stress and domestic violence during the first COVID-19 lockdown. We find no evidence that changes in work arrangements are related to perceived levels of family stress and violence in the home due to confinement. In contrast, we find that the inability to meet financial obligations and perceived concerns about maintaining social ties are significantly related to perceived concerns of family stress and domestic violence.
“Does Income Class Affect Life Satisfaction? New Evidence from Cross-Country Microdata” (with Jad Chaaban, Ali Chalak and Hala Ghattas)
MDPI, Social Sciences, June 2022, Vo. 11, No. 6, p. 262
This paper analyzes the impact of income class on subjective wellbeing. Using rich data from the Gallup World Poll, we investigate whether belonging to locally (both country- and time-specific) defined income classes influences individuals’ life satisfaction. We rely on a latent class analysis estimation method, using individual income proxied by household income divided by household size, as an observable characteristic to hypothesize the income classes. We fit a model with one categorical latent variable with three unobserved groupings, here: income classes, which we interpret as lower, middle and upper classes. Our estimates suggest that individuals in the low and middle income classes are, respectively, about 30 and 17 percent of a standard deviation less likely to report a higher life satisfaction in comparison to individuals belonging to the upper income class. The effect of income classes remains robust to the inclusion of standard explanatory variables in this literature.
Working Papers
“Gender-Based Labor Legislation and Employment: Historical Evidence from the United States” (with Lamis Kattan)
[Revise & Resubmit: Journal of Labor Economics]
Labor legislation for women was a focal point in the United States by the end of the nineteenth century, with most states implementing at least one gender-based labor law. We examine the impact of three previously unexplored legislation: seating, regulatory and night-work laws. Given that not all states adopted these laws, and the staggered nature of adoption, we rely on a difference-in-differences strategy design to estimate the effects on female gainful employment. Our findings indicate that laws regulating health and safety conditions and restricting women’s night work increased the likelihood of female employment by about 4% to 8%, accounting for about 10% to 20% from the total increase during our period of analysis. Examining heterogeneous effects reveals that younger and married women without children witnessed the largest increase in the likelihood of employment. We also document that native, higher-class and literate women were also incentivized to join the workforce. Women’s labor supply in the decades under consideration has been estimated to be quite inelastic with respect to own wage. Nevertheless, we find sizable labor force participation responses to the gender-specific legislation we study. This indicates that the legislation must have shifted women’s labor supply curves, either because it made jobs more pleasant, or because it improved perceptions about how respectable it is for a woman to work in the labor market. Either channel would reduce disutility from work and increase labor supply at any given wage level. Our findings hold important implications for policymakers and advocates seeking to promote gender equality in the labor market.
Mention: CWEC/CFÉC Newsletter
[submitted]
The distinctive traits of early settlers at initial stages of institutional development may be crucial for cultural formation. In 1973, the cultural geographer Wilbur Zelinsky postulated this in his doctrine of “first effective settlement”. I investigate this doctrine and identify its short and long-run implications for gender norms in the United States. I focus on county creation events to capture counties at early stages of cultural and institutional development. I capture settlers’ culture using past female labor force participation, women’s suffrage, and financial rights at settlers’ place of origin. I document the distinctive characteristics of settlers’ populations and provide suggestive evidence in support of the transmission of gender norms across space and time. My results show that women’s labor supply is higher, in both the short and long run, in U.S. counties that historically hosted a larger settler population originating from places with favorable gender attitudes. My findings shed new light on the importance of the characteristics of immigrants and their place of origin for cultural formation in hosting societies.
Mention: Marginal Revolution
[CGO wp2023] [ECARES wp2022-02]
“Frontier History and Gender Norms in the United States” (with Samuel Bazzi, Abel Brodeur and Martin Fiszbein)
[submitted]
This paper explores how historical gender roles become entrenched as norms over the long run. In the historical United States, gender roles on the frontier looked starkly different from those in settled areas. Male-biased sex ratios led to higher marriage rates for women and lower for men. Land abundance favored higher fertility. The demands of childcare, compounded with isolation from extended family as well as a lack of social and market infrastructure, constrained female opportunities outside the home. Frontier women were less likely to report “gainful employment,” but among those who did, relatively more had high-status occupations. Together, these findings integrate contrasting narratives about frontier women—some emphasizing their entrepreneurial independence, others their prevailing domesticity. The distinctive frontier gender roles, in turn, shaped norms over the long run. Counties with greater historical frontier exposure exhibit lower female labor force participation through the 21st century. Time use data suggests this does not come with additional leisure but rather with more household work. These gender inequalities are accompanied by weaker political participation among women. While the historical frontier may have been empowering for some women, its predominant domesticity reinforced inegalitarian gender norms over the long run.
Mention: Marginal Revolution
Work in Progress
“Inheritance, Celibacy and Economic Development: Evidence from the European Marriage Patterns” (with Matthew Curtis, Paula Gobbi and Marc Goñi)
Through high celibacy rates and late ages at first marriage, the European Marriage Pattern (EMP) limited fertility in Western Europe well before the Industrial Revolution. While the EMP is considered an early determinant of European development, few studies have examined the roots of this institution. In this paper, we show that inheritance customs shaped the EMP and allowed to sustain it over time. We construct a novel atlas of local inheritance customs for pre-industrial France and Belgium and examine individual-level marriage decisions from genealogical records for the 18th and 19th centuries. Our preliminary findings show that inheritance customs affected marriage patterns through two distinct channels: women's autonomy and eased economic constraints to form a household.
“The Inter-generational Transmission of Experiences: The Great Famine and Contemporary Attitudes” (with Björn Brey and Lamis Kattan)
“Men in Times of Crisis” (with Lamis Kattan and Taylor Wright)
Published Policy Papers
“The Impact of Minimum Unit Pricing on Youth Alcohol Consumption: Insights from a Volumetric Choice Experiment in Lebanon” (with Jad Chaaban, Ali Chalak and Lilian Ghandour).
Health Policy & Planning, March 2022, czac021. doi: 10.1093/heapol/czac021
Policy research paper for UN Women Arab States on ``Assessing macroeconomic response policies to COVID-19 in the Arab region: what implications for women’s economic empowerment?”, lead author: Nisreen Salti, September 2021.
Background paper on ``Building Resilient Food Systems in the Arab Region” prepared in contribution to the 2020 edition of the ``Near East and North Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition- Enhancing Resilience of Food Systems in the Arab States”, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), lead author: Ali Chalak, January 2021.
Reports
Research associate United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-- Arab Human Development Report 2021