Julia Hélie

I'm a PhD candidate at the Paris School of Economics under the supervision of Jérémie Gignoux (PSE, INRAE) and Oliver Vanden Eynde (PSE, CNRS).

My research interests lie at the intersection between development economics, environmental economics, and political economy. My research focuses on the role of reelection incentives on politicians' behavior. In particular, I investigate how reelection incentives affect deforestation in Indonesia and corruption in Chile.

I am also part of the French National Agency multidisciplinary project, PALMEXPAND, studying the socioeconomic and environmental effects of oil palm expansion in Indonesia.

I spent Spring 2024 as a visiting research fellow at Harvard, visiting Vincent Pons (HBS).

You can find my CV here.

Don't hesitate to reach out at julia.helie@psemail.eu

Research

A tree for a vote? Reelection incentives and deforestation cycles in Indonesia

Bribe me one more time? Term limits, electoral accountability and public procurement in Chile, with Sebastián García Cornejo
Digging into the distributive local effects of artisanal versus industrial gold mining in Tanzania
Forest Moratorium and Oil Palm Smallholders Expansion on Fragile Areas in Indonesia (with David Gaveau, Jérémie Gignoux, Allen Klaiber, François Libois, Daniela Miteva, Subhrendu K. Pattanayak, Sudarno Sumatro, Akiko Suwa and Zahra Amalia Syarifah)
Applying the Dempster-Shafer Fusion Theory to Combine Independent Land-Use Maps: A Case Study on the Mapping of Oil Palm Plantations in Sumatra, Indonesia (with Carl Bethuel, Damien Arvor, Thomas Corpetti, Adrià Descals, David Gaveau, Cécile Chéron-Bessou, Jérémie Gignoux and Samuel Corgne) Remote Sensing. 2025, 17(2), 234

Research

A tree for a vote? Reelection incentives and deforestation cycles in Indonesia

Bribe me one more time? Term limits, electoral accountability and public procurement in Chile, with Sebastián García Cornejo

Digging into the distributive local effects of artisanal versus industrial gold mining in Tanzania

Forest Moratorium and Oil Palm Smallholders Expansion on Fragile Areas in Indonesia (with David Gaveau, Jérémie Gignoux, Allen Klaiber, François Libois, Daniela Miteva, Subhrendu K. Pattanayak, Sudarno Sumatro, Akiko Suwa and Zahra Amalia Syarifah)