Laudine Carbuccia

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison & the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University. I work with Lawrence (Lonnie) Berger (UW-Madison) and Maria Cancian (Georgetown University). I am also affiliated with the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policy (LIEPP, Sciences Po).

I am interested in how public policies can shape families' environments and under which conditions these policies help reduce inequalities during early childhood (or worsen them). Keen to mix disciplines and use quantitative and qualitative methods, my work is currently at the crossroads of public policy, cognitive science, sociology, and economics.

I defended my Ph.D on November 4th, 2025. For my Ph.D., I focused on early childcare decision-making and the determinants of the SES gap in early childcare enrollment in France. I implemented a randomized controlled trial (N = 1,859) to evaluate the impact of an intervention I conceived, targeting informational and behavioral/administrative barriers, to understand the extent to which these factors contribute to the SES gap in early childcare enrollment. 

I did my Ph.D. between the Center for Research on Social Inequalities at Sciences Po (Paris), and the Evolution and Social Cognition Team at the ENS/PSL University. I hold a transdisciplinary bachelor's degree and a master's degree in Cognitive Science from the ENS / PSL University. 

You can access my CV here. 

From Winter and Spring 2024, I was doing a research stay hosted by Ariel Kalil at the Harris School of Public Policy (University of Chicago). 

I attach great importance to ensuring that my research does not remain confined to the lab, but instead reaches policy-makers and societal actors. In this regard, for example, I work closely with the Court of Auditors (Cour des Comptes) to support its evaluation of early childhood policy in France. I also collaborate with the National Family Allowance Fund, the OECD, the Break Poverty Foundation, the Ardian Foundation, and early childcare professionals through training programs (such as with the Maternal and Child Protection Services in Paris) and roundtable discussions. 

I am the leader of the Family Policy research group at the LIEPP, jointly with Montserrat Botey.