I am a research fellow at the Center for Primary Care and Public Health in Lausanne, affiliated to the Lausanne Center for Health Economics, Behavior, and Policy (LCHE) at the University of Lausanne.

My research interests are in the fields of Health Economics and Economics of Conflict, with a focus on applied questions. My ORCID profile can be found here: Nathalie Monnet (0000-0001-5939-4057) - ORCID. 

Contact: nathalie.monnet@unisante.ch

Research

Working papers

Digital Mental Health at Scale: Impacts on Mental Health, Education, and Economic Outlook of Vulnerable Young Adults

with Mauricio Avendano, Armando N. Meier, Clémence Kieny, Martha Escobar Lux, Fabio Idrobo, Laura Torres-Cuéllar, Andrea Carolina Bello-Tocancipá, Juan Vargas-Nieto Andrea, Gustavo Adolfo Perdomo Patino, Ricardo Araya, Naomi Koerner

Submitted

[Pre-Analysis Plan][AEA RCT registration]

Poor mental health may hinder the success of low-income young adults, but most have no access to mental health and well-being support. While small-scale trials suggest that digital mental health support technologies hold promise, there is no largescale trial assessing their causal impacts on both mental health and economic outcomes. This preregistered trial (n = 14,688) was embedded at scale in an existing nationwide public program providing educational subsidies to over 360,000 vulnerable university and vocational or technical training students in Colombia. The 10-week self-guided transdiagnostic intervention, grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy, was developed by mental health experts and co-designed with vulnerable students and government officials. The unique combination of rich administrative and survey data allows us to study whether and how access to the digital technology affected mental health symptoms, educational performance, future orientation, including self-control, and economic outlook. Using prespecified analyses, we find reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety (p < 0.001) with effects lasting up to 3 months. The effects are larger among those with worse mental health at baseline and users of the technology. We find consistent improvements in behavioral activation and sleep satisfaction, but we find no impacts on self-control, education, or economic outlook. Our discussion informs governments across the world currently considering deploying mental health technology at scale.

Project website: https://unil.ch/youthwellbeing/ 

The Cost of Inaction: Child and Adolescent Overweight and Obesity in Indonesia

with Antoine Habib, Giulio Cisco, David Colozza, Joachim Marti, Mauricio Avendano, Siti Nadia Tarmizi. 

[Draft available upon request] Submitted

Child and adolescent overweight and obesity impose substantial long-term health and economic burdens. In Indonesia, the prevalence of excess weight is rising rapidly, yet evidence quantifying its lifetime economic consequences and the potential returns of preventive policies remains limited. We apply a Cost-of-Illness framework to estimate the lifetime economic burden attributable to overweight and obesity in a cohort of Indonesian children and adolescents. The model incorporates direct healthcare costs and indirect productivity losses (through labor market and schooling). We assess three evidence-based interventions—sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxation, front-of-pack nutrition labeling (FOPNL), and marketing restrictions—individually and as a combined package, and calculate return on investment (ROI). In the absence of intervention, overweight and obesity are projected to cost Indonesia USD 313.07 billion over 75 years, equivalent to USD 4.17 billion annually or 0.3\% of current GDP. Implementing the three policies generates USD 16.36 billion in economic gains and averts 2.7 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) across the cohort’s lifetime. The SSB tax is the most cost-effective intervention, yielding an ROI of USD 1,633 per dollar invested, while the combined policy package delivers an ROI of USD 140 per dollar invested. Preventive action targeting childhood overweight and obesity yields substantial health and economic benefits in Indonesia. The magnitude of projected gains provides strong evidence to support implementing fiscal, informational, and regulatory measures as part of a national obesity prevention strategy.

The Economic Costs of Conflict: a Production Network Approach 

with Mathieu Couttenier and Lavinia Piemontese

[CEPR Discussion Paper No DP16984, Feb. 2022] 

We develop a novel approach for estimating the economic costs of conflict, using the production network as the primary mechanism through which the disruptive effects of localized conflict spread to peaceful areas. Applying this approach to the Maoist insurgency in Eastern India from 2000 to 2009, we quantify the overall impact of conflict, taking network propagation into account. Our key finding reveals that a one percentage point increase in conflict-induced distortion is associated with an average annual decrease of 0.236% in aggregate output. Notably, 73% of the total output loss can be attributed to network propagation.  

Hit them in the Wallet! An Analysis of the Demonetization as a Counter-Insurgency Policy 

with Edoardo Chiarotti

 [Latest Version + Online Appendix] [IHEID Working Paper]

This paper investigates the causal link between the cash nature of the finances of organized armed groups and their subsequent violent activities. We use the sharp cash shortage that followed the 2016 Indian Banknote Demonetization as a natural experiment. The severity of the shortage in different districts is measured using the spatial distribution of demonetized and newly introduced notes. We construct a unique and rich dataset on daily violent events, fatalities and surrenders of the Maoist insurgents in India between 2006 and 2018. Our results suggest that there is a general reduction in violence after the policy in districts experiencing more severe cash shortage, and a positive impact on surrenders of Maoist extremists. Second, we find that the increase in the trend of surrenders is mitigated where Maoists have higher abilities to raise funds, through three traditional sources of revenue, i.e. the extortion of public work contractors, mineral and forest resources. This paper provides the first study on the importance of cash in illegal activities and an ex-post evaluation of a policy countering illicit cash flows.

Selected work in progress

Ceasefires during Armed Conflict and Mental Health Service Utilization: A Difference-in-differences Study of the Colombian Peace Agreement (with Maria Camila Garcia Duran, Crick Lund,  Mauricio Avendano)

COVID-19 Containment Policies, Time Use and the Mental Health of Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Evidence from Europe. (with Jeanne Berche, Joachim Marti, Mauricio Avendano). Submitted

The Long-Run Impact of Primary Education on Women's Late-Life Cognitive Function in India. (with Mathéo Bourgeois, Clémence Kieny,  Mauricio Avendano)

Publications

The Policy Exposome of Dementia: Gaps, Opportunities, and a Research Agenda to Integrate Policy Analysis into Dementia Research. with Kieny C, Bourgeois M, Marks G, Atshan S, Brayne C, Dow W, Glymour M, Knapp D, Livingston G, Pananicolas I, Platt EA, Rehkopf D, Sadana R, Suvarna A, Vargas Lopez F, Wallace L, Walsh S, Wenner M, Avendano M). Alzheimer's & Dementia (2026). Link

The Impact of Education on Dementia? Causal Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Reforms in England. With Mauricio Avendano, Clémence Kieny and Emma Nichols. Social Science & Medicine (2026). Link 

Shutdown Policies and Worldwide Conflict. With Nicolas Berman, Mathieu Couttenier & Rohit Ticku. [Latest Version + Online Appendix] [Covid Economics: Vetted and Real-Time Paper - CEPR Press 16, May 2020] Journal of Comparative Economics, Volume 50, Issue 1, March 2022, p. 240-255. Link

Book Chapter

Conflict in Times of Covid-19.  With Nicolas Berman, Mathieu Couttenier & Rohit Ticku.

Miscellaneous

A Note on the Economics of Philanthropy. with Ugo Panizza. Prepared for the Conference Rethinking global philanthropy: Can philantrophy bridge the development gap?, October 12, 2017. Media Coverage: Le Temps. [Working paper] [Data] 

Domestic Violence and the Labor Market: Evidence from Switzerland. [Working paper]