PSE-CEPR Policy Forum : Deivy Houeix (PhD student, MIT), winner of the Daniel Cohen Award 2025

The École normale supérieure – PSL, the Paris School of Economics and Daniel Cohen’s family have decided to honour the memory of Daniel Cohen by creating a prize in his name, generously funded this year by the association des anciens élèves de l’École normale supérieure (A-Ulm) and Emmanuel Boussard, former student of the ENS and co-founder of Boussard & Gavaudan.

The Daniel Cohen Award

This year’s prize will be awarded during the third edition of the PSE-CEPR Policy Forum, on Thursday, June 19, 2025, by an international committee chaired by Esther Duflo and composed by the President of the PSE Scientific Advisory Board, the PSE Research Director, guest speakers from this edition of the PSE-CEPR Policy Forum and a PSE professor.

For the 2025 edition, the award committee is composed of: Pascaline Dupas (Princeton University), Jean-Marc Tallon (PSE, CNRS), David Autor (MIT), Marianne Bertrand (University of Chicago Booth School of Business), Steven J. Davis (Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research) and Thomas Breda (PSE, CNRS).

Deivy Houeix, 2025 winner

The jury decided to award the prize to Deivy Houeix, a doctoral student at MIT, for his doctoral research, in particular his Job Market Paper “Asymmetric Information and Digital Technology Adoption: Evidence from Senegal”. Through two field experiments, Deivy studies the adoption of digital payments in the taxi sector in Senegal.

He shows that digital payments reduce costs for drivers and allow for better monitoring by taxi owners (employers). However, when owners can observe the transactions, some drivers – particularly the less productive ones – refuse to adopt the system. In contrast, adoption doubles when transaction privacy is guaranteed. The study thus demonstrates that observability improves efficiency but hinders adoption.

The ENS – PSL and PSE are delighted to welcome Deivy, and warmly congratulate him on his work and on winning this prize.