Seminars

PSE internal seminar

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Upcoming events

• Friday 18 October 2024 12:30-13:30

  R1-15

  HÉMET Camille ( Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and at Paris School of Economics) : *

  WREN-LEWIS Liam (Paris School of Economics / INRAE. )

• Friday 22 November 2024 12:30-13:30

  R1-15

  BLOCH Francis ( Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne) : *

• Friday 13 December 2024 12:30-13:30

  R1-15

  GOBILLON Laurent (CNRS & PSE) : *

• Friday 7 March 2025 12:30-13:30

  R2-01

  OLLIVIER Hélène (CNRS & PSE) : *

  BROER Tobias (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne & PSE)

• Friday 11 April 2025 12:30-13:30

  R2-01

  DISDIER Anne-Célia (PSE & INRAE) : *

  HAUTCOEUR Pierre-Cyrille (EHESS & PSE)

• Friday 16 May 2025 12:30-13:30

  R2-01

  STAROPOLI Carine (Université Rouen Normandie & PSE) : *

Archives

• Friday 27 September 2024 12:30-13:30

  R1-15

  CHALLE Edouard (Pse & Cnrs) : Inequality and Optimal Monetary Policy in the Open Economy

  PONCET Sandra (PSE) : Air connections and innovation: evidence from cross-border patents of Chinese cities

  Abstract

  We study the transmission and optimality of monetary policy in a tractable small open economy model in which households face uninsured idiosyncratic earnings risk and unequal access to financial markets. As is typical in open economies, the stabilisation of the output gap and inflation (the "internal" objectives) may conflict with the stabilisation of the exchange rate and the current account (the "external" objectives), and our economy is no exception. Uninsured shocks and unequal financial market access further complicate matters for the central bank, as the domestic and foreign demands for home goods now both affect the distribution of earning shocks domestically and, ultimately, domestic inequality. Under plausible calibrations for the trade elasticities, the elasticity of intertemporal substitution, and the cyclicality of income risk, the central bank finds it optimal to stabilise the exchange rate more than in the benchmark economy without idiosyncratic earnings shocks.

• Friday 31 May 2024 12:00-13:00

  GRENET Julien (PSE) : “The Effects of Social Diversity at School: Evidence from a Desegregation Program”

  GRITTERSOVA Jana (PSE) : Fifty shades of green: Central bank communication about climate change and inflation expectations

  Abstract

  This paper investigates whether social desegregation in schools fosters social cohesion and reduces social inequality in educational outcomes. We analyze an initiative launched in 2015 by the French Ministry of Education to desegregate public middle schools, by comparing the schools that participated in the program with similar schools that were not involved. Our findings indicate that in the initially more segregated schools, the program was successful at increasing the exposure of low-SES to high-SES students, and vice versa. Using detailed administrative data along with survey data on students' wellbeing and attitudes, we find that school desegregation does not adversely affect the academic performance of high-SES students, while it positively affects their academic self-esteem. Although our results do not reveal significant short-run effects on the academic performance of low-SES students, we find that they derive social and psychological benefits from being exposed to a more diverse student body. Co-authors: Ghazala Azmat (Sciences Po), Élise Huillery (Université Paris Dauphine), Youssef Souidi (Université Paris Dauphine), and Yann Algan (HEC). ************************ This study explores how central banks discuss climate change and whether such communication affects the behavior and expectations of financial markets. Specifically, it examines whether the frequency of central bank communication on climate-related risks influences the inflation expectations of financial markets. Central bank communication about climate change can influence these expectations by creating uncertainty about future climate policies that the central bank might adopt. When a central bank incorporates climate objectives into its policy discourse, it creates uncertainty among financial market participants about its commitment to its mandates, such as maintaining price stability and safeguarding central bank autonomy. There is also the concern that the central bank could be perceived as the last resort to rescue the financial system in the face of climate-induced risks. To investigate this, we compiled a comprehensive database of speeches addressing climate change by representatives of the European Central Bank and national central banks of the eurozone countries from January 2008 to December 2022. This dataset enables us to examine how central bankers' speeches influence private inflation expectations, as measured by market-based indicators. Using local projections, we find that more frequent speeches on climate change and higher intensity of climate-related language within speeches are associated with increased inflation expectations among financial market participants across various maturity horizons, spanning from one year to ten years. Moreover, we found that the effect of these speeches varies depending on the speaker; notably, speeches delivered by representatives of central banks from the founding members of the eurozone influence shifts in inflation expectations. This holds true even when accounting for macroeconomic surprises, central bank interest rate decisions, and a range of other factors. Overall, our findings suggest that central bank discourse on climate change offers valuable insights into future financial market inflation expectations. Co-authors: Eleonora Mavroeidi (Bloomberg Paris) and Murilo Silva (University of California, Riverside)

• Friday 26 April 2024 12:00-13:00

  HUANG Yuchen (PSE) : Non-Meritocrats or Conformist Meritocrats? A Redistribution Experiment in China and France

  ELLISON Sara (MIT) : Effects of Home Rental Sites on Residential Real Estate: Evidence from New Hampshire

  Abstract

  Recent empirical evidence contends that meritocratic ideals are mainly a Western phenomenon. Intriguingly, the Chinese people appear to not differentiate between merit- and luck-based inequalities, despite their rich historical legacy of meritocratic institutions. We propose that this phenomenon might be due to the Chinese public's greater adherence towards the status quo. In order to test this hypothesis, we run an incentivized redistribution experiment with elite university students in China and France, by varying the initial split of payoffs between two real-life workers to redistribute from. We show that Chinese respondents consistently and significantly choose more non-redistribution (playing the status quo) across both highly unequal and relatively equal status quo scenarios than our French respondents. Additionally, we also show that the Chinese sample does differentiate between merit- and luck-based inequalities, and does not redistribute less than the French absent status quo conformity. Ultimately, we contend that such a phenomenon is indicative of low political agency rather than apathy, inattention, or libertarian beliefs among the Chinese. Notably, our findings show that Chinese individuals' conformity to the status quo is particularly pronounced among those from families of working-class and farming backgrounds, while it is conspicuously absent among individuals whose families have closer ties to the private sector........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................Vacation home rental websites like VRBO and AirBNB are close-to-textbook examples of how web-enabled reductions in transactions costs could lead to substantial improvements in social welfare through more efficient use of a fixed resource. Such websites, however, have attracted a great deal of criticism from the very start. If houses become easier to rent online to vacationers, for instance, then houses in the primary-home market may be shifted to the rental market, exacerbating shortages and driving up prices for primary homebuyers. We use two comprehensive and detailed data sets—one on New Hampshire housing stock and transactions over the past twenty years and one on personal mobility from cell-phone pings—to identify vacation-appropriate homes and then examine the changes in the markets for both vacation homes and primary homes, and the spillovers between them.

• Friday 22 March 2024 12:00-13:00

  KRANTON Rachel (PSE) : "On-the-job Effort: workers’ identity, sharing organization values, and mental health" joint with Duncan Thomas

  GUYON Nina (ENS-PSL and PSE) : Desegregating Schools: Evidence from Middle School Closures in Deprived Neighborhoods

  Abstract

  Why do workers exert effort at their tasks and what are the implications for workers when particularly high effort is needed to do their jobs? Given the absence of incentive pay or threat of job loss, this study of university employees during the Covid-19 pandemic provides strong evidence of a connection between identity and workers’ effort. The study further finds associations between identity, effort, employees’ relationship to the organization, and employee mental health. The study sample consists of about 4000 respondents to an institution-wide survey conducted in the spring of 2021. Employees whose work is more important to their sense of self report exerting significantly more effort to maintain their level of accomplishment relative to a pre-pandemic benchmark. Higher effort needed to accomplish tasks, however, is strongly associated with higher levels of stress and anxiety. Employees who agree more that the university shares their values report needing less effort to accomplish tasks and report lower levels of stress and anxiety. We thus identify workers with a constellation of features: greater importance of work to sense of self, less sharing of values with the organization, higher self-reported effort, and higher levels of mental health distress. The stress and anxiety measures pick up patterns not seen in a broader, widely used scale of psychosocial well-being, indicating the need for new, intentional measures to study the relationship between work and employee mental health....................................................................................................................This paper studies the effects of a desegregation shock induced by middle school closures in deprived neighborhoods and leading to the reallocation of students to other middle schools in the city. I analyze the direct effects on students from deprived neighborhoods (the “movers”), as well as the indirect effects on incumbent students in receiving schools (the “receivers”). In both cases, I make use of the staggered closure of middle schools in cities all over France, comparing cohorts before and after closure, as well as of the availability of control cities. Exhaustive administrative panel data at the student level allow me to account for potential selection of the movers into receiving middle schools as well as for a potential “rich flight” of the receivers. I find that a school closure leads to a decrease in dropout rates after middle school for movers. These effects are consistent with a strong decrease in disruption that outweighs potential negative effects. Importantly, dropout rates also decrease for receivers, consistent with strong positive ranking effects that outweigh potential disruption effects. I find evidence of a “rich flight” towards the private system only for socially advantaged receivers that cannot fully explain these positive effects. Finally, I study the dynamics of these effects.

• Friday 8 March 2024 12:00-13:00

  BOYER Marcel (Université de Montréal) : Pour une réforme majeure de la social-démocratie et du capitalisme

  Abstract

  There is a fundamental complementarity between social democracy and competition. A true social democracy is based on a clear definition of the respective roles of the public (governmental) and competitive (private) sectors in the provision of public and social goods and services (PSGS), such as education, health care, social security, and infrastructure. The main roles of the public or government sector are to define the basket of PSGS in quantity and quality and to manage performance incentive contracts with the (competitive) private sector responsible for producing and distributing these PSGS. Companies (capitalist, cooperative, NFP, social economy, etc.) then compete to obtain PSGS supply contracts and the public sector no longer needs to directly manage schools, hospitals and numerous other institutions serving the citizens. Other proposed reforms include: the abolition or auctioning of subsidies and aid programs for businesses; the strengthening of pro-competition control of anti-competitive practices as well as business mergers and acquisitions; the determination of a significant and universal carbon price to encourage individuals and companies to internalize the environmental impacts of their strategies; the development of extended liability rules aimed at increasing the incentives of companies and their partners to prevent industrial and environmental accidents and to protect collateral victims; the elimination of taxes on corporate profits in order to thwart tax competition between states and to encourage companies to focus on their essential missions of wealth creation and investment in R&D and productivity. In fine, the proposed models of social democracy and capitalism arise from a conception of social sciences and economics in particular as the study of mechanisms of coordination, motivation, specialization, regulation and rules of exchange that conditions the development of collective intelligence, through the interconnexion of brains, in human society, of which the ability to exchange, particularly with strangers and across time, is a distinctive characteristic. Social Democracy, Capitalism, and Competition: A Manifesto, McGill-Queen’s University Press, October 2023,

  Full text [pdf]

• Friday 15 December 2023 12:00-13:00

  TZINTZUN Iván (PSE) : EU Regulations to Fight Nutrient Surpluses: the Case of Nitrate Vulnerable Zones

  ZUCMAN Gabriel (PSE) : Global Tax Evasion Report 2024

  Abstract

  Over the last 10 years, governments have launched major initiatives to reduce international tax evasion. These efforts include the creation of a new form of international cooperation – an automatic, multilateral exchange of bank information in force since 2017 – and an international agreement on a global minimum tax for multinational corporations, endorsed by more than 140 countries and territories in 2021. Yet despite the importance of these developments, little is known about the effects of these new policies. Is global tax evasion falling or rising? Are new issues emerging, and if so, what are they? This report addresses these issues thanks to an unprecedented international research collaboration and major data improvements. Prepared by the staff of the EU Tax Observatory – a research laboratory created in 2021 with unique expertise on international tax issues – this report summarizes work conducted by more than 100 researchers all over the world, often in partnership with tax administrations................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................Nutrient balance indicators can act as a signal for the potential environmental impact of agriculture on water and air. This article estimates the impact of the designation of nitrate vulnerable zones (NVZ) in the European Union (EU), the most comprehensive regulation for curbing water pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources in the EU mandated by the Nitrates Directive. Using the OECD agri-environmental indicators database on nutrient balances covering 47 countries and a set of policy variables constructed from EU official documents, we leverage the timing of NVZ designation across EU countries to identify sharp sustained reductions of 12%–18% in Nitrogen pollution, and 20%-25% in Phosphorus. The impacts of the NVZ policy are mainly explained by reductions in fertilizer use. The results are robust to numerous robustness checks. They suggest a successful policy tool for tackling Nutrient surpluses.

• Friday 24 November 2023 12:00-13:00

  FLEURBAEY Marc (PSE) : Aggregation, beyond GDP

  GORDON Matthew (PSE) : Remote Control: Debiasing Remote Sensing Predictions for Causal Inference

  Abstract

  1.This paper explores the possibility to replace the GDP-shareholder-value nexus, which has been under severe criticism for decades, with a combination of social-welfare compatible objectives at the macroeconomic level and at the firm level. Can GDP be replaced by social welfare and shareholder value be replaced with stakeholder value, in an integrated and consistent fashion? It is shown that money-metric utilities and their aggregation can indeed provide interesting tools to conceive of this integration of micro with macro objectives. But while consistent measures of the contribution of each firm to social welfare can be derived from this analysis, there is little hope to build new national welfare accounts in which micro-level contributions to social level could be simply added up to form social welfare at the macro level****************************************************************************************2.Advances in machine learning and the increasing availability of satellite imagery have led to the proliferation of social science research that uses remotely sensed measures of human activity or environmental outcomes to infer the impact of policy. However, standard machine learning loss functions can yield predictions that, when used in causal inference, may introduce bias. In this paper, we show how this bias can arise, and we demonstrate the use of an adversarial debiasing algorithm in order to correct this issue when generating machine learned predictions for use in causal inference. This method is widely applicable beyond satellite data to any setting where machine learned predictions are the dependent variable in a regression. We conduct simulations and empirical exercises using data on forest cover in Western Africa, to show that our method is able to generate predictions that recover the regression parameters that are estimated from ground truth data, in contrast to a naive model. We then use the method to study the relationship between economic development and deforestation in Western Africa and find a positive relationship between increases in wealth and forest cover.

• Friday 13 October 2023 12:00-13:00

  SHLEIFER Andrei (Harvard University) : Cognitive Economics

  Invited guest lecture by Andrei Shleifer (Harvard University)

  Abstract

  Human choices are often unstable, dependent on normatively irrelevant features of the problem, and variable across people in similar situations. Standard economics resolves these challenges by constructing exotic preferences. Behavioral economics deals with them by proliferating biases. Neither unifies different phenomena effectively. An alternative strategy is to start with regularities of human cognition, such as perception, attention, and memory, and to derive how people represent problems, form beliefs, and make choices from those foundations. This approach unifies theoretically a broad range of puzzling findings, and incorporates new strategies of measurement and prediction. We illustrate the ideas of cognitive economics with examples of finance, macroeconomics, labor economics, political economy, and risk assessment using both experimental and field data.

  Full text [pdf]

• Friday 22 September 2023 12:00-13:00

  GOEDDE Julius : *Satiation, unraveling and compressing prices. Designing peer-to-peer platforms with internal currencies

  ALTMANN Samuel (PSE) : Choice, Welfare, and Market Design: An Empirical Investigation of Feeding America's Choice System

  Abstract

  I examine how peer-to-peer sharing platforms that use internal currencies instead of real money should set prices. Individuals must earn currency by supplying on the platform and can only spend it by consuming on the same platform. Beyond this difference, such systems often mimic real markets where prices equalize demand and supply. I argue that non-market-clearing prices can be superior. As individuals typically only have a limited demand for the specific goods on the platform, some may become satiated and reduce their supply. This might induce others to reduce their supply in turn and thus lead to unraveling. I illustrate with a stylized model of a dynamic exchange economy that reducing the price of attractive goods may increase their supply and aggregate welfare. In the empirical part, I focus on a widely-used platform for exchanging holiday homes. Using proprietary data on the universe of transactions I confirm key predictions of the model. My results suggest that satiation is quantitatively important. Thus, compressed prices might indeed improve upon market-clearing prices - despite possible side-effects like misallocation. A broader insight is that lessons from traditional markets may not easily extend to markets without real money. ******************************************************************************** Feeding America, an organisation responsible for feeding 130,000 Americans every day, distributes donated food among a network of participating food banks. Feeding America’s allocation mechanism, the ‘Choice System’, uses first-price auctions to allow food banks to signal which types of food they need from Feeding America. This provides food banks a large degree of choice over the types of food they receive. This paper examines the welfare and distributional consequences of enabling this choice. I apply a dynamic auction model to Choice System bidding data, estimating the distribution of food banks’ heterogeneous and time-varying needs. I then use these estimates to compare the Choice System to the previous allocation mechanism employed by Feeding America which gave food banks very limited choice. I estimate that the Choice System increased welfare by the equivalent of a 17.1% increase in the quantity of food being allocated.

• Friday 26 May 2023 12:30-13:30

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan

  ASTIER Nicolas (PSE et Ecole des Ponts) : On the use of significant digits to convey statistical precision - ASTIER

  HERR Annika (Institute of Health Economics, Leibniz University Hannover) : Provider density and quality in German ambulatory long-term care: Which role does labor supply play? - HERR

  Abstract

  Most empirical estimates reported in economics are output from software routines. By default, these routines report a fixed number of decimal digits, typically three. We argue this practice represents a missed opportunity to convey statistical precision. We propose a statistical testing procedure that could be easily implemented to avoid both reporting too many digits that lack statistical significance and failing to report precisely estimated digits. Applying our methodology to all articles published in the American Economic Review between 2000 and 2022, we show that over 60% of printed digits for coefficient estimates are not statistically significant at standard levels. Authors : Nicolas Astier and Frank Wolak ***************** Ambulatory long-term care (LTC) aims to assist elderly individuals in their own homes. In this study, we analyze the causal impact of the recent increases in provider density due to increasing demand on the quality of ambulatory LTC. We employ data from publicly available transparency reports from 14,000 ambulatory care units in Germany between 2011 and 2019. Our instrumental variable approach exploits information on the nursing home market. Our primary findings indicate that an increase in provider density leads to a decrease in the quality of ambulatory LTC. A potential channel through which this effect may occur is a shortage of qualified nursing personnel. Our conclusion is that a trade-off exists between market entry, which enables better access to professional care, and higher quality. Therefore, we recommend further investment in skilled nursing personnel. Authors : Annika Herr, Maximilian Lückemann and Olena Izhak

• Friday 14 April 2023 12:30-13:30

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan

  LEDUC Mathieu (PSE) : Corporate Culture and Organizational Fragility

  VANDEN EYNDE Oliver (PSE) : Cooperation between National Armies: Evidence from the border regions in the Sahel

  Abstract

  Corporate Culture and Organizational Fragility : Matt LEDUC Complex organizations accomplish tasks through many steps of collaboration among workers. Corporate culture supports collaborations by establishing norms and reducing misunderstandings. Because a strong corporate culture relies on costly, voluntary investments by many workers, we model it as an organizational public good, subject to standard free-riding problems, which become severe in large organizations. Our main finding is that voluntary contributions to culture can nevertheless be sustained, because an organization’s equilibrium productivity is endogenously highly sensitive to individual contributions. However, the completion of complex tasks is then necessarily fragile to small shocks that damage the organization’s culture. ***** Cooperation between National Armies: Evidence from the border regions in the Sahel : Oliver Vanden Eynde joint with Marion Richard (UCLouvain/PSE) Military interventions often involve cooperation between different national armies. In this project, we investigate the extent to which the porous international borders in the Sahel region affect geographical patterns of conflict, and how the creation of an international armed force that can cross borders (the G5 Sahel) changed these patterns. We find that the G5 mission lowered the intensity of conflict locally, and that it changed patterns of geographical conflict propagation.

  Full text [pdf]

• Friday 31 March 2023 12:30-13:30

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan

  BOZIO Antoine (PSE/EHESS) : Follow the money! Why dividends overreact to flat-tax reforms”, joint with Laurent Bach, Brice Fabre, Arthur Guillouzouic, Claire Leroy and Clement Malgouyres

  Abstract

  We estimate behavioral responses to dividend taxation using recent French reforms: a rate hike and, five years later, a cut. Exploiting tax data at household and firm-level, we find very large dividend tax elasticities to both reforms. Individuals who control firms adjust dividend receipts instantaneously, accounting for most of the aggregate dividend reaction. Investment is insensitive to dividend taxation. Dividend adjustments are instead driven by corporate saving, as owner-managers treat firms as tax-free saving vehicles. Small businesses’ profits decline following dividend tax increases, suggesting firms also serve as tax-free consumption vehicles.

  Full text [pdf]

• Friday 17 February 2023 12:30-13:30

  R2-01

  BALLESTER Miguel (Oxford University) : Choice-Based Foundations of Ordered Logit

  APOUEY Bénédicte (PSE, CNRS) : "The health of workers in the gig economy"

• Friday 16 December 2022 12:30-13:30

  R2-01

  DURANTE Ruben (BSE) : Media Capture by Banks

  VANDEN EYNDE Oliver (PSE) : Cooperation between National Armies: Evidence from the border regions in the Sahel

  Abstract

  with Andrea Fabiani, Luc Laeven, José-Luis Peydró Do banks exploit lending relationships with media companies to promote favorable news coverage? To test this hypothesis we map the connections between banks and the top newspapers in several European countries and study how they affect news coverage of two important financial issues. First we look at bank earnings announcements and find that newspapers are significantly more likely to cover announcements by their lenders, relative to other banks, when they report profits than when they report losses. Such pro-lender bias applies to both general-interest and financial newspapers, and is stronger for newspapers and banks that are more financially vulnerable. Second, we look at a broader public interest issue: the Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis. We find that newspapers connected to banks more exposed to stressed sovereign bonds are more likely to promote a narrative of the crisis favorable to banks and to oppose debt-restructuring measures detrimental to creditors.

• Friday 25 November 2022 12:30-13:30

  R2-01

  DISDIER Anne-Célia (PSE & INRAE) : Deliberation and the Wisdom of Crowds

  DIETRICH Franz (PSE, CNRS) : International diffusion of food innovations and nutrition transition

  Abstract

  Co-author: K. Spiekermann (LSE) Does pre-voting group deliberation increase majority competence? To address this question, we develop a non-game-theoretic model of opinion formation and deliberation. Two new jury theorems, one pre-deliberation and one post-deliberation, suggest that deliberation is beneficial. Successful deliberation mitigates three voting failures: (1) overcounting widespread evidence, (2) neglecting evidential inequality, and (3) neglecting evidential complementarity. Simulations and theoretic arguments confirm this. But there are five systematic exceptions where deliberation reduces majority competence, always through increasing Failure 1. Our analysis recommends deliberation that is ‘participatory', ‘even', but possibly ‘unequal', i.e., that involves substantive sharing, privileges no evidences, but possibly privileges some persons.

  Full text [pdf]

• Friday 14 October 2022 12:30-13:30

  R2-01

  RICKNE Johanna (Stockholm University) : *

  JEHIEL Philippe (PSE)

• Friday 30 September 2022 12:30-13:30

  R2-01

  PIGUILLEM Facundo (Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance) : Government Debt, Capital Taxation and Redistribution

  FRIEDMAN Evan (PSE) : Stochastic Choice in Games

  Kirill Shakhnov (University of Surrey)

• Friday 15 April 2022 12:30-13:30

  R2-21

  ETILÉ Fabrice (PSE) : *

  KOESSLER Frédéric (PSE)

• Friday 25 March 2022 12:30-13:30

  R1-09

  MACÉ Antonin (PSE) : Voting in Shareholders Meetings

  ANDREESCU Marie (PSE) : Under-Reporting of Firm Size Around Size-Dependent Regulation Thresholds: Evidence from France

  Abstract

  This paper studies the informational efficiency of voting mechanisms in shareholder meetings. When the management does not affect the proposal being voted on, we show that voting mechanisms are more efficient when their ballot space is richer. Moreover, efficiency requires full divisibility of the votes. When the management has agenda power, we uncover a novel trade-off?: more efficient mechanisms provide worse incentives to select good proposals. This negative effect can be large enough to wash out the higher voting efficiency of even the most efficient mechanisms.

  Full text [pdf]

• Friday 11 February 2022 12:30-13:30

  R2-01

  LEBRETON Maël (PSE) : Incentive motivation differently affects beliefs and confidence judgments.

  CASELLA Alessandra (Columbia) : Two Lab Experiments on Alternative Voting Rules: Cumulative Voting and Liquid Democracy

  Abstract

  Alessandra Casella (co-authors: Joseph Campbell, Lucas de Lara, Jeffrey Guo, Michelle Jiang, Victoria Mooers, & Dilip Ravindran): US courts have used Cumulative Voting (CV) to remedy violations of the Voting Rights Acts and increase minority representation. Under CV, each voter has as many votes as open positions but can cumulate votes on as few candidates as desired. Although each voter is treated equally, theory predicts that CV increases both minority’s turnout relative to the majority, and the minority’s share of seats won. Liquid Democracy (LD) is celebrated by supporters as the golden medium between direct and representative democracy. Under LD, decisions are taken by referendum, but voters are allowed to delegate their votes. When experts are correctly identified, theory shows that the outcome can be superior to simple majority voting. In the lab, CV's theoretical promise is satisfied: the minority's turnout and its share of seats both increases. LD, however, falls short of its potential: systematic over-delegation leads to its underperformance relative to simple majority. Maël Lebreton (co-authors: Nahuel Salem-Garcia & Sébastien Massoni): Countless reports of over-optimism, overconfidence, wishful-thinking and desirability biases suggest that a general motivated-cognition bias distort all beliefs uniformly. Here, we provide evidence against this view, and demonstrate that motivational biases differentially affect proper beliefs, i.e. probability judgments over (external) states, and confidence judgements, i.e. probability judgments over ones’ own actions or statements being correct. Across multiple experiments, we systematically manipulate the agency of decisions over ambiguous states-of-the-world and the valence of monetary incentives for accurate probabilistic judgments about the correctness of those decisions. We identify a clear effect of the net incentive value on confidence, which vanishes when considering beliefs. These results, which falsify the most general interpretations of motivated-belief theories, suggest that beliefs and confidence stem from fundamentally different cognitive mechanisms. Consequently, although similarly ubiquitous and apparently related, overconfidence and (over)optimism biases might have different causes and remedies.

• Friday 17 December 2021 12:30-13:30

  R2-01

  D ALBIS Hippolyte (PSE) : Unpaired Kidney Exchange: Double Coincidence of Wants without Money

  TERCIEUX Olivier (PSE) : Global Uncertainty and International Migration to Western Europe

  Abstract

  Co-authors: Mohammad Akbarpour (Stanford University), Julien Combe (CREST), Yinghua He (Rice University), Victor Hiller (Paris 2), Robert Shimer (University of Chicago). For an incompatible patient-donor pair, kidney exchanges often forbid receipt-before-donation (the patient receives a kidney before the donor donates) and donation-before-receipt, causing a double-coincidence-of-wants problem. Our proposal, the Unpaired kidney exchange algorithm, uses “memory” as a medium of exchange to eliminate these timing constraints. In a dynamic matching model, we prove that Unpaired delivers a waiting time of patients close to optimal and substantially shorter than currently utilized state-of-the-art algorithms. Using a rich administrative dataset from France, we show that Unpaired achieves a match rate of 57 percent and an average waiting time of 440 days. The (infeasible) optimal algorithm is only slightly better (58 percent and 425 days); state-of-the-art algorithms deliver less than 34 percent and more than 695 days. We draw similar conclusions from the simulations of two large U.S. platforms. Lastly, we propose a range of solutions that can address the potential practical concerns of Unpaired.

• Friday 26 November 2021 12:30-14:00

  R2-01

  WREN-LEWIS Liam (PSE) : Complementarities in Infrastructure: Evidence from Rural India

  OLLIVIER Hélène (CNRS & PSE) : Estimating the Effects of Incomplete Regulation on Regulated Firms and their Competitors: An Application to the EU ETS

  Abstract

  Co-author: Oliver Vanden Eynde (PSE) Complementarities between infrastructure projects have been understudied. Our paper examines interactions in the impacts of large-scale road construction, electrification, and mobile phone coverage programs in rural India. We find strong evidence of complementary impacts between roads and electricity on agricultural production: dry season cropping increases significantly when villages receive both, but not when they receive one without the other. These complementarities are associated with a shift of cropping patterns towards market crops and with improved economic conditions. In contrast, we find no consistent evidence of complementarities for the mobile coverage program.

• Friday 22 October 2021 12:30-14:00

  R2-01

  STEWART Colin (University of Toronto) : Attention Please!

  STANCANELLI Elena (PSE) : A tale of hours worked for pay from home before and after the Great Recession: learning from high-frequency diaries

  .

  Abstract

  We study the impact of manipulating the attention of a decision-maker who learns sequentially about a number of items before making a choice. Under natural assumptions on the decision-maker’s strategy, directing attention toward one item increases its likelihood of being chosen regardless of its value. This result applies when the decisionmaker can reject all items in favor of an outside option with known value; if no outside option is available, the direction of the effect of manipulation depends on the value of the item. A similar result applies to manipulation of choices in bandit problems. http://individual.utoronto.ca/colinstewart/ap.pdf

• Friday 28 May 2021 13:45-15:00

  salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

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• Friday 28 May 2021 13:15-13:45

  salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

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• Friday 16 April 2021 13:45-15:00

  salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

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• Friday 16 April 2021 13:15-13:45

  salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

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• Friday 26 March 2021 13:45-15:00

  salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

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• Friday 26 March 2021 13:15-13:45

  salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

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• Friday 12 February 2021 13:45-15:00

  salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

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• Friday 18 December 2020 13:46-14:15

  online

  OH Susanna (PSE) : Gender Norms in Marriage and Female Labor Productivity

  Abstract

  This project investigates whether gender norms lead women to hold back their potential in the labor market. While the existing literature has shown that women tend to earn less than their husbands, there is limited direct evidence on whether women actively avoid earning more than their spouses and the determinants of such behavior. The experiment engages married couples working as casual laborers in a short-term manufacturing job that pays piece-rate on output. The experiment provides women an extra hour to work without this difference being salient, making it likely that they could earn more than their husbands. After husbands finish piece-rate production, women are randomized into one of three conditions in which 1) wife is informed of her husband’s production and expects both spouses to learn the couple’s individual production at the end of the day, 2) wife is informed of her husband’s production and expects that only she will learn the couple’s individual production, or 3) both spouses are only informed of their joint production. Pilot results show that women in the last two conditions achieve on average one hour’s worth of production more than that of their husbands, suggesting that women do not have intrinsic concerns about earning more than their husbands. However, this productivity gap disappears when women expect their husbands to also find out about individual production, suggesting that women care about husbands’ beliefs or reactions.

• Friday 18 December 2020 13:15-13:40

  online

  VELLODI Nikhil (PSE) : Insider Imitation and Privacy on Platforms (co-author: Erik Madsen (NYU)

• Friday 27 November 2020 13:45-15:00

  salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

  FLEURBAEY MARC : *

• Friday 27 November 2020 12:00-15:00

  LASLIER Jean-François (CNRS-PSE) : JOINT EVENT with PSE collaborative project “Economie et Philosophie” : The French Citizens' Convention on Climate: A forerunner to future democracy?

  APOUEY Bénédicte (PSE, CNRS)

  FLEURBAEY Marc (PSE)

  DRYZEK John (University of Canberra)

  FUNG Archon (Harvard)

  GIRARD Charles (Université Jean Moulin - Lyon)

  LANDEMORE Hélène (Yale )

  ROUSSIN Juliette (Université de Laval - Québec)

  Abstract

  The Paris School of Economics is organising a workshop on the French Citizen Convention on Climate. A presentation will be made by researchers who have observed the whole process of this citizen assembly that started in October 2019. Then a panel discussion will be offered by specialists of deliberative democracy and political philosophy. Are such citizen participatory schemes a political sideshow or a key component of an ideal deliberative democracy? Programm: 12h-13h: Presentation of the Convention, by Bénédicte Apouey and Jean-François Laslier (CNRS-PSE) 13h-15h: Panel discussion with John Dryzek (University of Canberra) , Archon Fung (Harvard Kennedy School), Charles Girard (Université Jean Moulin de Lyon), Hélène Landemore (Yale University) and Juliette Roussin (Université Laval à Québec), moderated by Marc Fleurbaey (CNRS-PSE and ENS-CERES).

• Thursday 25 June 2020 12:00-13:30

  ZOOM

  MILCENT Carine (PSE) : *

  COIMBRA Nuno (PSE)

• Thursday 28 May 2020 12:30-14:30

  *

• Thursday 30 April 2020 14:00-15:30

  ZOOM

  FERRIÈRE Axelle (PSE) : Escaping the Losses from Trade: The Impact of Heterogeneity on Skill Acquisition

  KETZ Philipp (PSE)

  G. Navarro and R.Reyes-Heroles

  Abstract

  Future generations of workers can invest in education, acquire skill and avoid the negative consequences of trade openness for low-skilled workers. However, not all members of these future generations might have the resources required to make such investments. In this paper we exploit variation in exposure to import penetration shocks across space in the United States to show that greater import penetration increases college enrollment and that this increase is driven by future workers in richer households. To analyze the welfare implications of the effects of trade openness on college enrollment, we propose a dynamic multi-region model of international trade with heterogeneous agents. The model features incomplete credit markets and costly endogenous skill acquisition. We calibrate the model to match changes in aggregate trade data for the United States and differential import exposure across U.S. regions. Lower import barriers generate increased college enrollment and welfare gains for all workers in the long-run. However, these gains are concentrated on workers with a college education, whose welfare gains are twice as large as those of non-college workers. While all workers in the manufacturing sector lose from grater trade openness, a small number of college educated workers in manufacturing with low wealth experience the greatest losses. Increasing college enrollment for new cohorts over time plays a crucial role in allowing new generations of workers to escape the potential welfare losses form trade. However, poor dynasties take the longest to acquire skills. They are therefore the last to experience positive gains from trade openness, and entire generations may not realize any gains within a life-time.

• Thursday 26 March 2020 12:30-14:00

  salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

  *

• Thursday 27 February 2020 12:30-14:00

  salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

  *

• Thursday 12 December 2019 12:30-14:00

  salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

  LAMBERT-MOGILIANSKY Ariane (PSE) : *

  BEZIN Emeline

• Thursday 28 November 2019 12:00-13:30

  KU Hyejin (UCL) : *

  ZHURAVSKAYA Ekaterina (PSE)

• Thursday 17 October 2019 12:00-13:30

  salle R1-09, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

  Social and economic inequality

  Abstract

  We present the preliminary results from a lab experiment investigating how economic inequality and network structure affect public good provision. We frame the experiment as a local public good game: in the lab, subjects are assigned a network position, and an endowment to be split between a private good and a public good that benefits direct neighbors as well. Our aim is to test the behavioral validity of the equilibrium predictions, and whether subjects are able to coordinate away from equilibrium to maximize welfare.

• Thursday 26 September 2019 12:00-13:30

  R2.02

  TBA

  TBA

  Abstract

  TBA

  Full text [pdf]

• Thursday 26 September 2019 12:00-13:30

  TBA

• Thursday 26 September 2019 12:00-13:30

  *

• Thursday 26 September 2019 12:00-13:30

  salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

  *

• Thursday 26 September 2019 12:00-13:30

  salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris

  VERDIER Thierry (PSE) : From preferences to representation

  LASLIER Jean-François (CNRS-PSE) : Samaritan Bundles: Fundraising Competition and Inefficient Clustering in NGO Projects (joint with Gani Aldashev and Marco Marini)

  test

  Abstract

  I will introduce and analyse some ideas that have been proposed in order to give a positive answer to the question: Is it possible to achieve proportional representation while voting for individual candidates rather than for parties?

  Full text [pdf]

• 0000

  GRENET Julien (PSE) : TBA

  Abstract

  TBA

• 0000

  ALTMANN Samuel (PSE) : *Satiation, unraveling and compressing prices. Designing peer-to-peer platforms with internal currencies

  GOEDDE Julius : Choice, Welfare, and Market Design: An Empirical Investigation of Feeding America's Choice System

  Abstract

  I examine how peer-to-peer sharing platforms that use internal currencies instead of real money should set prices. Individuals must earn currency by supplying on the platform and can only spend it by consuming on the same platform. Beyond this difference, such systems often mimic real markets where prices equalize demand and supply. I argue that non-market-clearing prices can be superior. As individuals typically only have a limited demand for the specific goods on the platform, some may become satiated and reduce their supply. This might induce others to reduce their supply in turn and thus lead to unraveling. I illustrate with a stylized model of a dynamic exchange economy that reducing the price of attractive goods may increase their supply and aggregate welfare. In the empirical part, I focus on a widely-used platform for exchanging holiday homes. Using proprietary data on the universe of transactions I confirm key predictions of the model. My results suggest that satiation is quantitatively important. Thus, compressed prices might indeed improve upon market-clearing prices - despite possible side-effects like misallocation. A broader insight is that lessons from traditional markets may not easily extend to markets without real money. ********************** Feeding America, an organisation responsible for feeding 130,000 Americans every day, distributes donated food among a network of participating food banks. Feeding America’s allocation mechanism, the ‘Choice System’, uses first-price auctions to allow food banks to signal which types of food they need from Feeding America. This provides food banks a large degree of choice over the types of food they receive. This paper examines the welfare and distributional consequences of enabling this choice. I apply a dynamic auction model to Choice System bidding data, estimating the distribution of food banks’ heterogeneous and time-varying needs. I then use these estimates to compare the Choice System to the previous allocation mechanism employed by Feeding America which gave food banks very limited choice. I estimate that the Choice System increased welfare by the equivalent of a 17.1% increase in the quantity of food being allocated.