Publications des chercheurs de PSE

Electronic monitoring (EM) has emerged as a popular tool for curbing the growth of large prison populations. Evidence on the causal effects of EM on criminal recidivism is, however, limited and it is unclear how this alternative to incarceration affects the labor supply of offenders and the outcomes of their family members. We study the countrywide expansion of EM in Sweden in 1997 wherein offenders sentenced to up to three months in prison were granted the option to substitute incarceration with EM. Our difference-in-differences estimates, which compare the change in the prison inflow rate of treated offenders to that of non-treated offenders with slightly longer sentences, show that the reform significantly decreased the number of incarcerations. Our main finding is that EM not only lowers criminal recidivism but also increases labor supply. Additionally, EM improves the educational attainment and early-life earnings of the children whose parents were exposed to the reform. The primary mechanisms through which EM operates appear to involve the preservation of offenders’ ties to the labor market, by reducing the barriers to both finding a job and changing employers. Our calculations suggest that the social benefits stemming from EM are about seven times larger than the fiscal savings associated with reduced prison expenditures, implying that the welfare gains from EM could be much greater than previously acknowledged.

We study the earnings responses to six large payroll tax and income tax reforms in France. We find evidence of full pass-through to workers in cases where there is a strong and clear relationship between contributions and expected benefits. By contrast, we find a limited pass-through of employer payroll taxes to workers for reforms with no tax-benefit linkage, and close to full pass-through to workers for income tax reforms nominally incident on employees. Together with a meta-analysis of the literature, we interpret these results as evidence that tax-benefit linkage matters for incidence of payroll taxes, a claim long made by the literature but not backed by empirical evidence to date. Absent tax-benefit linkage, our results suggest that the individual-level incidence of payroll taxes aligns with their statutory incidence.

Electronic monitoring (EM) has emerged as a popular tool for curbing the growth of large prison populations. Evidence on the causal effects of EM on criminal recidivism is, however, limited and it is unclear how this alternative to incarceration affects the labor supply of offenders and the outcomes of their family members. We study the countrywide expansion of EM in Sweden in 1997 wherein offenders sentenced to up to three months in prison were granted the option to substitute incarceration with EM. Our difference-in-differences estimates, which compare the change in the prison inflow rate of treated offenders to that of non-treated offenders with slightly longer sentences, show that the reform significantly decreased the number of incarcerations. Our main finding is that EM not only lowers criminal recidivism but also increases labor supply. Additionally, EM improves the educational attainment and early-life earnings of the children whose parents were exposed to the reform. The primary mechanisms through which EM operates appear to involve the preservation of offenders’ ties to the labor market, by reducing the barriers to both finding a job and changing employers. Our calculations suggest that the social benefits stemming from EM are about seven times larger than the fiscal savings associated with reduced prison expenditures, implying that the welfare gains from EM could be much greater than previously acknowledged.

We study how students adjust their early career choices in response to economic crises, and how this behavioral response affects their long-run labor market outcomes. We specifically examine the context of the severe recession that struck Sweden in the early 1990s, which disproportionally affected the manufacturing and construction sectors. We find that students who experienced paternal job loss in these heavily affected sectors were more likely to choose high school programs linked to sectors less impacted by the recession. As a result, these individuals achieved better labor market outcomes in adulthood, including higher employment rates and career earnings. Our findings are consistent with informational frictions being a key obstacle to structural change, and we identify career choice as an important mechanism through which recessions reshape labor markets in the very long run.

The Swedish banking crisis in the early 90s counts as one of the five most severe financial crises in history. We examine how firms more exposed to this event adjusted employment in the longrun and the mechanisms involved. Our analysis draws on matched employer-employee data containing the financial statements for a large sample of firms. Our difference-indifferences estimates show that firms with a greater pre-crisis debt burden experienced more difficulties in accessing external capital during the crisis compared to firms with lower baseline debts. This is consistent with the most exposed firms becoming financially constrained. More exposed firms exhibit stronger downward employment adjustments than less exposed firms, and the reductions are mainly concentrated among low-skilled workers. Employment in more exposed firms started to recover four years after the crisis and had fully recuperated about a decade later. These firms also temporarily saw a larger drop in both productivity and investment. We do not find a significant effect on the wage bill, and the estimates are precise enough to rule out even moderate effect sizes.

We show in a large-scale field experiment that a brief exposure to female role models working in scientific fields affects high school students’ perceptions and choice of undergraduate major. The classroom interventions reduced the prevalence of stereotypical views on jobs in science and gender differences in abilities. They also made high-achieving girls in Grade 12 more likely to enrol in selective and male-dominated STEM programs in college. Comparing treatment effects across the 56 role model participants, we find that the most effective interventions are those that improved students’ perceptions of STEM careers without overemphasizing women’s under-representation in science.

We show in a large-scale field experiment that a brief exposure to female role models working in scientific fields affects high school students’ perceptions and choices of undergraduate major. The classroom interventions reduced the prevalence of stereotypical views on jobs in science and gender differences in abilities. They also made high-achieving girls in grade 12 more likely to enrol in selective and male-dominated science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs in college. Comparing treatment effects across the 56 role model participants, we find that the most effective interventions are those that improved students’ perceptions of science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers without overemphasising women’s under-representation in science.

Comment réduire les inégalités sociales à l'école ? Comment favoriser la diffusion des meilleures approches pédagogiques ? Tout se joue-t-il vraiment avant 3 ans ? La taille des classes influence-t-elle la réussite des élèves ? Existe-t-il un " effet enseignant " ? Face à la carte scolaire, sommes-nous réduits à choisir entre être bons parents et bons citoyens ? Ces questions sont au cœur du débat public. Depuis trois décennies, les éléments de réponse qu'apporte l'économie de l'éducation à ces questions s'appuient sur un profond renouvellement de l'économie appliquée, visant à utiliser de façon crédible – et souvent créative – des données de plus en plus riches. L'objectif de cet ouvrage fondé sur un cours enseigné à l'École d'économie de Paris est de proposer une synthèse à jour qui donne envie d'approfondir sa réflexion personnelle.

Grâce à des données riches et inédites, cet article analyse les inégalités sociales d’accès aux grandes écoles et leur évolution depuis le milieu des années 2000. Malgré les dispositifs d’« ouverture » qui ont été mis en place par certaines grandes écoles pour diversifier le profil de leurs étudiants, ces institutions d’élite sont restées presque entièrement fermées aux élèves issus de milieux sociaux défavorisés et leur base de recrutement n’a guère évolué au cours des quinze dernières années. Cette permanence des inégalités d’accès aux grandes écoles ne s’explique qu’en partie par les écarts de performance scolaire entre les élèves issus de milieux très favorisés et les élèves issus de milieux défavorisés. Elle trouve sa source, en amont, dans l’absence de diversification du recrutement des classes préparatoires et des écoles post-bac au cours de la période. Ce constat d’échec invite à repenser les leviers qui pourraient être mobilisés pour élargir le recrutement des filières sélectives.

La modification annoncée de la procédure de recrutement des deux prestigieux lycées de la capitale est accusée par ses opposants de « briser l'excellence » et de faire le jeu du privé. L'analyse des données de l'académie de Paris va à l'encontre de ces arguments.

We document quasi-experimental evidence against the common assumption in the matching literature that agents have full information on their own preferences. In Germany’s university admissions, the first stages of the Gale-Shapley algorithm are implemented in real time, allowing for multiple offers per student. We demonstrate that nonexploding early offers are accepted more often than later offers, despite not being more desirable. These results, together with survey evidence and a theoretical model, are consistent with students’ costly discovery of preferences. A novel dynamic multioffer mechanism that batches early offers improves matching efficiency by informing students of offer availability before preference discovery.

We document quasi-experimental evidence against the common assumption in the matching literature that agents have full information on their own preferences. In Germany’s university admissions, the first stages of the Gale-Shapley algorithm are implemented in real time, allowing for multiple offers per student. We demonstrate that nonexploding early offers are accepted more often than later offers, despite not being more desirable. These results, together with survey evidence and a theoretical model, are consistent with students’ costly discovery of preferences. A novel dynamic multioffer mechanism that batches early offers improves matching efficiency by informing students of offer availability before preference discovery.