Publications

Abstract Young citizens vote at relatively low rates, which contributes to political parties de-prioritizing youth preferences. We analyze the effects of low-cost online interventions in encouraging young Moroccans to cast an informed vote in the 2021 elections. These interventions aim to reduce participation costs by providing information about the registration process and by highlighting the election's stakes and the distance between respondents' preferences and party platforms. Contrary to preregistered expectations, the interventions did not increase average turnout, yet exploratory analysis shows that the interventions designed to increase benefits did increase the turnout intention of uncertain baseline voters. Moreover, information about parties' platforms increased support for the party closest to the respondents' preferences, leading to better-informed voting. Results are consistent with motivated reasoning, which is surprising in a context with weak party institutionalization.
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Abstract This paper empirically examines which factors have influenced numerical compliance with fiscal rules in Latin American and Caribbean countries over the period 2000 to 2020. We use logistic regression models to associate three groups of specific factors with a greater or lesser probability of compliance with the rule: the macroeconomic and political environment of the countries and the design features of the enforced rules. We find that only changes in the macroeconomic and political context affect the probability of compliance with the enforced rules. In contrast, the institutional design of the fiscal rules does not seem to play an essential role in the compliance outcome. This result suggests that adjustments in this direction are not decisive for rule compliance.
Keywords Compliance, Latin America, Fiscal rules
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Abstract Introduction: We estimated the health and economic impacts of chronic exposure to air pollution for the Swiss part of the Greater Geneva area from 2016 to 2018. Materials and methods: We extracted from fine-scale modelled concentration maps for two pollutant indicators, particulate matter PM 2.5 and nitrogen dioxide. Then, we performed a quantitative health impact assessment of the health burden attributable to anthropogenic-origin air pollution, and estimated the benefits of compliance with the federal Ordinance on Air Pollution Control (OAPC) limit values. Finally, we computed the economic impacts of these health effects. Results: Exposure to fine particles of anthropogenic origin was responsible for 7.5% of annual mortality (280 deaths or 5,900 life years lost), for 14 lung cancers and for 68 strokes annually in the Canton of Geneva. Compliance with the OAPC limit value of 10 µg/m 3 as an annual average would reduce annual mortality by 1.5% (62 deaths avoided or 1,300 life years gained). Exposure to anthropogenic-origin NO 2 was associated with 5.3% of annual deaths (approximately 200 deaths per year). The estimated total negative economic impacts of anthropogenic-origin fine particles were at least CHF 2017 1.3 billion per year, whereas compliance with the OAPC limit values would result in annual economic benefits of at least CHF 2017 290 million. Conclusion: We confirmed that air quality remains a health issue on which stakeholder mobilisation is vital. Action plans should tackle emissions from freight and personal mobility, heating, industry and agriculture, while seeking to improve knowledge on health risks from air pollution exposure.
Keywords Switzerland, Economic assessment, Morbidity, Mortality, Quantitative health impact assessment
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Abstract Dans son dernier ouvrage intitulé Measuring Social Welfare, Matthew Adler propose un vaste panorama portant sur les méthodes d’évaluation du bien-être social et sur les débats auxquels le développement de ces méthodes a donné lieu en choix social. L’enjeu de l’ouvrage est double. Il est d’une part de fournir à la communauté des étudiant(e)s et des chercheur(e)s en sciences économiques et sociales mais aussi en sciences politiques un manuel en choix social à la fois abordable techniquement tout en étant exigeant et rigoureux. Il est d’autre part, de montrer la pertinence à la fois sur le plan théorique et sur le plan pratique du programme de recherche développé en choix social autour des fonctions de bien-être social. Par là-même, ainsi que l’avance Matthew Adler, l’ouvrage contribue de fait à combler un vide dans la littérature sur les fonctions de bien-être social développées depuis cinquante ans. Cette littérature étant particulièrement mathématisée, elle s’adresse, le plus souvent, à un public d’initiés. L’apport premier de l’ouvrage est de décloisonner le savoir issu de la théorie du choix social, le rendant accessible à un public d’étudiant(e)s et de chercheur(e)s s’interrogeant sur l’évaluation sociale. Pour ce faire, l’ouvrage est rédigé de sorte à permettre différents niveaux de lecture : en particulier, les développements portant sur les aspects les plus formels de l’analyse mathématique sont placés en annexe et, outre la bibliographie très complète placée en fin d’ouvrage, chaque chapitre comporte une bibliographie restreinte accessible au plus grand nombre…
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Abstract We investigate whether and how an individual giving decision is affected in risky environments in which the recipient's wealth is random. We demonstrate that, under risk neutrality, the donation of dictators with a purely ex post view of fairness should, in general, be affected by the riskiness of the recipient's payoff, while dictators with a purely ex ante view should not be. Furthermore, we observe that some influential inequality aversion preferences functions yield opposite predictions when we consider ex post view of fairness. Hence, we report on dictator games laboratory experiments in which the recipient's wealth is exposed to an actuarially neutral and additive background risk. Our experimental data show no statistically significant impact of the recipient's risk exposure on dictators' giving decisions. This result appears robust to both the experimental design (within subjects or between subjects) and the origin of the recipient's risk exposure (chosen by the recipient or imposed on the recipient). Although we cannot sharply validate or invalidate alternative fairness theories, the whole pattern of our experimental data can be simply explained by assuming ex ante view of fairness and risk neutrality.
Keywords Laboratory experiments, Dictator games, Background risk
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Abstract We consider a nondurable good monopolist that collects data on its customers in order to profile them and subsequently practice price discrimination on returning customers. The monopolist’s price discrimination scheme is leaky in the sense that an endogenous fraction of consumers choose to incur a privacy cost to conceal their identity when they return in the following periods. We characterize the Markov perfect equilibrium of the game under two alternative customer profiling regimes: full information acquisition (FIA) and purchase history information (PHI). In both cases, we find that, contrary to what could be expected, the monopolist’s aggregate profit is not monotonically increasing in the level of the privacy cost, but a U-shaped function of it, leading to ambiguous profit effects: a reduction in privacy costs increases the fraction of customers who choose to be anonymous (detrimental profit effect), but it also softens the firm’s introductory price, reducing the pace at which prices targeted to new customers fall over time (positive profit effect). When comparing results under FIA and PHI, we find that market expansion is faster, and more customers conceal their identity under FIA than under PHI. Equilibrium profits are also higher in the FIA case. Although equilibrium profits are U-shaped functions of the privacy cost in both profiling regimes, they tend to be globally decreasing with the privacy cost under PHI and globally increasing under FIA.
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Abstract Background Efficiency analyses have been widely used in the literature to rank countries regarding their health system performances. However, little place has been given to the environmental aspect: two countries with the same characteristics could experience completely different healthcare system outcomes just because they do not face the same environmental quality situation, which is a major determinant of the health of inhabitants. Methods Using a stochastic frontier model, this paper analyses the effect of environmental quality on health system outcomes in OECD countries, measured by life expectancy at birth. Results We show that the healthcare system performance ranking of OECD countries changes significantly, depending on whether the environmental index is taken into account. Conclusions These findings, once again, underline the critical importance of the environment when addressing population health issues. In general, our results can be aligned with the messages of the One Health approach literature.
Keywords Health, Healthcare system efficiency, Health production function, Environment, Stochastic frontier analysis, Panel data
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Abstract I present a model of optimal capital taxation where agents with heterogeneous labor productivity randomly draw their rate of return to savings. Because of scale dependence, the distribution of rates of returns can depend on the amount saved. Uncertainty in returns to savings yields an insurance rationale for taxing capital on top of labor income. I first show that, because of scale dependence, agents making the same saving decision should access the same rate of return at the optimum. I then constrain the information set of the government and show that, as soon as return are uncertain, positive capital income taxation is needed at the optimum. The optimal linear tax on capital income trades off insurance with distortions to both savings and to the rate of return in a context of scale dependence. Eventually, I argue that scale dependence in and of itself is not sufficient to justify capital taxation on top of labor income taxes. These results are still valid when agents can optimize between a risk-free and a risky-asset that can both exhibit scale dependence.
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Abstract The massive shift towards teleworking during the COVID pandemic relatively deteriorated working conditions of people occupying positions that could not be teleworked because they were more exposed to the risk of infection. Exploiting French data, we analyse the differential changes in sorting across occupations of immigrants and natives during years preceding the pandemic. Immigrants sorted relatively more into occupations intensive in non-routine manual tasks. These occupations cannot be teleworked. We find an increase in immigrants' sorting into occupations intensive in non-routine interactive and analytical tasks. However, in contrast with natives, immigrants were moving away from occupations intensively using new technologies.
Keywords Jobs, Gender, Immigrants, Health-status, Task specialization
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Abstract Understanding the mechanisms of deforestation is necessary in order to slow or arrest its progress. To accomplish this requires rigorously estimating the demand for deforestation. We contribute to this endeavor by estimating the effect of crop prices on the demand for conversion of land from forest to agriculture in the tropics during the 21st century. The two main difficulties involved are the lack of harmonized data on local crop prices in the tropics and the fact that they are determined simultaneously with decisions to deforest. We propose a strategy to circumvent these two issues using high-resolution annual forest loss data for the tropics, combined with information on crop-specific agricultural suitability and annual international crop prices. We find that crop price variation has a significant impact on deforestation: increases in crop prices are estimated to be responsible for one-third of total deforestation in the tropics (totaling about 2 million km2) during the period 2001–2018. We also find that the degree of openness to international trade and the level of economic development are first-order local characteristics affecting the magnitude of the impact of crop prices on deforestation.
Keywords Agricultural commodity prices, Déforestation
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