Romain Ferrali

Faculty ,  Aix-Marseille Université , Faculté d'économie et de gestion (FEG)

Development and political economy
Ferrali
Status
Assistant professor
Research domain(s)
Development economics, Game theory and social networks
Thesis
2018, Princeton University
Download
CV
Contact
romain.ferrali[at]univ-amu.fr
Address

AMU - AMSE
5-9 Boulevard Maurice Bourdet, CS 50498
​13205 Marseille Cedex 1

Website
https://rferrali.net/
Abstract Honest and dishonest behaviors may both diffuse among the members of an organization. Knowing which of the two spreads faster is important because it impacts the extent to which managers will need to resort to other, potentially more costly solutions to curb dishonest behavior. Assessing empirically which of honest behavior or dishonest behavior spreads faster is challenging because this requires field measurements of social relationships and dishonest behavior of individual members, which poses both measurement and inference problems. We examine an original fine-grained data set from a large company that allows for identifying agents likely to be dishonest and interactions among employees while offering a natural experiment that circumvents the inference problems associated with identifying peer-to-peer diffusion. We find (1) that dishonest behavior diffuses, whereas honest behavior does not; (2) that diffusion likely operates through spreading information about opportunities for collusion; and (3) that policies that screen on dishonesty at hiring may be efficient to curb dishonest behavior in environments with high turnover. This paper was accepted by Lamar Pierce, organizations. Funding: R. Ferrali acknowledges support from the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice [Grant 2016-12-Bobst], the French National Research Agency [Grant ANR-17-EURE-0020], and Aix-Marseille University—A*MIDEX [Excellence Initiative]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.01981 .
Keywords Natural experiment, Dishonesty, Organization Behavior, Network analysis
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Abstract This paper examines the role of social interactions in contract enforcement within the postcolonial Arab world, with a specific focus on Morocco. Through extensive interviews with members of the industrial elite during the import-substituting industrialization (ISI) period, we uncover a significant risk of contractual breaches. Despite this risk, there was a reluctance to use social connections to penalize those who breached contracts. Legal recourse was also rarely pursued. Instead, business leaders leaned on their social networks to assess potential partners and resolve disputes through bilateral channels. This reliance on social ties was facilitated by the close-knit and compact nature of the business community. In the post-ISI era, characterized by a larger and more diverse industrial elite, there was a noticeable increase in contractual disputes, accompanied by a shift towards more aggressive resolution methods. We present a theoretical model that elucidates how these dynamics naturally emerge from an environment where economic and social interactions are intertwined.
Keywords Industry, Twentieth century, Elite, Morocco
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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 The impacts of money in US politics have long been debated. Building on principal-agent models, we test whether and to what degree companies' political donations lead to their favored treatment in federal procurement. We expect the impact of donations on favoritism to vary by the strength of control by political principals over their bureaucratic agents. We compile a comprehensive dataset of published federal contracts and registered campaign contributions for 2004-15. We develop risk indices capturing tendering practices and outcomes likely characterized by favoritism. Using fixed effects regressions, matching, and regression discontinuity analyses, we find confirming evidence for our theory. A large increase in donations from $10,000 to $5m (in USD) increases favoritism risks by about 1/4th standard deviation (SD). These effects are largely partisan, with firms donating to the party that holds the presidency showing higher risk. Donations influence favoritism risks most in less independent agencies: the same donation increases the risk of favoritism by an additional 1/3rd SD in agencies least insulated from politics. Exploiting sign-off thresholds, we demonstrate that donating contractors are subject to less scrutiny by political appointees.
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Abstract Who registers to vote? Although extensive research has examined the question of who votes, our understanding of the determinants of political participation will be limited until we know who is missing from the voter register. Studying voter registration in lower-income settings is particularly challenging due to data constraints. We link the official voter register with a complete social network census of 16 villages to analyze the correlates of voter registration in rural Uganda, examining the role of individual-level attributes and social ties. We find evidence that social ties are important for explaining registration status within and across households. Village leaders-and through them, household heads-play an important role in explaining the registration status of others in the village, suggesting a diffuse process of social influence. Socioeconomic factors such as income and education do not explain registration in this setting. Together these findings suggest an alternate theory of participation is required.
Keywords Electoral systems, Representation, Voting behavior, Public opinion, Elections, African politics
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