Publications

Most of the information presented on this page have been retrieved from RePEc with the kind authorization of Christian Zimmermann
Identity conflict, ethnocentrism and social cohesionJournal articleMatteo Sestito, Journal of Development Economics, Volume 174, pp. 103426, 2025

This paper uses a novel dataset on ethnic warfare to shed light on how conflict affects social identification and cohesion. A large body of anecdotal studies suggests that ethnic identities become more salient at times of conflict. Using data from thirty-six African countries, I provide econometric evidence to this notion. The relationship between ethnic conflict and various measures of social cohesion is also examined, revealing a positive link between the two. The finding is understood as a result of the ethnocentric dynamics generated by conflict: as warfare strengthens ethnic identification, prosocial behaviour increases, albeit primarily towards co-ethnics. This parochial interpretation is strengthened by the use of remote violence and the conditionality of conflict-induced prosocial behaviour on low levels of ethnic fractionalisation.

The dynamic effects of weather shocks on agricultural productionJournal articleCédric Crofils, Ewen Gallic and Gauthier Vermandel, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Volume 130, pp. 103078, 2025

This paper proposes a new methodological approach using high-frequency data and local projections to assess the impact of weather on agricultural production. Local projections capture both immediate and delayed effects across crop types and growth stages, while providing early warnings for food shortages. Adverse weather shocks, such as excess heat or rain, consistently lead to delayed downturns in production, with heterogeneous effects across time, crops, and seasons. We build a new index of aggregate weather shocks that accounts for the typical delay between event occurrence and economic recognition, finding that these shocks are recessionary at the macroeconomic level, reducing inflation, production, exports and exchange rates.

Économistes et historiens, un dialogue de sourds ?BookAlain Trannoy and Arundhati Virmani, 2025-01-26, 304 pages, 2025

« Chacun peut être amené au cours de sa vie à s’intéresser à l’histoire pour saisir les enjeux d’un affrontement entre groupes sociaux ou mieux appréhender comment les doctrines...

Collective risk-taking by couples: individual vs household riskJournal articleJiakun Zheng, Hélène Couprie and Astrid Hopfensitz, Theory and Decision, 2025

101 real couples participated in a controlled experimental risk-taking task involving variations in household and individual income risks, while controlling for ex-ante income inequality. Our design disentangles the effects of household risk, intra-household risk inequality, and ex-post payoff inequality. We find that most couples (about 79%) pooled their risk at the household level when risks were borne symmetrically, but a significant proportion of couples (about 36%) failed to do so when individual risks were borne asymmetrically. Additionally, within the scope of the control variables we have utilized, we find that intra-household risk inequality has a larger impact on non-married couples compared to married ones. These results remain robust when the analysis is limited to couples in which both spouses are risk-averse. Lastly, we find that preferences for household efficiency are significantly correlated across both certain and risky situations. However, couples consisting of two income-maximizing spouses do not show greater aversion to risk inequality compared to couples with other compositions.

Valuing mortality risk reductions in the time of COVID-19: A stated-preference analysisJournal articleJianhua Xu, Shiwei Fan and Jiakun Zheng, Risk Sciences, Volume 1, pp. 100007, 2025

Lack of high-quality value per statistical life (VSL) studies in low- and middle-income countries have been recognized by scholars and analysts in the benefit-cost analysis field for decades. However, progress has been slow in addressing it. We estimated VSL in China using a stated-preference survey in the context of reducing mortality risks associated with COVID-19. The survey was administered in seven cities across China in 2022 with a purposive sampling approach, and consistency checks at different levels of stringency regarding willingness to pay (WTP) for mortality risk reductions of different magnitudes were used to screen respondents. The estimated VSL ranges from 8.0 million to 10.3 million Chinese Yuan, which is higher than previous estimates. Also previous studies found much higher VSL estimates from a subsample obtained with more stringent consistency check requiring that WTP be approximately proportional to the magnitude of mortality risk reduction, we did not find such a difference with our dataset. In addition, based on our anlaysis, respondents in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have higher VSL than those in second-tier cities such as Changchun, Chengdu, Wuhan and Xi’an; the VSL-age relationship shows a U-shaped pattern; and the collective experience of city lockdown has a negative impact on VSL. Other factors which were found to influence VSL include education, sector of work, health status, risk perception, behaviors (physical exercises, wearing face masks, getting vaccinated), knowledge, political identity, and trust in government.
JEL classification codes
I12, I18

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and market quality in emerging economiesJournal articleKrishnendu Ghosh Dastidar and Makoto Yano, Managerial and Decision Economics, Volume 46, Issue 1, pp. 641-665, 2025

In many emerging economies with antiquated laws, bribes paid to government officials reduce economic impediments and serve as a device to improve market competition, thereby contributing to the modernization of an economy. In this context, this paper uses a simple two-stage game theoretic model to investigate the effects of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) on such economies. We demonstrate, among others, that while an increase in fines under FCPA reduces overall corruption, it leads to a deterioration in the market quality in an emerging economy. In the presence of FCPA, an increase in the US firm's technological advantage unambiguously leads to a decrease in the market quality in an emerging economy.

Work organization in social enterprises: A source of job satisfaction?Journal articleXavier Joutard, Francesca Petrella and Nadine Richez-Battesti, Kyklos, Volume 78, Issue 1, pp. 111-148, 2025

Many studies suggest that employees of social enterprises experience greater job satisfaction than employees of for-profit organizations, although their pay and employment contracts are usually less favorable. Based on linked employer–employee data from a French survey on employment characteristics and industrial relations and using a decomposition method developed by Gelbach (2016), this paper aims to explain this somewhat paradoxical result. Focusing on work organization variables, we show that the specific work organization of social enterprises explains a large part of the observed job satisfaction differential both in general and more specifically, in terms of satisfaction with access to training and working conditions. By detailing the components of work organization, the higher job satisfaction reported by employees in social enterprises stems from their greater autonomy and better access to information. In contrast to earlier studies, however, our results show that these work organization variables do not have more value for social enterprise employees than for for-profit organization employees in the case of overall job satisfaction. This result casts doubt on the widespread hypothesis that social enterprise employees attach more weight to the nonmonetary advantages of their work than their counterparts in for-profit organizations.