Working papers
EUTO WP version; Coverage: EUTO Policy brief
Can developed countries enforce that goods consumed domestically do not contribute to human rights violations in developing countries where they are sourced? This paper studies the enforcement of new due diligence policies, which constrain firms to curb foreign sourcing linked to human rights violations through transparency and reporting. I study the US Dodd-Frank Act Conflict Mineral Rule (2010), a limiting the use of conflict minerals extracted in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and adjoining countries in supply chains of US eletronic firms. The law increased administrative cost of complying firms, showing that subtantial regulatory constraints were created. I test how diligence obligations shaped exports of targeted countries, and whether they are circumvented through opaque territories called legal havens. Using a triple difference strategy and the structural gravity framework, I find that this policy decreased DRC and adjoining countries' exports of conflict minerals by 76%. One fourth of this decrease is due to circumvention through legal havens, which then re-export more intensively to countries hosting foreign suppliers of US-regulated firms.
Funded by the IGC Tax for Growth Small Project Fund and the Norwegian Research Council
Who benefits from commodity price shocks? This paper studies the geographic allocation of extractive MNEs profits linked to prices shocks - usually called windfall profits. We combine new administrative data on the worldwide activity of MNEs with exhaustive oil, gas and mining production data at the firm level. We show that extractive MNEs generate one third of their profits in non-extractive countries, and that profitability and effective tax rates display a U-shaped relationship in this sector. We identify the allocation of windfalls by leveraging differences in (i) the product specialization of extractive firms and (ii) commodity price changes, in a shift-share design.We provide evidence of overbooking of windfall profits in low-tax countries. For 1$ increase in consolidated windfall profits, we observe a 0.2$ increase in tax havens, 0.8$ in extractive affiliates and no increase in the rest of the group. We derive implications for government revenues using new stylized facts on effective tax rates in the extractive sector drawn from our data.
This paper builds a new quantitative classification of legal havens. A legal haven is a territory or jurisdiction with laws enabling agents to evade regulations linked to economic activity abroad. It does so through legal opacity, a legal technology altering or hiding the illicit nature of the resulting economic flow. In this paper, I develop a new database of laws and administrative dispositions creating legal opacity for countries and territories, and I determine a list of legal havens which are the top opaque countries. Legal dispositions enableling opacity are grouped in (i) financial secrecy (ii) secretive legal structures (iii) domestic policies (iv) lack of international cooperation, taking into account the local level of administrative capacity. The data is available for two points in time, the 2000s and 2010s decades, and 190 territories. This new database is the first quantitative measure of the concept of legal haven.
March 2023 version; Coverage: IGC blog
This paper reviews the literature on gender inequalities in the academic field of economics, highlighting both the unequal progress women have experienced and the persistent barriers they continue to face. Our analysis of recent literature and available data highlights that the reduction in women's absence in the field has been heterogeneous. While women now constitute 26% of published economists, their presence sharply declines at higher ranks, with only 5% representation among economists in the top percentile of research influence. Notably, recent progress has paradoxically concentrated at this highest level, indicating shifting institutional norms and evolving perceptions about women's contributions. We further explore how understanding women's behaviours and career choices, gender biases in evaluation and workplace environments, contribute to women underrepresentation in the field. Our discussion extends to the labour market for economists, drawing parallels with broader labour trends, and examining how gender-biased treatment and hiring processes impact women's advancement. Finally, we turn to policy interventions which are key in promoting gender balance, focusing on networks, mentorship, role models, and representation.
We show that the enforcement of anti-narcotic laws and the degree of legal opacity in countries have important effects on illicit drug seizures. We provide detailed data on anti-narcotic laws and information on legal opacity across a large set of 164 countries from 2002 to 2018. We develop a new framework that illustrates how anti-narcotic laws and legal opacity influence countries’ seizure rates. We find the enforcement of sanctions and penalties to counter drug trafficking proves to be effective. We also find a significant and positive impact of becoming a legal haven on drug trafficking.
An initiative to connect Women doing Economics in Paris.
Can developed countries enforce that goods consumed domestically do not contribute to human rights violations in developing countries where they are sourced? This paper studies the enforcement of new due diligence policies, which constrain firms to curb foreign sourcing linked to human rights violations through transparency and reporting. I study the US Dodd-Frank Act Conflict Mineral Rule (2010), a limiting the use of conflict minerals extracted in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and adjoining countries in supply chains of US eletronic firms. The law increased administrative cost of complying firms, showing that subtantial regulatory constraints were created. I test how diligence obligations shaped exports of targeted countries, and whether they are circumvented through opaque territories called legal havens. Using a triple difference strategy and the structural gravity framework, I find that this policy decreased DRC and adjoining countries' exports of conflict minerals by 76%. One fourth of this decrease is due to circumvention through legal havens, which then re-export more intensively to countries hosting foreign suppliers of US-regulated firms.
- Proportional treatment effects in staggered settings: an approach for Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood [Slides][SUBMITTED]
I propose an imputation approach for Poisson-Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) to measure proportional treatment effects for staggered multiplicative difference-in-differences (DiD) models. TWFE (two-way fixed effect) linear estimators do not recover DiD estimates in the presence of staggered treatment. I show that this issue extends to TWFE PPML estimators. In the linear case, robust estimators exist to recover correct DiD estimates, but these approaches do not extend to PPML, as aggregation of lower level effects is challenging in the non-linear case. This paper develops an estimator robust to TWFE staggered bias for PPML. This estimator recovers a quantity with a similar interpretation as in the canonical 2-by-2 TWFE PPML model: the Ratio-of-Ratios.
Funded by the IGC Tax for Growth Small Project Fund and the Norwegian Research Council
Who benefits from commodity price shocks? This paper studies the geographic allocation of extractive MNEs profits linked to prices shocks - usually called windfall profits. We combine new administrative data on the worldwide activity of MNEs with exhaustive oil, gas and mining production data at the firm level. We show that extractive MNEs generate one third of their profits in non-extractive countries, and that profitability and effective tax rates display a U-shaped relationship in this sector. We identify the allocation of windfalls by leveraging differences in (i) the product specialization of extractive firms and (ii) commodity price changes, in a shift-share design.We provide evidence of overbooking of windfall profits in low-tax countries. For 1$ increase in consolidated windfall profits, we observe a 0.2$ increase in tax havens, 0.8$ in extractive affiliates and no increase in the rest of the group. We derive implications for government revenues using new stylized facts on effective tax rates in the extractive sector drawn from our data.
This paper builds a new quantitative classification of legal havens. A legal haven is a territory or jurisdiction with laws enabling agents to evade regulations linked to economic activity abroad. It does so through legal opacity, a legal technology altering or hiding the illicit nature of the resulting economic flow. In this paper, I develop a new database of laws and administrative dispositions creating legal opacity for countries and territories, and I determine a list of legal havens which are the top opaque countries. Legal dispositions enableling opacity are grouped in (i) financial secrecy (ii) secretive legal structures (iii) domestic policies (iv) lack of international cooperation, taking into account the local level of administrative capacity. The data is available for two points in time, the 2000s and 2010s decades, and 190 territories. This new database is the first quantitative measure of the concept of legal haven.
- Unequal progress and barriers for women in economics [SUBMITTED] (with Ondine Berland and Oliver Harman)
March 2023 version; Coverage: IGC blog
This paper reviews the literature on gender inequalities in the academic field of economics, highlighting both the unequal progress women have experienced and the persistent barriers they continue to face. Our analysis of recent literature and available data highlights that the reduction in women's absence in the field has been heterogeneous. While women now constitute 26% of published economists, their presence sharply declines at higher ranks, with only 5% representation among economists in the top percentile of research influence. Notably, recent progress has paradoxically concentrated at this highest level, indicating shifting institutional norms and evolving perceptions about women's contributions. We further explore how understanding women's behaviours and career choices, gender biases in evaluation and workplace environments, contribute to women underrepresentation in the field. Our discussion extends to the labour market for economists, drawing parallels with broader labour trends, and examining how gender-biased treatment and hiring processes impact women's advancement. Finally, we turn to policy interventions which are key in promoting gender balance, focusing on networks, mentorship, role models, and representation.
- Legal opacity, narcotics laws and drug seizures (with Farid Toubal)
We show that the enforcement of anti-narcotic laws and the degree of legal opacity in countries have important effects on illicit drug seizures. We provide detailed data on anti-narcotic laws and information on legal opacity across a large set of 164 countries from 2002 to 2018. We develop a new framework that illustrates how anti-narcotic laws and legal opacity influence countries’ seizure rates. We find the enforcement of sanctions and penalties to counter drug trafficking proves to be effective. We also find a significant and positive impact of becoming a legal haven on drug trafficking.
Work in progress
- Sanctions and State Capture in Myanmar (with Matt Collin)
- The Corporate Taxation of Green and Brown Firms (with Pierre Bachas, Kieran Byrne, Idann Gidron, Mathieu Parenti)
Policy work
- Supply Chain Due Diligence: Impacts and Avoidance through Legal Havens (with Giulia Varaschin)
Coordinated events
- EU Tax Observatory lunch seminar with Léo Czajka (2024-2025)
An initiative to connect Women doing Economics in Paris.
- ENS de Lyon - PhD meetings (academic years 2020-2022)
- CEPS online seminar with Sébastien Laffitte (spring 2020)