Working Papers

 Better roads, better off?: Evidence on improving roads in Tanzania, Working Paper with Ximena Jativa, 01.09.2020/518.

Health consequences of sterilizations, Working Paper with M. De La Rupelle, 01.03.2019/503. 

Returns to farm child labor in Tanzania, Working Paper with P. André and E. Delesalle, 01.03.2019/502.

Health consequences of sterilizations, WIDER Working Paper 2017/125.

Non-standard forms of employment in Uganda and Ghana, with Cédric Houdré, International Labour Organization, WP 29.03.2016, 2226-8944 [ISSN].

Birth weight and long-term outcomes in a developing country, with Marie Baguet, Université de Fribourg, WP SES 2015-465.

Shocks and child labor: the role of markets, Université de Fribourg, WP SES 2015-458.

Early schooling and later outcomes: Evidence from pre-school extension in France, with Arnaud Lefranc, Thema WP 2010-07.

Trajectoires de scolarisation et de travail des enfants au Sénégal, with Sylvie Lambert, International Labour Organization, WP 2005-07

Work in progress

"Information asymmetries and female labour exchange in rural Tanzania" with C.Arciniegas and M. Fahn

 "Reservations and school infrastructure and quality in India" with X. Jativa

This paper uses a novel dataset to estimate the effect of Women and Scheduled Castes reservations in local governments in rural areas of four North Indian states over the period 2005-2016 on primary school-level infrastructure investments, organization, enrollment and examinations. Taking advantage of natural experiments resulting from the institutional design of the reservation policy, we find evidence that female representation had no detectable impact on any of the dimensions we address in this paper. On the contrary, SC representation lead to limited positive effects on school investments in areas relevant to the needs of their group; but mostly negative effects on school enrollment for other disadvantaged minorities, without benefiting enrollment of pupils of their own group. These findings suggests that quotas have limited effects on primary education, which can be explained in part by a lack of agency of these population classes.

"Antibiotic pollution and infant mortality in India" with S. Baumgartner and X. Jativa

The number of deaths from antibiotic resistance is steadily rising and has become a global public health issue. Children from the Global South pay a strikingly high tribute, as last-line antibiotics are usually unavailable. Pollution of riverways due to pharmaceutical products is one driver of resistance. In this paper, we assess whether this channel explains a large part of infant mortality in India. We show that living downstream of a producer increases the infant mortality risk by 16\% and that antibiotic production explains 20,000 infant deaths in India per year. This suggests that new regulations, improved production processes and strategic considerations on the location of antibiotic producers are needed to guarantee that production does not induce negative externalities on the local population.

"Determinants of labor market imperfections in Africa" with C. Arciniegas

"Women access to political power and investment in schools in India" with X. Jativa

"Mobile internet and social polarization" with A. Darbellay

"Child fostering and nutrition in South Africa" with A. Gosselin-Pali and E. Gautrain

"Non-standard forms of employment in urban Uganda" with C. Houdré

In 2015, the ILO highlighted the emergence of new types of contracts, and suggested the creation of an employment category encompassing all forms of supposedly precarious contracts: part-time, fixed-term and casual work. While the concept of non-standard forms of employment (NSFE) may reflect growing concerns in developed countries, it is also important to assess the extent to which the developing world is facing rising employment precarity. This paper makes a number of contributions. First, we describe population NSFE incidence to assess the role of individual characteristics in work arrangements. Second, we use the sharp economic fluctuations in Uganda to establish whether NSFE are used to achieve labor-market flexibility. Third, we identify the effect of NSFE on earnings, job satisfaction and amenities, and fourth their effect on the likelihood of moving to a more secure job in the future. We find that NSFE represents 25% of urban wage employment in Uganda and is used by employers to obtain workforce flexibility. NSFE jobs are more prevalent for young, low-educated individuals. Conditional on their observed and unobserved characteristics, NSFE workers have lower monthly earnings. However, fixed jobs for over one year are taken by workers with more favourable characteristics. Last, NSFEs are shown to play a stepping-stone role to full-time employment, with this effect being driven by part-time employment, not fixed-term jobs.