Work in progress
- Political Cycle in World Bank's Procurement Allocation, joint with Lisa Chauvet and Marin Ferry.
- This paper investigates the existence of a political cycle in the World Bank's allocation of procurement contracts. We estimate the determinants of the average amount in dollars for procurement contracts won by supplier firms for a given semester and recipient country. Our results suggest that domestic firms win larger contracts around elections in the recipient country. Additional results point to cronyism, since the domestic preference is particularly intense around elections in recipient countries where the electoral code allows for corporations to donate to candidates. We also show that foreign firms win 43\% larger contracts abroad prior to an election in the supplier firm's country of origin. Further results bear strong hints of supplier-to-recipient influence in procurement contract allocation, since this cross-border political cycle is found in particular when suppliers and recipients are significant aid partners and share a colonial history.
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- Chinese Connective Infrastructure and Firm's Export Performance.
- In recent decades, China has emerged as a crucial provider of transport infrastructure in developing countries. In fact, the 2018 Infrastructure Consortium for Africa report highlights that China's funding for infrastructure in Africa over the past decade has exceeded the combined contributions of all G8 countries. In light of this information, it becomes worthwhile to investigate the impact of China's transport infrastructure on firm-level development, particularly its role in enhancing firms' export probability. To explore the potential effects of these projects, I matched firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey with geo-located Chinese-funded projects between 2000 and 2019. I employ an instrumental variable strategy where the interaction between the region's probability to receive transport projects and labor unrest in China is as a source of aid exogeneity. On average, There seems to be no significant effect of Chinese transport infrastructure on firms' probability to export. Further heterogeneity analyses at regional, sector, and company levels are conducted, and firms located in low-population density regions would benefit from Chinese transport projects.
- The Political Legacy of 19th Century Politicization and Repression in Southeastern France (Runner-up for the Wicksell Prize during the EPCS conference 2023 in Hannover, Job Market Paper)
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- This paper investigates the long-run impact of 19th-century politicization and political repression on electoral outcomes by exploiting the natural experiment along the 1815-1860 border separating France from the Duchy of Savoy and the Nice County. Thanks to a spatial discontinuity design, I estimate the legacy of the early 19th-century politicization and the 1851 political repression against Republicans in southeastern France on electoral outcomes. Results suggest that these different historic trajectories translated into a preference for radical Republicans on the French side during the election of 1871. This preference persists until nowadays, as the French side voted more for left-wing candidates in both presidential and legislative elections between 1995 and 2022. Using first-hand archives data on repressed citizens, results indicate that political repression was ineffective since it failed to reverse the initial effects of early politicization. Further analyses suggest that repressed political dynasties, emigration generated by the repression, and a relatively unmixed population can explain how and why these historic events continue to influence electoral results.
Publications
- Connective Infrastructure and Firms Export: China vs. the World Bank, Different Approaches, Different Results? Revue d'Economie du Développement, International Conference on Development Economics, Special Issue (2023)