Working papers

Revise and Resubmit at the Review of Economic Studies

Awards: EALE job market tour 2023, Restud tour 2023, W.E. Upjohn Institute dissertation award, Prix Jeune Docteur Banque de France

Abstract: This paper examines the effects of working time regulations on the allocation of workers and hours. I exploit a unique reform introducing a minimum workweek of 24 hours in France in 2014, affecting 15% of jobs. Drawing on administrative data and an event study design, I find a firm-level reduction in total hours worked, showing imperfect substitutability between workers and hours. The effects differ by gender: women working part-time were replaced by men working longer hours. Importantly, workers also reallocate between firms. To quantify the aggregate impact accounting for these effects, I build and estimate a search and matching model with firm and worker heterogeneity. Overall, the minimum workweek increased total hours worked by 1% due to positive general equilibrium effects, but concentrated hours among fewer workers as unemployment rose by 2%. Gender inequality increased because of the within-firm effects and less reallocation of women between firms.


[Previously titled "Employment Effects of Restricting Fixed-Term Contracts: Theory and Evidence"]

CEPR discussion paper, IZA discussion paper

Media: Vox column, Expresso, Portuguese Economy Research Report, Atlantico

Abstract: Estimates of the impact on employment protection generally rely on reduced-form methods, assuming that there are no indirect effects between firms. This paper exploits a labor law reform implemented in Portugal in 2009 which restricted the use of fixed-term contracts for large firms above a specific size threshold, to investigate and quantify spillover effects. Standard reduced-form estimates based on the hypothesis of absence of spillover towards firms for which the reform does not apply yield a negative impact on employment of about 1.5%. However, we find evidence of significant spillovers. The estimation of the macroeconomic effects of the reform with a search and matching model accounting for spillovers yields an almost negligible employment impact of the reform, more than ten times smaller than that obtained with the reduced form estimates. This result underlines that the numerous reduced-form estimates of the impact of employment protection that rely on firm size thresholds must be interpreted with caution.


NBER working paper, CEPR discussion paper

Abstract: How do the employer and the worker interact during a dismissal? This paper tests whether they cooperate to minimize costs, or instead engage in conflict--i.e., deliberately amplify costs. We leverage a unique feature of the French labor market: an employer and a worker can jointly opt to replace a costly dismissal by a cheaper and more flexible ``separation by mutual agreement'' (SMA). Introduced in 2008, SMAs eliminate red tape costs, enable severance pay bargaining, and preclude litigation.  However, we find that only 12% of dismissals are resolved through SMAs--far below the efficient level predicted by standard bargaining models. Surveying HR directors, we identify three drivers of conflict that hinder cost minimization: (i) hostility between the employer and the employee, (ii) employers using dismissals as a ``discipline device'' to maintain incentives, and (iii) asymmetric beliefs about subsequent labor court outcomes. Using counterfactual scenarios in the survey, we find that removing these three drivers of conflict would increase SMA adoption from 12% to 67% of dismissals. We confirm that less conflictual dismissals--due to either better employer-employee relationships or workers benefiting from early retirement--end more often as SMAs.

Selected work in progress


Policy work

Media: Le Monde, BFM TV, FranceInfo