Research
Research
Working Papers
The Price of Trust: Female Participation and Ethnic Sorting in P2P Markets
Abstract
This paper explores the implications of profile information on female participation and ethnic sorting. In the context of the world’s leading peer-to-peer car-sharing platform, BlaBlaCar, I leverage a novel data set that contains detailed information on users and transactions in the routes connecting eight of France’s largest cities. Using a structural framework that accommodates pricing and sorting decisions for both market sides, this paper shows that women prefer to travel with other women and that there exists a substantial degree of ethnic-based homophily. This paper also provides evidence that alternative designs limiting the sorting abilities of users do not necessarily benefit ethnic minorities and that women from the ethnic majority tend to be the population segment whose participation and welfare reduces the most when anonymous marketplaces are imposed.
Work in Progress
Women-only Option in a Peer-to-Peer Marketplace: The Case of Long-distance Carpooling
Abstract
We study the impacts of introducing a “women-only” option in a peer-to-peer digital platform providing match-making services for long-distance carpooling. Such a feature enables female drivers to make their posts only visible to prospective female riders. We conduct two experimental interventions, using an identical design in 11 different countries. We first discuss under which conditions such a second-best policy that restricts matching opportunities could be welfare-improving. We then rely on our two experiments to measure relevant outcomes and analyse cross-country heterogeneity. Preliminary results show that the adoption rate of the feature is positive but small, except in Brazil, India and Turkey. We are currently exploring the impacts of the women-only option at the extensive margin, that is, whether it increases the adoption of carpooling by women.
Official Statistics and Political Attitudes: Evidence from Immigrant Crime Data Disclosure
Abstract
This paper examines how the disclosure of birthplace information in crime statistics affects attitudes toward immigration and voting intentions. We study the November 2025 release of a criminality report by the Basque Government that, for the first time in democratic Spain, disaggregated detention statistics by offenders’ birthplace. Using monthly survey data covering all Spanish regions and a synthetic difference-in-differences design, we estimate how the introduction of this information into the public sphere affected concerns about immigration and voting intentions. In the first post-publication survey wave, the share of respondents in the Basque Country reporting immigration among their main personal concerns increased by 3 percentage points from a baseline of roughly 7 percent. Over the same period, support for Spanish right-wing parties did not change, while the probability of listing a regionalist left-wing (right-wing) party among the two main voting options increased by about 6 (7) percentage points from a baseline of 20 (23) percent. These effects dissipated after the first month. Heterogeneity analyses suggest stronger increases in regionalist left-wing (right-wing) support among individuals who report having voted for Spanish left-wing parties (non-voters or Spanish right-wing parties) in the previous general election. The results suggest that the disclosure of official statistics can temporarily reshape immigration salience and political preferences within ideological blocs, even in the absence of contemporaneous changes in underlying crime or migration dynamics.
Destructive Creation
Abstract
In this paper, I study the theoretical relationship between capital depreciation, innovation, and economic growth. I develop an endogenous growth general equilibrium model in which capital producers are conceptualized as durable goods firms: they determine R&D investments, produced quantities, and their durability. I characterize the symmetric balanced growth path with and without waste externalities generated by depreciated capital. My analysis delivers three results. First, I show that depreciation and R&D investments are strategic complements, providing a new microfoundation for the positive relationship between depreciation and growth documented by the empirical macroeconomic literature. Unlike vintage capital models, I show this result holds under a constant depreciation rate, as documented by the empirical microeconomic literature. Second, in the presence of waste externalities, I show that intense competition among capital producers leads to inefficiently high equilibrium innovation and depreciation rates. Third, through a calibration exercise, I provide evidence that uniform durability targets lead to the sharpest growth reductions in economies with intermediate capital shares, despite contributing less to waste generation than highly capital-dependent economies.