Research

Working papers

• Culture, human capital, and marital homogamy in France
  (Job Market Paper) [link]
  Abstract

  What economic sacrifices are people willing to make to transmit their culture? Using data on religious affiliation in France, I study the intergenerational transmission of religion and how it interacts with children's educational outcomes. A reduced-form analysis suggests that mothers contribute to religious transmission more than fathers; religious minorities more than majorities; and lower-educated parents more than higher-educated ones. A mechanism that can explain these patterns is that higher-educated parents have a higher opportunity cost of transmitting their religion to their children. I investigate this mechanism through a structural model, in which parents endogenously decide their time investments in their child's culture on the one hand, and in their formal education on the other hand. The analysis suggests that heterogeneities in transmission patterns are driven primarily by heterogeneities in preferences for religious transmission across genders and religious groups, rather than by differences in parents' education. Furthermore, religious minorities pay a higher price for religious transmission in terms of their children's educational outcomes. For instance, by measuring this cost in terms of the probability that the child will obtain a college education, Muslim parents pay a cost between 8 and 13 times greater than that for Christians.

• Veiling and the economic integration of Muslim women in France
  (with Sébastien Montpetit) [link]
  Media coverage: Les Echos
  Abstract

  The economic implications of policies limiting the wearing of the Islamic veil for Muslim women in Western countries are still poorly understood. This paper investigates the relationship between veiling behavior and economic participation using the largest sample of Muslim women in France. Firstly, we present new descriptive evidence about Muslim women in France. We demonstrate a significant negative relationship between veiling and economic participation, which contrasts with the existing economic theory of veiling in Muslim-majority countries. Secondly, we extend this theory by including elements relevant to the Muslim-minority context, such as potentially-reduced economic opportunities for veiled women. In so doing, we are able to rationalize the contrast between the Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority contexts. Thirdly, we develop and estimate a discrete-choice model of veiling and labor force participation to disentangle the various motivations behind the joint decision to veil and to be economically active. Our findings indicate that veiled women are less economically active not due to religious preferences, but rather because the benefits of economic participation are lower for women who veil compared to those who do not. This result echoes previous findings in the literature regarding labor market discrimination against individuals who signal their religious affiliation. Additionally, our results emphasize the significance of personal religious motives in the decision to veil, rather than community-based religious pressure. This calls into question the rhetoric used to justify policies that restrict the wearing of religious symbols in France.

• The matching problem with linear transfers is equivalent to a hide-and-seek game
  (with Alfred Galichon) [link] [arXiv]
  
  Abstract

  Matching problems with linearly transferable utility (LTU) generalize the well-studied transferable utility (TU) case by relaxing the assumption that utility is transferred one-for-one within matched pairs. We show that LTU matching problems can be reframed as nonzero-sum games between two players, thus generalizing a result from von Neumann. The underlying linear programming structure of TU matching problems, however, is lost when moving to LTU. These results draw a new bridge between non-TU matching problems and the theory of bimatrix games, with consequences notably regarding the computation of stable outcomes.

Publications

• Sabine Nöbel, Antoine Jacquet, Guillaume Isabel, Arnaud Pocheville, Paul Seabright & Etienne Danchin
  "Conformity in mate choice, the overlooked social component of animal and human culture"
  Biological Reviews, vol. 98, n. 1 (February 2023): pp. 132–149
  [open access article] [code]

Work in progress

• Are marriage markets segmented?
  Abstract

  This paper investigates the role of market segmentation in marital assortativeness, a feature traditionally attributed to variations in the surplus of potential matches within transferable utility models. I propose a modification to the Choo–Siow model, allowing individuals to be assigned to submarkets according to their gender and other relevant traits. This segmentation introduces a new explanation for spousal assortativeness, which is accompanied by a redistribution of surplus among partners compared to the original model. The significance of market segmentation is empirically examined by focusing on the termination of the mandatory military service in France in 1996, a quasi-natural experiment that arguably altered the structure of the marriage market. Preliminary event study analysis reveals an observable shift in educational homogamy post-termination, emphasizing the influence of market segmentation. Finally, I discuss the possibility of structurally estimating this extended model.

• A unifying framework for the stable coexistence of cultural traits
  Abstract

  I use the canonical evolutionary model of frequency-dependent selection to develop a unifying framework for the stable coexistence of cultural traits. First, I derive general theoretical results on population dynamics for some common cases, such as random matching or linear assortative matching. In a second step, I consider several examples from the economics and biology literatures, which document and provide reasons for the stable coexistence of cultural traits. I show that these examples can be seen as particular applications of the unifying framework that I propose. Such applications provide natural extensions to the baseline framework, and illustrate its flexibility.

Non-peer reviewed

• Antoine Jacquet, Aurélie Varrel, Audrey Richard-Ferroudji
  "Quand les migrants sont français : la population française de Pondichéry"
  Cahiers des IFRE 3, 2016: pp. 58–67
  [open access article]